The UNM Art Museum is hosting a lecture on the rise and fall of Indian Pop Art, a movement whose origins lie at the Institute of American Indian Art in the 1960s and ‘70s.
The lecture is the result of the partnership between UNM and the Georgia O’Keeffe Research Center. The partnership began in 2012, initiated by College of Fine Arts Dean Kymberly Pinder.
UNM Art Museum Director Arif Khan said the partnership began after Pinder moved to Santa Fe from Chicago as an O’Keeffe Scholar in 2007.
“She found it unfortunate that the O’Keeffe Scholars, who come from around the world with an array of research interests in American art and modernism, had no interaction with the flagship University just an hour south,” Khan said. “When she returned to New Mexico as dean she made the lecture exchange happen.”
Khan says it was natural for the College of Fine Arts to partner with the O’Keeffe Museum, as it allows UNM students to access the work of scholars from all over the country who are with the O’Keeffe Museum Research Center.
Khan cites Pinder’s familiarity with the O’Keeffe programs as the primary reason for the collaboration between these two institutions.
Other than recent collaborations, UNM and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum have exchanged works of art.
“The UNM Art Museum has a few of O’Keeffe’s artworks in the collection. Loans of artworks have occurred between the two institutions. Also we have worked together to present our respective O’Keeffe artworks available for exhibition at museums around the country and world,” Khan said. “For example, artworks from UNM and the O’Keeffe collections were loaned for a large exhibition at the Tate Modern museum in London last summer.”
Presenting the lecture will be Kristine Ronan, who studied American Studies at Yale before going on to the University of Michigan to study Native American and American art history.
Ronan says the Indian Pop movement started in Santa Fe with the work of students from all around the country, students with varying indigenous backgrounds.
“Indian Pop emerged among students at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe in 1964. The students were from all over the U.S., so while it emerged in New Mexico, it wasn’t specific to the Native American community of the state,” Ronan said. “It wasn’t an evolution as much as Native students pulling various techniques from pop art and using them to their own ends and in their own ways.”
By the mid-1970s, the backlash resulting from the rise of the American Indian Movement contributed to the withdrawal of institutional and public support for Indian Pop Art, making it much harder for artists.
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Despite its decline, Indian Pop Art, in its day, found itself in the homes of the rich and poor and in the homes of Natives and non-Natives alike.
As for the fate of the art style, Ronan assures that it is still alive and well.
The lecture will be held at the University Art Museum located in Popejoy Hall on Wednesday, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Manuel Chavez is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.
