Fritz Scholder: Indian/Not Indian
In the 1960s and '70s, the notion of American Indian
art was turned on its head by artists who fought against
prejudice and popular clichés. At the forefront of this
revolution was Fritz Scholder (Luiseño, 1937-2005).
This video introduction to the eponymous exhibition
"Fritz Scholder: Indian/Not Indian" was awarded the
2009 Gold Muse award by AAM for best video production
of the year.
Featuring 135 paintings, works on paper, and sculptures
drawn from major public and private collections, including
the color-saturated canvases for which the artist is
famous, "Indian/Not Indian" opened concurrently at
the National Museum of the American Indian in
Washington, D.C., and at NMAI's George Gustav Heye
Center in New York. The Washington exhibition surveyed
Scholder's forty-plus years as a working artist, with
particular emphasis on his groundbreaking and
controversial Indian paintings from the 1960s and 1970s.
The New York exhibition focused on the artist's works from
the 1980s and 1990s, when he stopped using overt Indian
imagery and explored mythical beings, the afterlife, and
the unknown.
Greco