‘Remix’ moving from Heard to Big Apple

“Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World,” an exhibition of paintings, photography and multimedia installations from 15 contemporary indigenous artists, closes at Phoenix’s Heard Museum on April 27. After that, you’ll still have a chance to catch it — you’ll just have to travel 2,500 miles or so.

The exhibit, co-produced by the Heard Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, will open in May at the latter’s George Gustav Heye Center in Manhattan. The purpose of the exhibit is to showcase work by American Indian artists that is steeped firmly in modern culture, rather than the antiquated kachinas and kokopellis frequently associated with indigenous art.

The exhibit features noted artists from throughout North America, and several from the Valley, such as Dustinn Craig of Mesa and Kade L. Twist from Tempe.

“I think the Heard Museum actually providing a space for the ‘Remix’ and selecting the roster of artists they did was really a great move on their part,” says Craig, whose film installation, “4 Wheel War Pony,” about White Mountain Apache skateboarders is part of “Remix.” “It’s nice for them to provide a space for contemporary art display. I think a lot of native people strive for that. The cultures are still very much alive and well.”

This isn’t to underestimate older American Indian artifacts, like the ones on display at much of the Heard Museum. Craig says the past and present are equally important to native cultures.

“I think there really is no separation,” says Craig, who has lived at the Fort Apache Reservation about three hours northeast of Phoenix and Window Rock on the Navajo Reservation in northeast Arizona. “Let’s say basket weaving with what I’m doing — I think they’re both equally valid and they’re both deserving of a space. When it comes to representing native people, I think they’re equally full of stories and full of history.”

Cherokee artist Twist’s contribution to “Remix” is a multimedia installation entitled “The Way the Sun Rises Over Rivers Is No Different Than the Way the Sun Sets Over Oceans,” a reflection on the intersection of traditional Cherokee culture and modern urban environments.

“It doesn’t ‘look’ Indian in the stereotypical way,” says Twist of his installation. “It’s a very subtle, very minimalist, very meditative piece.”

Twist is excited about taking the exhibit to New York City, where he’s hoping his work will be judged on its own merits, and not from the perspective of being “American Indian art.”

“(I’m) looking forward to getting the feedback on the work as a work, instead of as indigenous art,” says Twist. “I think New York is a much better place for that to be judged. There’s not a lot of arts criticism here in Arizona. There hasn’t been a lot of critical analysis of the show in general.”

Craig, whose documentary filmmaking work includes an episode of “We Shall Remain: A Native History of America” that will air on PBS in 2009, is equally nervous about being pigeonholed as an “Indian artist” instead of just an “artist.”

“I think that if you were to look at this and say, ‘Well, it’s pretty good for an Indian,’ it starts taking on the sort of derogatory connotation and it becomes a novelty,” says Craig.

He feels especially strong about this in regards to “4 Wheel War Pony.” He wants to make clear that skateboarding is a vital part of culture for him and other White Mountain Apaches, rather than an amusing bit of white culture they’ve co-opted.

“When I think about skateboarding and my identity as a skateboarder I feel that I’m every bit of a skateboarder as I am a White Mountain Apache,” Craig says. “I couldn’t strip one away from another. They’re both pieces of who I am.”

With the exhibit moving to New York City, it’s not just a chance for “Remix” to be viewed by a different audience, but to be displayed in one of the premier art capitols of the world. It’s Twist’s first time showing his work in New York.

“At first it was exciting. Now the gritty details are happening,” says Twist. “The pressure, the expectations, the opportunities.”

He adds, though, that his nerves are tempered by the National Museum of the American Indian curators going “way beyond the call of duty” to present the exhibit in the best way possible given the space limitations of the center.

‘Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World’
When: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, exhibit closes April 27
Where: Heard Museum, 2301 N. Central Ave., Phoenix
Cost: $10 adults, $9 senior citizens 55 and older, $5 with valid student ID, $3 for children 6-12
Information: (602) 252-8848 or www.heard.org