Mohawk Artist Shelley Niro’s First Major Retrospective Opens at the National Museum of the American Indian

Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch — the archetypal large retrospective of enactment by multimedia creator Shelley Niro (Six Nations Reserve, Bay of Quinte Mohawk, Turtle Clan, b. 1954) — is connected presumption astatine the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian successful New York. For much than 50 years, Niro has been creating creation gathering upon Kanyen’kehá:ka (Mohawk) philosophies, heavy understandings of history, and a woman-centered worldview.

Accessible, humorous, and peppered with references to fashionable culture, Niro’s creation delves into the timeless taste cognition and generational histories of her Six Nations Kanyen’kehá:ka assemblage to supply intent and healing. In her practice, she works crossed a assortment of creator mediums, including painting, photography, mixed-media, and film.

Shelley Niro employs wit and wit to probe the joy, sorrow and contradictions of Indigenous existence, and she delivers hard truths with a smile. Her inclusion of Native people, including household members, successful overmuch of her work, allows america to spot Indigeneity successful its complexity portion besides addressing themes of empowerment, matrilineal kinship and dispossession. The depository is precise pleased to observe Niro’s creation done this exhibition.

On Saturday, June 17, astatine 1pm (ET), the depository volition big a special screening of Niro’s latest feature-length film, Café Daughter (Canada, 2023). The movie is based connected a play by Kenneth T. Williams astir retired Canadian Senator Lillian Dyck, the archetypal Aboriginal legislator and archetypal Chinese senator. The screening volition beryllium followed by a speech with Niro.

The accumulation is curated by David Penney, the National Museum of the American Indian’s subordinate manager for depository research, scholarship, and nationalist engagement; Melissa Bennett, elder curator of modern creation astatine the Art Gallery of Hamilton; and Greg Hill, multidisciplinary artist, curator, and creation consultant.

Shelly Niro: 500 Year Itch is connected presumption done January 1, 2024, successful New York City.

For much information, sojourn americanindian.si.edu.

Organized and circulated by the Art Gallery of Hamilton with the National Museum of the American Indian and with curatorial enactment from the National Gallery of Canada. Major enactment for the task is provided by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Terra Foundation for American Art, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative Pool. This programme is supported, successful part, by nationalist funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, successful concern with the City Council.