Do "underground" cultural events happen at major state museums? Isn't a museum event-as far as experimental, progressive and boundary-pushing art-the very definition of "aboveground"? I'm pretty sure. But this is New Mexico and some funky-ass things do go down, even on Museum Hill, so I attended the Nov. 17 event,
Native Underground: 5 Under 25
-a "panel discussion" and "all-around party"-with my emotions in a sudsy stew of hope, skepticism and, as luck and the Museum Hill Café would have it, Stella Artois.
Hosted by Avant Garde, the Museum of New Mexico Foundation's auxiliary arm for younger members, the panel discussion was presented at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (710 Camino Lejo, 476-1250). Moderator Jason Garcia-infamous for his rendition of the faux video game cover
Grand Theft Auto: St. Clara Pueblo
, in which everything that America's mothers fear is happening, is happening, only at the corner of Nava and Agoyo-made it clear from the start that this
panel was breaking the rules. After all, the event plainly suggested five panelists, yet there were six. Plus moderator Garcia, who is-shhhh!-over 25. As far as underground rebellion though, it pretty well petered out right there. No one on stage or in the audience or, it felt at the time, anywhere on earth, had a real, tangible idea about what a "native underground" might be. But, it turns out, there's a good reason for that.
The reason, however, had to be extracted from a foggy haze of panelist ramblings. Garcia, for his part, put on a good effort, with concise and engaging questions and direction of the conversation, but the panelists largely stumbled through, relying on charm and something like native punk street cred to replace coherent discussion. A query as to how secondary education had affected their work was answered with grace and savvy by, say, college-attending Hoka Skenadore, but more exhaustively and nonsensically by artists who'd never really pursued any further education but gamely felt they knew a great deal about it. No one mentioned that the artists who had put themselves in a higher education environment were actually comfortable speaking about their work on a variety of levels, unlike the others, who expressed no rhyme or reason for their efforts beyond comic books being cool and their parents encouraging them to be as creative and original as possible. To be blunt, the whole conversation was less than inspiring and was memorable only for startling bouts of extended rambling. Which is no slight to the talent-every panelist was an engaging and important artist in an increasingly prominent contemporary native scene-but it really is difficult for get visual people to talk about the what and why of their work. I personally moderated a disastrous panel, packed with college-ified artists, at the Center for Contemporary Arts in which one artist began muttering-no joke-about the brave ranger-plumbers who must service the porta-potties at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
But as to the underground-ness, or -less, of contemporary native art, take panelist Melissa Cody, a 23-year-old weaver, eloquent about her own work, who practically photosynthesizes mainstream culture into her weavings, saturating them with the influences of pixels, the
joie de vivre
of video editing and the post-structural pastiche of a digital age-savvy
vox populi
-she'll tell you her designs are actually revival-style pieces, based on weaving made in the dark period of the Long Walk, when the Navajo were imprisoned at Bosque Redondo, or Fort Sumner to palefaces. The example posed by Cody was the real revelation of the evening: An affluent audience and plenty of native artists, young or otherwise, are happy to be complicit in perpetrating the fraudulent idea that these young artists, rippling with influences spanning from the Rez to Rwanda, Rambo and Ritalin, are bucking the mold and busting out with nontraditional, "underground" work. In fact, the idea of "traditional" native work is a stereotype perpetuated by swollen events like Indian Market, vendors lucky enough to have a permit to hawk their wares under the portal at the Palace of the Governors and a million sleazy dealers peddling turquoise and silver around the globe. The only honest "tradition" of native work, especially as far as the local region's Navajo, Puebloan and Apache artists go, is to reinterpret life, politics, passion, spirit and disaster in whatever materials are available. Contemporary native work is underground only to the extent that we all want to pretend a quaint tradition of pretty pottery and staid rugs really exists. Art, though, and its power, is something that native cultures have never lost, and to pigeonhole the expression of young native artists in a manner parallel to the experience of the colonial culture is an insult at best.
Most indicative of this fraud and wholly disconcerting was that the audience was in direct opposition to the "five under 25" concept-it was more like 75 over 50. This was most evident during the "all-around party" portion of the evening, when Chocolate Helicopter worked overtime to kick out the jams while the audience, as best as I could tell, sat in stunned silence, barely moving and probably thinking, "My feet are cold." That was a damn shame since, maybe for the first time ever, Chocolate Helicopter's sound levels were set perfectly, thanks to a mysterious stranger dressed-no kidding-like a cowboy.
But this circles back to the idea of cultural organizations having special groups for younger members. I'm not blaming the folks over 50 for being interested, just suggesting there's a problem when the people under 50 aren't interested enough. A recent Studio SITE Santa Fe event-that organization's "young member" group-was terribly fascinating and wholly populated by attendees over the age of 40. These auxiliary groups have it right that new and younger members need to be attracted to our community's cultural organizations. But, by and large, the events they're hosting are re-energizing an older crowd instead of newly energizing a fresh crowd.
Fortunately, there's an answer to this dilemma. Unfortunately, you'll have to tune in next week to find out what it is…
