Knowing Native Arts

Knowing Native Arts brings Nancy Marie Mithlo’s Native insider perspective to understanding the significance of Indigenous arts in national and global milieus. These musings, written from the perspective of a senior academic and curator traversing a dynamic and at turns fraught era of Native self-determination, are a critical appraisal of a system that is often broken for Native peoples seeking equity in the arts.

Mithlo addresses crucial issues, such as the professionalization of Native arts scholarship, disparities in philanthropy and training, ethnic fraud, and the receptive scope of Native arts in new global and digital realms. This contribution to the field of fine arts broadens the scope of discussions and offers insights that are often excluded from contemporary appraisals.

Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache) is a professor of gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a senior curator and lecturer on Indigenous arts. She has curated Native arts exhibitions at the Venice Biennale, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. She is the editor of Manifestations: New Native Art Criticism and For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw.

Publisher: ‎ University of Nebraska Press; Illustrated edition (September 1, 2020)
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.31 x 0.85 x 9.25 inches