cover image Native American Art (1st Ed)

Native American Art (1st Ed)

David W. Penney. Universe Publishing(NY), $85 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-88363-694-7

Organized by region, this handsomely illustrated celebration of Native American arts and crafts splices an absorbing text, 290 color plates, numerous photographs and extended captions. The study demonstrates how clothes, baskets, Navajo weavings, Hopi kachina dolls, jewelry, quillwork, pottery, carvings and ceremonial objects fit into the very fabric of Native American societies. At the same time, the authors provocatively argue that American Indian art, far from being conservative and firmly anchored in the past, has been on the cutting edge of the historical present, continually reinventing its means of expression to absorb and accommodate cultural change. The album concludes with an arresting survey of 20th-century Native painting, sculpture, photography, prints and performance art, in all of which ancient images, symbols and visual metaphors take on new meanings. Penney is a curator at the Detroit Institute of Arts; Longfish, a Seneca/Tuscarora, is an artist and professor at UC-Davis. (Nov.)