This fall, the Museum opens its new Center for Contemporary Native Art with an exhibition featuring the work of three contemporary Oregon Native artists: Greg Archuleta, Greg A. Robinson, and Sara Siestreem. These three artists bring forward a strong sense of the continuum of Native living cultures and artistic practices in these places we now call Portland and Oregon.
The Museum’s Center for Contemporary Native Art is a dedicated gallery for presenting the work and perspectives of contemporary Native artists. After its opening in Fall 2015, the Center will host two rotating exhibitions each year and feature a range of related programming. At the core of this Center’s mission is the Museum’s commitment to partner with Native artists in co-creating the exhibitions, interpretation, and programming for the space. The Center’s exhibitions parallel the institution’s larger curatorial vision of intentionally bridging the past and present through integrating more contemporary artwork into the Native American galleries. This approach allows visitors to take away a greater understanding of Native peoples as not only still living but as sophisticated, dynamic, and changing.
The Center for Contemporary Native Art is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and generous gifts from Mr. Mark J. and Dr. Jennifer Miller, Taffy Gould, Anonymous, and Exhibition Series Funders.