George Longfish, artist and professor emeritus of Native American Studies at University of California, Davis, will present a talk about his work on Tuesday, Oct. 24, at 4:15 p.m. in Hamilton College's Kennedy Science Auditorium. Longfish is a member of the Six Nations Grand River Territory (Seneca/Tuscarora). He is one of two artists whose work is included in the exhibit, "Native Perspectives," currently showing through December 30 in the Emerson Gallery.
The contemporary Native art movement has it roots in the 1970s, and George Longfish is one of its key architects, both through his art – which challenges the preconceived notions of Native and non-Native alike; and through his curation – as founding director of the C. N. Gorman Museum at UC Davis. In his art, Longfish operates through a theoretical framework of cultural information, in which the linear separation between past-time and present-time is collapsed. Some compare his art with jazz music. He rejects the three dimensional world view of the dominant culture in favor of a multi-dimensional reality that allows for greater information flow. His work affirms that the spiritual reality of the cosmos that informed indigenous philosophies prior to colonization continues in the present.
As the director of the C. N. Gorman Museum during the last three decades, George Longfish curated and produced dozens of critical solo and group exhibitions of contemporary Native art and in so doing launched the careers of many of today's most important Native American artists.
"Native Perspectives" is curated by Neal Keating, visiting assistant professor of religious studies. Immediately following the talk, a reception will take place in the Emerson Gallery. This event is free and open to the public.
