Out of Tradition

Please note: This exhibition will be closed March 16-April 1, 2019 for the academic break.

Out of Tradition: Sacred & Profane examines ways in which traditions and practices are passed down or change over time through the specific lens of Contemporary Native experience. Out of Tradition is a play on words. It can refer to actions that are performed in accordance with tradition or, conversely, behaviors and beliefs that exist outside of tradition or rebuke a known tradition. 

The artworks on view are neither sacred nor profane in and of themselves, rather many address moments, structures, and practices that we may align with these categories. Several of the artists included in this exhibition utilize their artistic practice to explore their own cultural heritage and grapple with the inconsistencies of what is known and not known about ceremony, lineage, and technique.  Others question the treatment and representation of Native Americans in popular culture and actual historic events through imagined reinterpretations of events.  Through many of the works, one also finds a thread that explores the connection between people and land, and how ceremony, process, access, resource, and understanding shifts as Native people have been displaced from traditional homelands.

This exhibition includes the work of Dugan Aguilar, Sarah Biscarra Dilley, Katie Dorame, Mercedes Dorame, Catherine Herrera, Fritz Scholder, Sarah Sense, Jean LaMarr, Frank LaPena, and Linda Yamane.

Many of the pieces on view come from the museum's permanent collection, including works acquired through two Acquisitions for Diversity projects. These projects involve Santa Clara University students in the research and selection of artworks for the de Saisset’s collection. 

This exhibition is funded by the Inouye de Saisset Museum Fund and is presented in conversation with Contemporary Traces on Ancient Land, an exhibition on view at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, CA from February 9 - April 21, 2019.

_{Images: Left - Mercedes Dorame, Smoke to Water - Chyaar Paar ‘Apuuchen from the series Earth the Same as Heaven - ‘Ooxor ‘Eyaa Tokuupar, 2013, archival pigment print. Museum Purchase, Acquisitions for Diversity Project, work selected by students in SCU Professor Mario Caro’s winter 2018 class, ARTH 147: Native Women in Contemporary Arts. Funds for this purchase were made possible by the Hearst Foundation’s Community Initiatives for the Visual Arts grant (CIVA). de Saisset Museum permanent collection, Santa Clara University, 2018.4.3. Right - Katie Dorame, Converts on the Path, 2014, pen and ink on paper. Museum Purchase, Acquisitions for Diversity Project, work selected by students in SCU Professor Mario Caro’s winter 2018 class, ARTH 147: Native Women in Contemporary Arts. Funds for this purchase were made possible by the Hearst Foundation’s Community Initiatives for the Visual Arts grant (CIVA). de Saisset Museum permanent collection, Santa Clara University, 2018.3.2}