Walking past a portrait of George Washington to get to the Portland Art Museum’s new exhibit, Contemporary Native Photographers and the Edward Curtis Legacy, is the first of many reminders that what you’re about to witness—work by contemporary Native American artists—isn’t something we see often enough at major arts institutions.
In Contemporary Native Photographers, Zig Jackson, Wendy Red Star, and Will Wilson deconstruct the lopsided power dynamic inherent in Edward Curtis’ images of Native Americans, taken between 1907 and 1930. Though Curtis’ collection, The Native American Indian, holds undeniable archival value, his images were framed to support an understanding of Native Americans as “the vanishing race,” spinning the effects of genocide into a narrative of inevitability, and portraying his subjects as stoic individuals, rather than multifaceted members of diverse communities.