Smithsonian.com

A Brazilian headdress, made of macaw and heron feathers, is featured along with headdresses from several other tribes. Photo by Ernest Amoroso, NMAI

Starting this past Saturday, visitors can now enjoy the expansive “Infinity of Nations,“ a new permanent exhibit at the American Indian Museum’s George Gustav Heye Center in New York City. “Infinity” showcases the museum’s vast collections and covers ten regions of the Americas, from as far south as Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego to the northern Arctic.

Several months ago, museum staff report, none of the artifacts were in place. The glass cases that now hold the artifacts hadn’t left Italy, where they were being manufactured. There wasn’t even any carpet on the gallery floors.

The task of creating such an exhibit—let alone unearthing more than 700 objects from the museum’s storage facilities and preparing them to go on view for at least the next decade—seems daunting. Last week, I traveled to New York City and toured the nearly-finished show with project manager Duane Blue Spruce, a native New Yorker of Pueblo and Spanish descent, who gave me a bit of the inside story on how “Infinity” has been brought to life.

“It’s really a thrill to have this much of the collection on display here now,” said Blue Spruce as he showed me into the exhibit hall. The ten-foot tall, custom-built, Italian glass cases gleamed all the way down the hall. A conservator sat on the floor, using a tiny tool to arrange a few intricate beads on a moccasin.

“The museum really wanted this anchor exhibit here in New York,” says Blue Spruce. The idea for a survey exhibit of the museum’s finest objects is already a few years old, but, the theme for the exhibit design truly began to take shape after curator Cécile Ganteaume came up with the name for the show. In 17th and 18th century French colonial documents, missionaries and governors referred to the peoples of the new world as an “infinity of nations.” The title, Blue Spruce says, reflects both the multitude of indigenous tribes and cultures in the Americas, and emphasizes the status of those tribes as sovereign nations. The exhibit features everything from traditional regalia to ceremonial drums to headdresses to contemporary artwork.

With this in mind, the designers went to work on forming a visual concept for the exhibit. “Everywhere you look, you’re always getting a sneak peak of what’s to come,” says Blue Spruce. Between the hall’s glass vitrines, curators have selected a number of artifacts that serve as  “focal points” for each region. For example, a mid-19th-century Apsaalooke warrior robe from the North American plains region tells a vivid story of internecine tribal warfare. The main gallery is fluid; the carpets undulate in a fluid pattern, ushering guests from one region to the next, while multimedia screens display photos and interviews about how the objects were (and in many cases still are) used in their respective Native cultures.

When the exhibit cases arrived from Milan the day after Labor Day, they were so tall, so delicate and so hard to lift that it required a Herculean effort to assemble them in the museum gallery. “The cases have notches, which are functional but also aesthetic,” says Blue Spruce. “They almost mimic New York skyscrapers.” (One case in particular, meant for a focal object, was too big to fit in the elevator and a group of staff hauled the one-ton glass apparatus up the main stairs of the stately old Customs House.)

My tour ended in the last gallery, a room of contemporary art by Native Americans from tribes based in each of the ten regions. Only two objects had yet to be installed, one of which was a small sculpture of a sleeping man curled up in a ball, which Apache artist Bob Haozous says is a metaphor for the perils of losing touch with one’s Native spirituality. A designer rushed back and forth measuring the sculpture against the space allotted for it. “This represents the transition from this exhibit to the more contemporary exhibitions in the other galleries,” says Blue Spruce. “The museum’s collection of contemporary art is still very much growing and evolving.”

For Blue Spruce, the exhibit encompasses the depth and breadth of Native peoples, but also stands as a tribute to the museum itself. “It really captures the spirit of the museum,” he says.

The new permanent exhibition, “Infinity of Nations,” is now on view at the National Museum of the American Indian’s George Gustav Heye Center in New York City.

A detail from one of the folios depicts a giant bird bringing food to its nest. "Zal is Sighted by a Caravan," attributed to Abdul Aziz, ca. 1525. Image courtesy of the Sackler Gallery.

Last week at a media preview for “Shahnama: 1000 Years of the Persian Book of Kings,” the Sackler Gallery’s new exhibit, chief curator Massumeh Farhad pulled back the black gallery doors to allow a group of journalists into a dimly lit lair of ancient manuscripts and gleaming silver loosely reminiscent of Aladdin’s cave.

The exhibit is centered around the thousand-year-old, 50,000 verse Persian epic poem, Shahnama (pronounced shah-nah-MEYH), a blend of mythology and Persian history. While there are no talking parrots or diamonds in the rough, the text offers its own brand of fantasy that Farhad likens to Shakespeare and Grimms’ fairytales.

“It’s the most popular text in Iran. Nearly every household has a copy of the Quran and a copy of the Shahnama,” says Farhad.

The narrative traces the history of Iran through the 7th century Arab conquest, focusing on the exploits of 50 different Persian monarchs. The poet Abul-Qasim Firdawsi wrote the epic over a period of 30 years, during which time the ruling local dynasty, the Samanids, permitted cultural and artistic expression to flourish. But by the time the poet finally finished in the year 1010, the Samanids had been overthrown by a Turkic dynasty from Central Asia, the Ghaznavids, who cared little for the arts. Still hoping to be rewarded for his 30 years of literary labor, the poet petitioned Mahmud, the king, showing him his 50,000 verses.  The king responded with an insulting reward that was but a pittance for his work. A despondent Firdawsi proceeded to drown his sorrows in beer at a local bath house.

The king lived to regret his decision. Ten years later, Mahmud reread the text and immediately sent a caravan of camels loaded with precious indigo to Firdawsi the poet as a peace offering, but it was too late. As the camels entered Firdawsi’s town, they ran right into a funeral procession. The poet was dead.

“For every king to rule, they had to have ‘farr’, the divine rule to kingship,” says Farhad. “The Shahnama deals with the moral consequences of becoming too proud and forgetting who you are.” Each Persian king who came after the infamous Mahmud commissioned his own copy of the text, which became an emblem of the divine right to rule.

Starting in the 1300s, these royal copies were illustrated with opaque watercolors, gold and black ink. The illustrations—so intricate as to warrant the use of a magnifying glass—make up the majority of the exhibit, which is also punctuated with a 16th century full manuscript of the epic and several silver and bronze vessels from the 6th and 7th centuries.

After an introductory hall, the exhibit is divided into two sections, one focusing on history and the other on myth. The former largely offers the story of Alexander, the Macedonian conqueror, who despite his imperialist spirit is nonetheless described in the Shahnama as a just ruler. The mythological section features morality tales of kings who lost touch with their roots and thus lost their divine rule, their farr. These are often populated with mythical beings; one folio on display depicts a Harry Potter-like hippogriff. (“J.K. Rowling must have seen a copy of the Shahnama,” insists Farhad.)

Despite the ancient objects in the exhibit that give the sense of having only just been unearthed, Farhad says the poem is still relevant today. “I think it’s because of the universal themes of truth and honesty that resonate, whether you’re Iranian or not.”

“Shahnama: 1000 Years of the Persian Book of Kings” will be on display at the Sackler Gallery through April 17, 2011.

Mt. Pico, Azores Islands (1905) by Cass Gilbert. Image courtesy of the American Art Museum

Tuesday, October 26: Don’t Call Me Geechie!

Ricardo Williams, born and raised in the Gullah region of South Carolina, remembers a special life that retained many aspects of traditional African culture. His illustrated discussion includes the meaning behind the word “Geechie.” Free. For reservations and more information, call 202-633-4844. Anacostia Museum, 10:30 AM.

Wednesday, October 27: Living on an Active Planet 101: Volcanoes and Earthquakes

From the earthquake disasters in Haiti and Chile to the eruption of an obscure volcano in Iceland, our planet has been beset by geologic hazards. Is this business as usual for our planet or something more? Join USGS experts and find out. Tickets are required. Rates are: $35 general admission; $25 members; $22 senior members. Tickets may be purchased online or on the National Mall at the Resident Associate Program’s box office located in the Ripley Center. Resident Associate Program, 6:45-8:45 PM

Thursday, October 28: Take 5! Doc Scantlin

Get into the swing of big band-era jazz with DC bandleader Doc Scantlin and his Imperial Palm Orchestra, featuring the sultry songstress Chou Chou. A mainstay at Washington DC’s Carlyle Club, the group will perform a program of tunes from the 20s, 30s and 40s. Free. American Art Museum, 5-7 PM

Friday, October 29: Hirshhorn After Hours

Come enjoy DC’s premiere contemporary art event with Hirshhorn After Hours, which will feature gallery talks, special performances and music spun by DJs Matt Bailer and DJ Robert Bozick. Tickets are required and may be purchased online or at Smithsonian IMAX theaters on the National Mall. Tickets will not be sold at the door. Rates are: $18 general admission; free for Annual Circle members. Hirshhorn, 8:00 PM-12:00 AM.

For updates on all exhibitions and events, please visit our companion site goSmithsonian.com

Norman Rockwell envisions Daniel Boone in his 1923 painting —And Daniel Boone Comes to Life on the Underwood Portable. Oil on canvas. Collection of Steven Spielberg.

In honor of American frontiersman Daniel Boone’s birth 276 years ago today in Berks County, Pennsylvania, we here at ATM thought we would take the opportunity to showcase And Daniel Boone Comes to Life on the Underwood Portable. On display in ”Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg,” an exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Rockwell painting happens to be the first Spielberg acquired, inspiring his now extensive collection.

The filmmaker has said that the painting reminds him of the screenwriting process. “I would sit down in front of my typewriter to try to write a story for a movie…waiting for that little thought bubble to appear over my head [with] an image that would get my fingers dancing on the keys. [It] was very evocative for me that [Rockwell's writer] was imagining Daniel Boone before he actually began to write about him,” said Spielberg. “And the most frustrating is the work of the imagination of the writer as he pulls these disparate visual elements out of the sky and finds a way to express them in words.”

Rockwell depicts Boone, who helped blaze a trail through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountains near the crux of Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, as a filmmaker might on a movie screen.

“It’s a brilliant composition,” says Virginia Mecklenburg, a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, calling my attention to how the angles of the rifle and the lamp shade create diagonal thrusts in the painting. Typical of Rockwell, she says, “The real-world part of it is very realistic, very specific. You see the wrinkles in the guy’s white shirt, where he has rolled up his sleeves into this cuff just above his elbow, and the design on the lamp shade.” And yet, in contrast, the world of the imagination is looser, almost misty.

Mecklenburg hopes that the Rockwell paintings and drawings, on display through January 2, strike a chord with visitors, as —And Daniel Boone Comes to Life on the Underwood Portable has for Spielberg. “I hope the paintings make them think about people and episodes in their own lives that have had special meaning for them,” she says.

Kermit (1979) by Kenneth McGowan. Image courtesy of the American Art Museum.

Friday, October 22: Boo at the Zoo

Perfect for persons ages two to 12, the 11th annual Boo at the Zoo provides families with a safe, fun and educational way to celebrate Halloween. Dress up and step on out to haunt the National Zoo where there will be 40 treat stations featuring an assortment of candy and snacks in addition to animal encounters and keeper talks. Tickets are required. Rates are: $30 general admission; $20 for members. Please visit the Boo at the Zoo website for detailed information on where you can purchase tickets. This event will repeat on October 23 and 24. National Zoo, 5:30-8:30 PM.

Saturday, October 23: Air and Scare Family Day

Come haunt the friendly skies at the National Air and Space Museum’s Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center! Arrive decked out in your Halloween regalia for indoor trick-or-treating, creepy crafts and other fun indoor activities. For the littlest members of your ghoulish brood, there will be story times and opportunities to play dress up. This event is free, but there is a $15 parking fee per vehicle. Public transit options are also available. Udvar-Hazy Center, 2:00-8:00 PM

Sunday, October 24: Printmaking Workshop with Joe Feddersen

Give in to your creative side and get your hands a little dirty! Artist Joe Feddersen will introduce you to printmaking by way of a hands-on workshop for kids and families. Free, but class size is limited to 15 persons and you must register online to participate. (There is a “Sign Up” link at the bottom of the page.) If you can’t make it to this workshop, worry not. It repeats today at 2:00, so register online if you want to attend the later session. Free. American Indian Museum, 11:00 AM-1:00 PM.

For updates on all exhibitions and events, visit our companion site goSmithsonian.com