Relations: Indigenous Dialogue was a unique exhibition on view at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum in August and September 2006. The exhibit served as a forum for discussing the meaning of contemporary Indigenous identity, asking: Who are we? What is our culture? Who are our children and who will they be in the future? What are we leaving them? The original Relations group discussed the concept: “We are all related… and as artists we must act as catalysts for change by inspiring our young people, our leaders, and our elders with relevant work that speaks to the issues that face the planet and us as Indigenous people who are her relations.” Two participants in the dialogue—Roxanne Swentzell and Bob Haozous—met a year later at the office of THE magazine to discuss how the Relations exhibition concept could evolve for a future internal “Indian Art for Indian People” discussion.
We are a mixture of Western thought and Indian thought, and if you want to be Indian you live in a much larger place then two worlds.
Roxanne Swentzell: Should we start talking about following the money, or should we start with Relations?
Bob Haozous: Relations, in relation to money. How do economics influence the art of Indian people—not just yours—but Indian people that you know?
RS: It really affects us all because we have become a money-based people. Of course, when we’re buying everything—being consumers of the world—then money becomes our goal, our master. So does it affect what we’re making? Yes, we’re going to make what sells. What would you say, Bob?
BH: I keep thinking about concepts of Indian people and how we’re related to everything, and how we’re responsible for everything. And how the traditional leaders of Indian people were the ones who were the poorest, because they gave everything back and shared. They shared the rewards and now we’ve turned so that the rewards are individual and we dole out small amounts to those people we select. It’s not a responsibility for the group—it’s about a responsibility to oneself and to whomever you choose.
RS: It becomes about individual success instead of our health as a community. What’s being lost is the sense of taking care of our communities.
BH: So how do we deal with the first Relations evolution? I’m still wondering. I’ve heard other people interpret the exhibit, and I have my own ideas, but what do you think of what we did?
RS: I want to talk about what it did for me personally, because I don’t know what it did for anybody else out there. I think it was a great opportunity to give time and effort to the idea of doing something not for money. And to sit around and talk about who we are, without thinking about making a product for sale, was freeing.
BH: I liked the fact that we had older people and younger people. At first it was an ego thing. Some people came in with their star shining above them, but after a while we all brought ourselves to a level where we could talk with a certain amount of equality. That was a good start. One thing that affected me was watching many of our elders condemn us. I’ve had that happen throughout my career. They say, ‘What are you trying to do—change the world? What do you think you’re doing? We don’t talk about that stuff.’ We don’t talk about the holocaust, or violence, or pain, or alcoholism, or suicide, or drugs, or the loss of culture, or the loss of language, or the loss of spiritualism. We don’t talk about those things because we are a mixture of Western thought and Indian thought, and if you want to be Indian you live in a much larger place then in two worlds. You’re an Indian one day; you can be a white person another day. It’s always amazed me how much we believe that concept.
RS: I don’t want to have to be worried about that. I just want to be true to myself in the story of me, which is the story of my culture inasmuch as I’ve been a part of it. I really believe that. We are alive and we are the story that is happening right now. And what is that? What is our story?
BH: When I was in school they used to teach us that there’s a difference between fine art and craft, and that was always strange to me. I didn’t understand then that Western concepts of art are really self-serving—they have nothing to do with the culture I come from. In the culture I come from, it would be very difficult to say it’s Indian. But I do think that philosophically and spiritually and intellectually I’m Indian, so how can I go to New York and present my work as Indian art or even contemporary art when there’s a confusion of identity? So I don’t go—I don’t even try. I don’t want to go to New York, and I condemn the National Museum for promoting Western standards of fine art as if it was an Indian cultural statement. It’s just a white man’s institution. One thing we’re trying to do is get Indian people to talk. Who are we? That’s a good question. Who are you? (Laughs)
RS: (Laughs) Who are you Bob? Well, where do we go from this point, in Relations?
BH: We’d been talking about the holocaust and how so many people are afraid of that concept. Some people claim it’s because their cultural trauma is so real that they think they own it. And yet we’ve lost millions in this country to the holocaust, not only from the germs, but from bullets too. And my tribe is strongly affected by a holocaust-type experience. We think that doing powwow dances is Apache, because we’ve all become a homogeneous Indian group without acknowledging that each one has its own strength. Indian art is a kind of powwow art—I don’t like that. So, how do we deal with this concept of what happened to us, whether it’s called a holocaust, or injustice, or genocide? That’s what we’re trying to deal with in Relations, isn’t it?
RS: Yeah. I think that the holocaust of the Indigenous peoples of this country hasn’t been looked at deeply enough. And as artists, we can go the route of money, we can go the route of fame and prestige, or we can go the route of truth.
BH: Honest Injun?
RS: An honest Indian that faces all of these issues as honestly and as consciously as we can. A lot of times we want to hide behind the ideals. The idealistic Indian is looked up to, and we get stuck there. We have all these outside people with their fantasies about what being Indian is, and in a lot of ways we’re doing the same thing to ourselves—we use that image and idolize ourselves. And that’s another suicide of who we are.
BH: Suicide of who we are—yeah, that’s true. Wow! When I was growing up in the fifties, I remember all these guys coming back from the war. They all had crew cuts, and they all said that being Indian is dead—become white people. And my whole tribe was affected by this. One of my uncles refused to come back to the homeland, to his parents. He lived in the same state, yet he refused to visit his grandparents because they were Indian. He wanted to be white. He married a white woman. He told her, ‘Don’t bring the kids, don’t let them go back to the tribe.’ But the tribe is still there, and his kids all came back after he passed away. Even though we say we’re Indian, and we think that there’s a future for us, we really believe that it’s just a temporary economic opportunity. And we’re jumping on it. We assume that our kids will be Indian in the future without telling them how to be Indian. White people tell their kids how to be white, don’t they? Make money. That’s funny isn’t it? That brings in the humor. How are we going to use humor?
RS: I was just thinking that at that time of Indian history, to not be Indian was the thing to do—in reaction to having been abused for being Indian. We are in reaction to our holocaust. And then there is the reaction of trying to be Indian now that it’s “cool” to be Indian. And there is the reaction to the ideals of being Indian. What would we be if we stop being in reaction to whatever happened last? I think that’s where we will find our answers. Maybe that’s when humor comes in. Humor is usually a sign that we’re not just in reaction, that we’re able to look at something straight on without taking it personally. To be able to laugh at ourselves, and at our journey of how we got here.
BH: We’re trying to get a casino in our homelands in Southern New Mexico. It’s been suggested that we get Geronimo’s head from the Skull & Bones Society and bury it by the casino, leaving the body in Oklahoma. There’s no respect. Everybody’s waiting, nobody’s listening. Geronimo’s head! Indian is becoming economic. You guys have a casino now. Is it affecting everybody?
RS: Of course it’s affecting everybody. But I haven’t received any money and I don’t think I ever will. Anytime we think we need a casino, or think we need money, it puts us into a state where we’re vulnerable and we’re not sovereign. Then we’re not being strong in ourselves.
BH: On the other hand, sovereignty doesn’t mean isolationism. You have to make money to survive.
RS: Money isn’t a real relationship. Our real relationship is that we’re animals on this planet. Our real relationship is what we have with nature. Our real relationship is our relationship to the earth, and to each other, as communities.
BH: People perceive honest dialogue as negative. We can’t just do the pretty-Indian thing again—like Indian dancing, Indian sunsets, and Indian powwows. And I don’t know how to talk to these people because we’ve developed our dialogue to the point of exclusion. It’s true, isn’t it?
RS: Yeah. But that’s assuming that looking at anything that’s so-called negative is going to be ugly. That’s a very Western perception of what beauty is, but isn’t beauty more about truth? And anything that is really true to itself is naturally really beautiful. So, these are issues that can be really profoundly moving, disturbing, and beautiful.
BH: I was criticized by a Diné elder who said, ‘We don’t do that, we walk in beauty.’ And I’ve always considered beauty to be honesty. I’ve heard, ‘We don’t talk about those things’ so many times. We don’t talk about drugs and violence on the reservation, or Christianity, or whatever cult is coming in. What other role can an artist play except to try to be honest? I guess it comes down to that the role of the Indian artist making a statement about the holocaust is ludicrous to a Western man. To us it should be natural, don’t you think?
RS: We’re talking about issues that are hard issues. Together we can see if we can find answers. I like the idea of a traveling show, so it can be seen by a lot of people. And if it is done in a humorous way, then some really hardcore issues can be really looked at.
BH: I think that the major issues—like alcoholism, drugs, and suicide—are beyond reactive, and are certainly not proactive. The loss of place on this earth is also a major issue.
RS: Loss of identity and loss of cultural base. The loss of the sense of belonging. We’re the original people of this country and yet, in a strange way, we feel homeless…
BH: I can drive around Santa Fe and watch developers who take twenty to a hundred acres and grade it down to nothing. They destroy nature. It’s a travesty. It’s insulting to any human being. I think one of the reasons why I’m involved with this renewed Relations group is because I think that this concept that we are part of the whole is something that the entire world needs to hear from Indigenous people. But if we continue to try to become assimilated—and do what they do—then we are condemning ourselves and our responsibilities are lost. And we can’t allow that to happen. It’s easy to do though, isn’t it? Making money? Especially for you. (Laughs)
RS: Bob, you are low! I have a hard time putting things as “they.” The whole world is going to have to deal with these issues, because if we kill the planet, we kill everybody. We’re not alone. We have our own cultural story to tell, and everybody else has his or her cultural story to tell. But we don’t like to tell the story of how we are killing ourselves. Instead, we mostly want to keep pretty pictures going. As artists, we can go the route of money, the route of fame and prestige, or the route of truth of truth.
BH: I’m now trying with my art to confront these issues. As long as we have major religions that are based on man and not nature, we’re going to perpetuate the destruction of the earth. Indigenous people commonly think that the earth is alive. We must force ourselves to say, ‘Hey my religion isn’t functioning anymore. Why should I hate an Arab, a Jew, a pagan? Why should I hate an Indian? Why should I hate nature? Why should I think my convenience is more important?’ And that’s an Indian person’s job—making love to the earth.
RS: I like that statement. How do we make love to the earth?
BH: If we don’t make love to the earth, we’re dealing with suppositions ourselves. It really comes down to confronting this: Let’s tell Christians, ‘Hey you’re wrong. You’re not going to heaven—this is heaven.’ And there’s the economics too. You know, there are so many people that can buy and sell us right now. If they came in and said, ‘We want to support your Relations group but you can’t talk about the holocaust,’ and they offered us as much money as SITE Santa Fe spends every day—we’d probably say, ‘We’ll think about it.’ What did we spend—$50,000 or $100,000 last year? SITE spent something like a million and a half, and they’re just making art for art’s sake. And we think we’re trying to do something important. So what about this on the trail of money? Do you think that’s more important than being on the trail of honesty?
RS: Money—what is it for? It’s just a tool—a tool we can use this way or that way. But it doesn’t have any power in and of itself. To me, the pursuit of honesty or the pursuit of lies seems more profound than the pursuit of money—it goes somewhere. Indian people are so good at adopting other cultures, and yet we complain about others taking our culture and using it. I love my cars and I love all my conveniences that I stole from them. But who are we beyond all this?
BH: People are always asking me, ‘What are you doing?’ I tell them I’m inspiring questions and dialogue. But I’m not going to give up my conveniences. That’s really selfish, isn’t it? (Laughs)
RS: No, actually that seems very Indigenous. (Laughs) That’s where the humor comes in. Our own laughable story. But it is our job to ask, ‘What about this? What about that?’ I’m not just going to hold the pedestal of ideals. I’m going to ask what’s underneath.
BH: The IAIA is one of our great opportunities for Relations. They gave us the space for the original Relations, and they’re offering us space for Relations II, even though they’re starting to say you can’t talk about certain issues, especially the holocaust. Nonetheless they’ve offered us a space. But we must always remind each other that the IAIA was basically a trade school that came out of the sixties—a trade school to get Indian people to make art, to make money, to break away from the tribal restrictions, and to become like white people. The IAIA is about money and the market. And many of our great Indian elders—the ones that set up that school—were also about that. And now we’re asking them to get away from the trade school mentality and actually create an art form that comes from within. How do we convince them that what we’re doing is more valid than money?
RS: When I went to the IAIA, and started to make un-idealistic artwork, they took me aside and had a talk with me. They told me that I wasn’t making art correctly, because it wasn’t ‘Indian’ enough. From that, you knew that the IAIA was created to market stereotypes of Indians.
BH: I went to CCA in Oakland, California, and I did it as a non-Indian. One year I was having a hard time in painting class, so I painted an Indian in profile with a hat and a feather, and the teacher said, ‘Boy you can paint. If you painted this in Santa Fe, you’d be rich and famous within a couple of years.’ I said, ‘That’s not me.’ I got a grade—an A. Maybe the A was my dollar. The pressure from the outside and from the fine art community tells us we have to be Indian. The pressure from the Indian community tells us we have to be their Indian. But we don’t know what Indian is, especially in the arts. It goes back to the holocaust, the genocide—the atrocities that happened. Everybody is so confused now we can’t even lay our issues out on the table and say. ‘Hey, let’s dissect this.’
RS: Without having fear of persecution from somewhere. It’s very hard to talk about honest situations, honest problems.
BH: That elder from IAIA that said to me, ‘What are you trying to do, change the world?’ He wanted to make the school into a craft school again.
RS: And your answer?
BH: I didn’t answer him—I was respectful. I’ve seen so many people come through the IAIA with this shallow Indian identity. But they’re so proud, because they’re making money. My dad [Allan Houser] was a teacher at the IAIA, but he always gave me the room to do what I had to do, because he knew it was important. We have to acknowledge that his generation—your parents and my parents—were really damaged.
RS: Yeah. We’ve come from generations of very abused people. Good can be passed along, but a lot of bad has also been passed along.
BH: Like my art. (Laughs)
RS: Like Bob’s art, and like my art. That’s interesting that your dad would make sure you knew that making what you wanted to make came first. That was a blessing he handed down. How did he know that?
BH: Yeah, he told me not to go to IAIA. He knew I was raising hell at the time and probably wanted me to go somewhere else that gave me a different viewpoint. And he was so proud when I came back. We had shows together.
RS: He wanted you to be able to see a broader perspective. Now he must have got that from somewhere. He didn’t get stuck in wanting to just do things the same. We’re the original people of this country and yet, in a strange way, we feel homeless.
BH: His father, too. You know how people talk about Apaches being warriors, or head bashers, or tough, or manly, but the thing that makes the Apache people so important to me is the problem solving. They live in the harshest places and they fought against the worst enemies.
RS: Pueblos! (Laughs)
BH: But they had to solve problems every day. And everyone had the right to determine what their religion or spirituality was. And everybody had the responsibility of healing. All that’s common sense to me now. And yet, we will look to a preacher to tell us how to get to God. Or we will look to the eagle feather for the power of the eagle—when the eagle is just a bird. You go to the Gathering of Nations and there are 10,000 eagle feathers—ghosts hanging around that place. Nobody talks about it because it looks good. Maybe they cultivate the eagles and pluck their feathers.
RS: Stuck on form instead of essence.
BH: One of my beliefs about Relations—if we can get Indian people to talk to each other and reaffirm the cultural knowledge, the ties, and humanity—is that the market will come to us. We don’t have to make Abstract Expressionist or post-modern work, or any of that Western stuff. Those terms mean nothing to us. What we have to do first is to start talking to each other—we can break down barriers just by sitting and talking.
RS: Well, if you don’t grow, you’re not growing. You remain stuck. And that’s when you die.
BH: Not yet. (Laughs)
RS: (Laughs) Bob is not dying yet.
