Author: Loghan Hawkes
It is striking to discover how far you can go without ever leaving one building. This may be old news in the age of the internet, but without a lick of technology, I’ve been able to travel hundreds of miles while working at the University Art Gallery (UAG). In my internship here, I have handled artworks spanning the globe, from as far as Russia to as close as our own backyard here in Pittsburgh. As always, the associated histories I’ve encountered have fascinated me. I’ve come to learn that whether our records on an item are extensive or limited, so much information can be gleaned from the item itself. My principal responsibilities—cataloguing, photographing, and conducting condition reports for the permanent collection—required a close, almost intimate engagement with each object. I worked most closely with a collection of 56 Inuit artworks, primarily sculptures carved from soapstone or bone, which was donated by Donald Nevins in 2002.
When I began, I had barely any knowledge of Inuit art, and many of my initial assumptions about the sculptures were proven wrong. For one, although I would have guessed these objects were made in the 19th century or earlier, they actually date to the mid-to-late 20th century. For another, I assumed they were created by and for members of the Inuit community in the Nunavik region of Canada, when in fact only the former preposition is true. These pieces were created commercially, carved by Inuit artists for the purpose of generating revenue via the tourist market, which meant audience expectations shaped the art as much as traditional Inuit styles did. Thus, these sculptures present a more exoticized vision of Inuit life that would have appealed to a wider foreign audience.
Over the past semester, I have learned a great deal about indigenous cultures and the stereotypes surrounding them, both inside and outside of my working hours. There’s a pervasive idea in many Western museums, one that I must have carried with me into this internship, that indigenous art is frozen in a distant past or exists only in isolated communities. Of course, this could not be more wrong, and working with this collection while studying contemporary museum methodology and art historical theory has helped me overcome such implicit bias. As I learned, I thought more about the artists themselves, and the path each sculpture might have followed to end up here. A thousand miles and half a century separated me from each artwork. It could have been overwhelming, but there’s something grounding in the study of handmade objects. Whether it was painted wood, carved bone, woven material, or sculpted stone, when I held it in my hands–even just in my gaze–I felt a sense of connection to the person who made it.
It was not just behind the scenes that I experienced such a feeling. Of the UAG’s three current exhibitions, one includes the latest installment of the “Rethinking the Rotunda” series, where José Santiago Pérez’s As Above explores the idea of connection through craft. I took a sculpture class with José, who is a professor at Pitt, so I am familiar with the twining and coiling of their basketry, and I can remember what these techniques of creation feel like in my own hands. Suddenly, the connection I’d felt from the Inuit art, imagining how human hands brought them into existence, became all the more real. With a quick observation of José’s baskets and the Inuit sculptures, one would likely see no similarity. Yet somehow they communicated across time and space, instilling in me an awe of the handmade and a deeper appreciation for my time with the UAG.