Website:
hybridpress@gmail.com
Artist Statement:
Bury the Hatchet: A Prayer for MyP’ah-Beis artist John Hitchcock’s mixed-media, cross-disciplinary, multisensory installation. Hitchcock combines his interests in printmaking, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Kiowa and Comanche history into one visual expression that offers a re-telling of the narrative of the American Frontier. Working from the theme of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, Bury the Hatchet explores issues of assimilation, acculturation, and indoctrination through oral history and music. Bury the Hatchet develops a shared language to interrogate historic and modern institutions to prompt a re-definition and re-imagining of our present reality.
The visual and sound recordings in the exhibition work together to challenge western perspectives of the supremacy of the written word by reinforcing Indigenous views of oral history passed on from generation to generation through storytelling. (collapsetext / read more)
Sound recordings include the artist on pedal steel guitar with soundscapes of cello, clarinet, accordion, and guitars by the band The Stolen Sea. In addition, JasonCutnose(Kiowa,1967-2015) narrates a story about the Cutthroat Gap massacre in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma, JuanitaPahdopony(Comanche) records a Comanche prayer, Hitchcock’s grandfatherSaukwaukeeJohnDussomeReid (Kiowa, 1912-1996) tells a story of the old days on the Southern Plains, and soprano Catlin Mead sings an operatic reinterpretation ofCutnose’sstories. Finally, Intertribal War Dance Songs, recorded in 1978 on the Johnny Reid (Kiowa) and Peggy Reid (Comanche) Dance Ground, make up the soundscape. Video images include War Dancers in Medicine Park, Oklahoma, and buffalo images recorded in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge by Emily Arthur. The exhibition has an accompanying limited-edition 12-inch vinyl album, CD, and set of letterpress prints available at Sunday Night records: sundaynightrecords.com
Originally organized by the Missoula Art Museum and curated by JohnCalsbeek, Associate Curator, and BrandonReintjes, Senior Curator. Organized in Portland by Kathleen Ash-Milby, Curator of Native American Art.
Biography:
John Hitchcockis an Artist, Professor of Art and Associate Dean of Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Hitchcock has served as Faculty Director of The Studio Learning Community and Art Department Graduate Chair. He has taught printmaking at UW-Madison since 2001. Prior to that he was at the University of Minnesota, Morris. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Texas Tech University.(collapsetext / read more)
Hitchcockis an award-winning artistwhouses the print medium with its long history of commenting on social and political issues to explore his relationships to community, land, and culture. Hitchcock’s artwork consists of abstract representations, mythological hybrid creatures (buffalo, Owl, horse, deer) and military weaponry (tanks, bombs and helicopters). His artworksare based on his childhood memories and stories of growing up in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma on Comanche Tribal lands next to the US field artillery military base Ft Sill. Many of the images are interpretations of stories told by his Kiowa/Comanche grandparents and abstract representations influenced by beadwork, land, and culture.
Hitchcock has been the recipient of The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artistic Innovation and Collaboration grant, New York; Jerome Foundation Grant, Minnesota; the Creative Arts Award, Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts and the Kellett Mid-Career Award at the University of Wisconsin. Hitchcock’s artwork has been exhibited at numerous venues including the International Print Center New York, New York;Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico;Museum of Wisconsin Arts, West Bend, Wisconsin;The Rauschenberg Project Space, New York, New York;“Air, Land, Seed”on the occasion ofthe Venice Biennale 54th International Art at the University of Ca' Foscari, Venice, Italy. Solo exhibition includes the American Culture Center in Shanghai, Shanghai, China; Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; Missoula Art Museum, Missoula, Montana; Mulvane Art Museum, Topeka, Kansas; Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota, The Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico;American Indian Community House Gallery, New York, New York; North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, North Dakota.
