I-Witness Culture: Frank Buffalo Hyde

By Kristin Gentry

Frank Buffalo Hyde, Buffalo Dancers Study, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 30” x 40”, Courtesy of Tansey Contemporary

Fond memories of visiting the Gilcrease Museum with his father as a child came up as Frank Buffalo Hyde expressed the honor of having his own solo exhibition on display in the same museum now as an adult. Hyde was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is from both the Onondaga and Nez Perce tribes, grew up in New York with his mother on her reservation, and then later returned to Santa Fe, New Mexico to attend the Institute of American Indian Arts for creative writing and two-dimensional studies and them the Santa Fe Arts Institute. Hyde creates a variety of work through mixed media paintings, mixed media sculptures, Katherine Hair’s whimsical, towering deer sculptures street art, writing, and collaborative sculptural pieces. His are made from discarded and recycled branches.

I-Witness Culture by Frank Buffalo Hyde Gallery Shot at the Gilcrease Museum. Photo by Kristin Gentry

mother is a traditional dancer, his father and uncles are artists, and now Hyde has been working on his arts practice for over twenty-five years.

Pieces for I-Witness Culture, which opened at the Gilcrease in February of 2020, are created with a spray-painted stencil style intermixed with traditional fine art painting. When interviewed, Hyde talked about wondering if anyone would be interested in people holding cell phones as he explored the idea through painting. He continued on and the body of work developed into contexts of the mundane becoming high art. Our world culture view is now seen through the lens and screen of our cell phones. This body of work explores how the cell phone has changed our information exchange, how we interact as people, how our communication is now different, relationships, and that the human existence has forever been altered because of the cell phone technology.

He’s constantly working to dispel notions of what Indigenous art looks like. He says that, “Indigenous artists have an extra expectation to represent their culture. We can make all different kinds of art, all styles. It doesn’t matter what you paint, it’s inherently you no matter how you put it down on a plane. We need traditional work, but I’ve made choices to exist and create art in a different way and different areas.”

Chelsea Herr, Choctaw, Curator of Indigenous Art and Culture at Gilcrease Museum said that, “hosting a monographic exhibition of Frank Buffalo Hyde’s work at Gilcrease is not only an honor, but it’s also a great indicator of where I think the field of Indigenous art is headed. Much of the exhibition text is written from a firstperson perspective, allowing the viewer to engage with the artist’s own thoughts on his work. The visual presence of the artist in the gallery is augmented by his verbal presence, as well—but not so much as to overwhelm or negate the viewer’s own experience. It also adds to the personal, first-person perspective of many of Frank’s paintings. His work often mediates the audience’s own point-of-view through a painted phone screen, as seen in his pieces, Buffalo Dancers Study and Bison Selfie. This is a clever reminder to the viewer that what the general public tends to see, experience, or perceive about ‘Native culture’ is often highly filtered or decontextualized, providing only a singular glimpse into something that is much more complex and dynamic than what we may see on our screens.”

In interviewing him, Hyde speaks about the content of his work being resonant with his own tribal cultures and that of the tribal cultures of the Southwest. Hyde reflects, “when I made the decision to become a professional artist, I decided I wouldn’t divulge ceremonial information that wasn’t already out in the public domain.” He does this out of respect, and believes that by not sharing private ceremonial information one has to actually be present to be a part of the culture. This presents the juxtaposition to a mainstream or westernized cultural norm that attempts to digitally record, show, and commodify everything. The southwestern tribal cultures are romanticized through media, film, stereotyping, etc., and Hyde works to show how tribal cultures are appropriated through marketing through his use of pop-cultural references. He’s excited for a museum to go from traditional southwestern art to contemporary. He hopes to make the path easier for other contemporary Indigenous artists with this body of work at Gilcrease Museum. (continued to page 10)

The Covid-19 Pandemic has altered the entire art world from galleries to museum spaces. Herr stated, “The pandemic has affected the [Gilcrease] museum as a whole, but I-Witness Culture in particular. The show was scheduled to come down in May, but since the museum was closed from March through July, Frank was gracious enough to allow us to extend the show through January of next year. Since the pandemic has prevented us from hosting events for guests at the museum, we’ve moved our programming online, which has allowed us to reach a much wider audience than traditional in-person programs. In April, Laura Fry interviewed Frank for a Facebook Live event, and in August, the amazing Cherokee singer-songwriter Kalyn Fay held a live performance in the I-Witness Culture gallery. Both of these virtual events are available online at Gilcrease.org, on our YouTube page, and on our Facebook page.”

This exhibition has been organized by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/ Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, NM and circulated through Guest Curator Traveling Exhibitions. The show remains on view until January 17, 2021 n

Kristin Gentry, M.S., B.F.A., is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. She’s an artist, writer, and curator.

ABOVE & RIGHT: Frank Buffalo Hyde, Eagle Dancer Study, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 40” x 30”, Courtesy of Tansey Contemporary