Arlo Namingha “Stories and Conversation”

ARLO NAMINGHA Stories and Conversation

DAVID RICHARD GALLERY

ISBN: 978-1-955260-89-3 Front Cover: Installation Arlo Namingha Stories and Conversation at David Richard Gallery Title Page: Installation Arlo Namingha Stories and Conversation at David Richard Gallery Back Cover: Installation Arlo Namingha Stories and Conversation at David Richard Gallery Printed on the occasion of the exhibition Installation Arlo Namingha Stories and Conversation at David Richard Gallery April 28 - May 21, 2021 Published by: David Richard Gallery, LLC, 211 East 121st Street, New York, NY 10035 www.DavidRichardGallery.com 212-882-1705 | 505-983-9555 DavidRichardGalleries DavidRichardGallery Gallery Staff: David Eichholtz and Richard Barger, Managers

All rights reserved by David Richard Gallery, LLC. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in whole or part in digital or printed form of any kind whatsoever without the express written permission of David Richard Gallery, LLC.

Artwork: © 2007 - 2021 - Arlo Namingha Catalogue: © 2021 David Richard Gallery, LLC, New York, NY

Catalogue Design: David Eichholtz and Richard Barger, David Richard Gallery, LLC, New York, NY Artwork images © Nicole Namingha Installation images © Yao Zu Lu

DAVID RICHARD GALLERY

ARLO NAMINGHA Stories and Conversation

ARLO NAMINGHA Stories and Conversation

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David Richard Gallery is pleased to present Arlo Namingha, Stories and Conversation, his first solo exhibition in New York in 17 years and his debut with David Richard Gallery. The presentation includes 19 new and recent sculptures and wall reliefs in a variety of carved and polished stones and wood. Namingha’s artworks are clean lined and minimalist, reductions of complex imagery such as the landscape, pueblo buildings, people, animals, butterflies and fish and how those images relate to cultural symbols and mythologies, historical and cultural timelines, ceremonies and beliefs, the fifth world as well as Mother Earth and the circle of life.

About The Exhibition: The five wall reliefs in this presentation are all made of wood with combinations of planed, cut, and carved surfaces in a variety of woods such as Jatoba, Sitka Spruce, African Mahogany, Zebra, Poplar, Yellow Heart Wood and Curly Maple. Each assemblage, mostly of geometric compositions are housed in sturdy, deep, black aluminum frames. The 14 pedestal sculptures include: eight works made of Indiana Limestone; one bronze; and one Texas shell stone. The remaining four sculptures are comprised of combinations of: Indiana Limestone, Utah picture stone, Texas Limestone, Texas Shell stone and Bass, Zebra, Poplar and African Mahogany woods.

About Arlo Namingha and His Artworks: Namingha’s artwork is influenced by the earth and landscape as well as general beliefs and symbols of the Tewa and Hopi Native Americans. The Tewa-speaking, Pueblo people live near the Rio Grande north of Santa Fe in New Mexico, which is the northeastern portion of the Hopi Reservation. Such influences are often a common thread of connectivity among and between Native American artists. Their cultures are often rooted in the land and beliefs that humans are from the earth and return to the earth, thus creating a circle of life and connection between all people from the past, present and future.

The earliest works of Namingha were carved kachina figures that he created alongside his grandparents. The kachina’s exemplify two important aspects of Namingha’s art, first, the cultural influences on his work as the kachina’s represent eternal messengers who communicate between earthly and spiritual beings and are a vital part of the Hopi teachings. Second, his later versions of these figures were simplified and reduced to lines and the essence of the figures, making them more contemporary and abstract while still retaining his cultural heritage. Both a hallmark of his approach and studio practice.

The kachina figures, perpetually are an important part of Namingha’s sculptures including several of the works in the current presentation. The wings of Butterfly and Warrior Butterly represent the two halves of a kachina face with the opposing negative spaces representing the eyes. Similarly, the sculpture Cultural Forms is comprised of a cylinder of Indiana Limestone with an interlocking rectangle of Zebra Wood to create an anthropomorphic resemblance of a kachina face, where the two opposing horizontal slices of negative space in each form creates the kachina’s eyes while the lower circular carve out in the cylinder creates the mouth.

However, the greatest influence on Namingha’s aesthetic and artwork was his father, Dan Namingha, and other artistic family members, as noted above. Dan Namingha, an established and highly collected Hopi painter and sculptor, has artworks included in the permanent collections of more than 30 major museums. Dan is a great-grandson to Nampeyo (1860-1942), considered to be the first internationally recognized Native American artist and often acknowledged for reviving the tradition of Hopi (Sikyátki Style) pottery; and son of Dextra Quotskuyva Nampeyo (born September 7, 1928), the first Nampeyo potter to make commodity works for public sales.

Additionally, Arlo Nimingha’s work is influenced by issues beyond his culture and home, his newest series are very much inspired by current events. While he may find the issues urgent or troubling, he sees hope in resolution through dialogue and interaction between people. Thus, several of the new series, including: Dialogue, Fifth

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World and Shift have works that can be assembled, rearranged and fragmented by the viewer and presented how they choose. This engagement with the artworks is essentially a dialogue and exchange of new ideas and new possibilities between the viewer and the artist. A tangible demonstration of how an artist can open up and provide a path for new ideas and compositional suggestions into his process and work through the viewer, who, in return, is not only expressing their opinion, but also putting themselves out there for open critique of such suggestions. All in all, the artist sees this healthy exchange of ideas as a metaphor for everyone to take such steps with the more consequential and pressing issues facing our respective families, hometowns, cultures and society.

The multicomponent and interactive works by Namingha noted above in the Dialogue, Fifth World and Shift series have a very interesting construction. Each of the subunits have smooth and polished exterior surfaces, yet the interior surfaces are rough and resulting from the elements being partially cut around the perimeter and then broken in a semi-uneven fashion such that when reassembled, they fit together and interlock to create a stable and solid single structure. Perhaps a metaphor for a positive outcome if people of diverging viewpoints would come together in conversation and share their differences, then maybe a single, solid and strong solution could be the result.

David Eichholtz April 2021, New York

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Arlo Namingha Clouds #6, 2020 Utah picture stone 12 x 5 x 4.75”

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Arlo Namingha Koi, 2018 Indiana limestone 12 x 15 x 5”

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Detail - Alternate view from the other side:

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Arlo Namingha Blue Star, 2019 Indiana limestone 15 x 12 x 5”

Detail - Alternate view from the other side:

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Arlo Namingha Timeline #1, 2009 Texas limestone, poplar, African Mahogany, Bass wood and Texas shell 20 x 5.5”

Detail - Alternate view from the other side:

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Arlo Namingha Assemblage #12, 2014 Texas limestone, Texas shell and Bass wood 18 x 12.5 x 5”

Detail – Alternate vertical orientation:

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Arlo Namingha Fifth World #8, 2019 Indiana limestone 12 x 15 x 5”

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Arlo Namingha Chaco Canyon #2, 2007 Jatoba wood and aluminum frame 27 x 27 x 2.25”

Detail - Alternate view from the other side:

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Arlo Namingha Dialogue #4, 2019 Indiana limestone 20 x 20 x 6”

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Arlo Namingha Butterfly, 2021 Bronze 24 x 20.5 x 6“

Detail - Alternate view from the other side:

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Arlo Namingha Assemblage #14, 2017 Indiana limestone 12 x 15 x 5”

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Arlo Namingha Cultural Images #23, 2020 Indiana limestone 12 x 5 x 5”

Arlo Namingha Mother Earth Series (wall sculpture 450), 2021 Sitka Spruce, African Mahogany, Zebra and Poplar Wood 18.5 x 10.5 x 2.5”

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Arlo Namingha Mother Earth Series (wall sculpture 452), 2021 Sitka Spruce, African Mahogany, Zebra and Poplar Wood 18.5 x 10.5 x 2.5”

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Arlo Namingha Mother Earth Series (wall sculpture 453), 2021 Sitka Spruce, African Mahogany, Zebra and Poplar Wood 18.5 x 10.5 x 2.5”

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Arlo Namingha Mother Earth Series (wall sculpture 454), 2021 Sitka Spruce, African Mahogany, Zebra and Poplar Wood 18.5 x 10.5 x 2.5”

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Detail – Alternate configuration (side-by side):

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Arlo Namingha Eclipse, 2017 Indiana limestone 15 x 19.5 x 5” Overlapping Configuration

Detail – Partially deconstructed and an alternate presentation revealing the asymmetric chisel break that allows for each of the four separate elements to interlock and create structural integrity of the four elements when assembled either wholly or in part.

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Arlo Namingha Shift #1, 2015 Indiana limestone 15 x 12 x 4“

Arlo Namingha Metamorphosis #3, 2017 Texas shell stone 12 x 12 x 3”

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Detail - Alternate view from the other side:

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Arlo Namingha Cultural Forms, 2020 Indiana limestone and Zebra wood 7.25 x 9.5 x 6”

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ARLO NAMINGHA Arlo Namingha has exhibited extensively in galleries and museums across the US, including: Santa Fe, NM; New York, NY; Washington, D.C; Basalt, Aspen, Pueblo and Denver, CO; Scottsdale, Tuscon, Flagstaff and Phoenix, AZ; Santa Barbara and Palm Springs, CA; Reading, PA; Brockton, MA; Coral Gables and Naples, FL; Jackson Hole, WY; Salt Lake City, UT; Missoula, MT; and Midland, TX. He has also exhibited internationally in Russia, Monaco, Japan and China.

Namingha’s artworks are in the permanent collections of the following museums and institutions: Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California; Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado; Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, Arizona; U.S. Embassy, Bangui, Central African Republic; U.S. Embassy, Switzerland, Geneva; Southwest Museum/Autry National Center, Los Angeles, California; U.S. Embassy, Phnom Penh; Meridian International Center, Washington, D.C.; U.S. Embassy, Chisinau; Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey; Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs California; Raymond James Financial; Art in Embassy in Uzbekistan; Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, New Jersey and numerous private collections internationally.

DAVID RICHARD GALLERY