MARCH 13th Janet Catherine Berlo ‘Prime Objects’ of the Gods? Replications and Transformations of Navajo Sandpainting Imagery

Wednesday, March 13, 2013
  3:30–5 p.m.

MARCH 13th Janet Catherine Berlo ‘Prime Objects’ of the Gods? Replications and Transformations of Navajo Sandpainting Imagery

The Center for Ideas and Society welcomes you to our

Winter Quarter Resident Faculty Fellow

guest speaker:

Janet Catherine Berlo

‘Prime Objects’ of the Gods?

Replications and Transformations of Navajo Sandpainting Imagery

Exploring the relevance of George Kubler’s notion of ‘prime objects’ to a Navajo epistemology of art, this paper examines multiple replications and transformations of Navajo sandpaintings. These ephemeral works, said to have first been created from the atmospheric materials of the universe by the Diyin Dine’é (translated as Supernaturals or Holy People), have long been used by Navajo hataali  (medicine men, or chanters) in healing ceremonies. Since the beginning of the 20th century, replicas of sandpaintings have been made in more permanent forms, including drawings and textiles. Collaborations between Navajo hataali and non-Native interlocutors have resulted in numerous published copies that have, in turn, served as templates for further replications, particularly by Navajo weavers. I will trace such replication across mediums and through intercultural collaborations, in an effort to theorize the way in which Navajo people have grappled with ideas of collaboration, the aura of an original, and the reproducibility of sacred images.

Janet Catherine Berlo is Professor of Art History and Professor of Visual and CulturalStudies at the University of Rochester in western New York. She holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.  She has written numerous books and articles on American quilts and Native North American art and has been a consultant to the National Museum of the American Indian and many other American museums.

Date: March 13, 2013

Time: 3:30pm

Place: INTS 1113

This event is sponsored by the Center for Ideas and Society, co-sponsored by Art History, Anthropology and COSTO. This event is free and open to the public. For more information on the event, please visit our website at ideasandsociety.ucr.edu