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Niro to exhibit work in CFA
By DEBRA STECKLER
Reporter Contributor
“Shelley Niro: Outside the Columns,” an exhibition featuring the film and photographic work of internationally renowned Mohawk artist Shelley Niro, will open with a reception from 5-7 p.m. Nov. 29 in the UB Art Gallery in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.
"For Fearless and Other Indians" (four of seven), 1998. Photograph from the collection of the McIntosh Gallery, the University of Western Ontario.
Niro will conduct a walk-through of the exhibition beginning at 5 p.m. The premiere of the artist’s short film “Hunger” will take place at 5:30 p.m. in the second-floor gallery, and an acoustical guitar performance by singer-song writer ElizaBeth Hill will begin at 6 p.m.
The exhibition, which is curated by guest curator and UB graduate student Sherry Corcoran, will be on view through Jan. 27. It will be free and open to the public.
Also in conjunction with the exhibition, Niro will give a talk from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Nov. 26 in the Screening Room in the Center for the Arts. A screening of Niro’s films, which the artist will attend, will be held at 8 p.m. Jan. 24 in Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, 341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo.
Work selected for “Outside the Columns” facilitates a dialogue concerning North American native issues, including sovereignty, representation and cultural tenacity beyond the grand narrative of the colonizer and the colonized.
“For Fearless and Other Indians” (1998) is a series of seven photographs that feature the Statue of Liberty with inscriptions that appear to be handwritten at the base of the well-recognized national monument. The title is a reference to the L’il Abner character Fearless Fosdick: Niro has co-opted the character and refers to him in this artwork through the inscriptions in the photographs of the monument.
Also included in this exhibition will be Niro’s short film “Tree” (2006). The title draws from the iconic Haudenosaunee Tree of Peace, also known as the Great White Pine, which provides shelter and strength for all peoples without regard to nationality or race. The short film “Rechargin’” (2007) also draws on ideas central to Niro’s culture. In the film, the dancer, Santee Smith, represents a futuristic Mother Earth who recharges her energies through a dance performance.
With her photographic series “The Shirt” (2003), Niro forms a satirical commentary on native loss, survival and reinvention. The nine, large-scale light boxes feature the artist Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole/Muskogee/Diné) posing in T-shirts emblazoned with changing slogans. The narrative that emerges, as told through these T-shirt slogans, rewrites an untold history shared by many indigenous peoples globally. One shirt reads: “My Ancestors / were / annihalated [sic] / exterminated / murdered and / massacred,” while another follows with a punch line: “All’s I got / was this / shirt.”
From T-shirts emblazoned with slogans to the Statue of Liberty, the artist asks us to question our understanding of history, nature and the meaning of our landscape, which is filled with historical and cultural markers.
Born in 1954 in Niagara Falls, N.Y., Niro received a master of fine arts degree from the University of Western Ontario and a bachelor’s degree in fine art, painting and sculpture from the Ontario College of Art. She resides in Brantford, Ontario.
The UB Art Gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with extended hours until 7 p.m. on Thursday.