Amerind Museum

A museum, art gallery, and research center dedicated to archaeology, Native cultures, and Western art. Located in Dragoon, Arizona and surrounded by the spectacular boulders of Texas Canyon.

Exhibits

Amerind will have must-see art exhibitions during Museum Day, including “Transformation, Spirituality, and Humor” featuring works by Randy Kemp (Choctaw/Muscogee-Creek/Euchee). Kemp chose to exhibit a series of paintings, mixed media, found objects, and printmaking processes, as a sort of retrospective to the present. Some pieces cover the theme of "Transformation" depicting a partly human and raven (bird) emergence, "When Raven becomes a Man." Connected to mythology or folklore, this story is along the lines of "Trickster" and "Deer Woman" from Native American cultural storytelling. His "Spirituality" works promote the human behavior of prayer in life and death. The belief in something greater (Creator) or what lies in the afterlife in the spiritual realms. Kemp believes “Indigenous peoples' dispositions have always advocated for ‘Humor’ as a way of healing, fostering good living, and/or state of mind. Particularly, with a history of difficult hurdles to overcome while continuing to change narratives of competing perspectives.” These works explore the different art disciplines from painting to printmaking to capture the strength of the message.

Also on display in Amerind’s Art Gallery is “Raíces (Roots),” a collaborative exhibition with the Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery & Workshop. Sixteen artists from Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery & Workshop have combined their talent and vision for this visually stunning exhibition. In this deeply personal show, the artists were asked to contribute artworks inspired by their roots. The exhibit they have created is grounded in family and community. Raíces Taller, a nonprofit arts organization headquartered in Tucson, brings together established and emerging artists with deep roots in southern Arizona. For over twenty-five years, their organization has brought together very diverse people from our community to help to create a better understanding of our community’s cultures and customs through the arts.

Not to be missed in Amerind's Main Gallery is “American Art Form: A Century of Zuni and Navajo Jewelry.” The Amerind Museum is the proud home of one of the largest and best documented Zuni and Navajo jewelry collections in the world. A donation from one remarkable family, the collection includes thousands upon thousands of jewelry pieces made by artisans and masters from the late 19th through 20th century. Amerind’s exhibit “American Art Form: A Century of Zuni and Navajo Jewelry” debuts a small fraction of this amazing collection for the public to see. Collected over three generations, the donating family had a personal relationship with many of these artisans. The jewelers represented in this collection pioneered a uniquely American art form that thrust Indigenous design and vision onto a global stage. Learn about this art form and its history.

Participation in Museum Day is open to any tax-exempt or governmental museum or cultural venue on a voluntary basis. Smithsonian magazine encourages museum visitation, but is not responsible for and does not endorse the content of the participating museums and cultural venues, and does not subsidize museums that participate.