The symposium Seizing the Sky: Redefining American Art commemorates the opening of the major retrospective Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist, on view at the National Museum of the American Indian through September 18, 2016. In celebrating the work of Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee), the symposium and exhibition offer a fresh perspective on American art. In this segment, NMAI director Kevin Gover gives a welcome and introduction to the symposium. Kathleen Ash-Milby, co-curator of the exhibition, is moderator for the first session of presenters.
Kathleen Ash-Milby is an associate curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York. A member of the Navajo Nation, she earned her MA in Native American art history from the University of New Mexico. She has organized numerous contemporary art exhibitions, including C. Maxx Stevens: House of Memory (2012) and Off the Map: Landscape in the Native Imagination (2007). She was the co-curator, with Truman Lowe, for Edgar Heap of Birds: Most Serene Republics, a public art installation and collateral project for the 52nd International Art Exhibition/Venice Biennale (2007). Ash-Milby received the 2011 Secretary of the Smithsonian’s Excellence in Research Award for her exhibition catalogue HIDE: Skin as Material and Metaphor (2010). She served on the boards of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective (2007-12), and the American Indian Community House, New York (2005-7), and was the president of the Native American Art Studies Association (2011-15). Ash-Milby was the curator and co-director of the American Indian Community House Gallery from 2000 to 2005.
Kevin Gover (Pawnee) is the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and a former professor of law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University (ASU). He served on the faculty of the university’s Indian Legal Program and was coexecutive director of ASU’s American Indian Policy Institute. Before joining the university faculty, Gover served as assistant secretary for Indian Affairs in the U.S. Department of the Interior from 1997 to 2000. A presidential appointee, he was responsible for policy and operational oversight of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where he oversaw programs in Indian education, law enforcement, social services, treaty rights, and trust asset management.
The symposium was webcast live and recorded at the Rasmuson Theater of the National Museum of the American Indian on November 5, 2015.
