The Princeton University Art Museum is presenting “Gifts from the Ancestors: Ancient Ivories of Bering Strait,” a major exhibition that brings to light the artistry and life practices of the hunters who worked across two millennia in what are now the American and Russian sides of Bering Strait. On view through January 10, the exhibiti explores a little-known aspect of the art of the ancient Americas, and represents a groundbreaking partnership between one of the world’s great research universities and the Native peoples of the Bering Strait region.
“Gifts from the Ancestors” features nearly 200 of the finest works of walrus ivory carving drawn from the museum’s own holdings along with loans from more than 20 public and private collections around the globe. Included are rare examples from recent Russian excavations at Ekven, Chukotka, which are being exhibited for the first time in North America.
In addition, works by award-winning contemporary artist and St Lawrence Islander Susie Silook and master carvers Sergei Tegryl’kut and Mikhail Leyviteu from Chukotka, Russia, present a bridge between past and present and reveal how today’s ivory artists continue to be inspired by ancient forms and motifs.
The appearance of small, exquisitely carved ivories in the Bering Strait region marks an extraordinary florescence in the art and culture of North America. The discovery in the 1930s and 1940s of superb carvings of animals, mythical beasts, shape-shifting creatures, masks and human figurines astounded scholars and excited collectors. Nevertheless, the remarkable objects that belong to this fascinating, sometimes frightening, world of hunting-related art remain largely unknown.
Archaeologists have spent nearly a century examining artifacts excavated from frozen sites and cemeteries along the shores of the Chukchi and Bering Seas, to reveal the stories surrounding these ancient peoples and the unique art forms they created. These artifacts, which include hunting implements, tools, ornaments, ritual objects and figures in human and animal form, have traveled varied routes from past to present, and in so doing have acquired a multitude of meanings and purposes.
The exhibition explores the historical, cultural and archaeological significance of the ivories as well as the more recent social issues surrounding these objects from myriad perspectives, including those of indigenous communities, Native artists, archaeologists, museums and participants in the art market.
“Gifts from the Ancestors” is accompanied by a fully illustrated 320-page catalog, published by the Princeton University Art Museum and distributed by Yale University Press.
In conjunction with “Gifts from the Ancestors,” an exhibition of works by contemporary Alaskan Native artists, “Dry Ice: Alaska Native Artists and the Landscape,” will be on view through November 21, at the Arts Council of Princeton. For information, www.artscouncilofprinceton.org .
For additional information, artmuseum.princeton.edu or 609-258-3788.
