Reinstalled Indigenous Art Galleries Offer a Welcome Shift in Perspective

The word “reinstallation” may not sound as exciting as a summer blockbuster or special touring exhibit, but it’s where museums do some of their most substantial work. Rethinking the presentation of a permanent collection determines not only the story those objects tell, but what the museum is as an institution.

So I’m happy to report the de Young Museum’s gone ethical for the reinstallation of their Native American galleries. Art of questionable provenance is out; contemporary art lent or commissioned directly from the artists is in. The paint’s fresh and the galleries are uncluttered. It’s a pleasure to linger.

A new walled entrance from the Wilsey Court announces the renamed Arts of Indigenous America while shielding the gallery from view. The first gallery, “Rooted in Place: California Native Art,” presents rotating exhibitions of artwork from various regions of the state with many contemporary pieces. One gallery dedicated to Maya art and another to mural fragments from Teotihuacan represent Central America. A large fourth gallery includes objects made by Indigenous artists from across the colonial national boundaries of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. A particularly arresting large Tlingit Thunderbird Screen from 1907 is found here.

Every object has a well-researched explanatory label — something too often missing in ‘non-Western’ galleries — and each text has a named author. The explanatory materials and reimagined galleries themselves are the product not only of Hillary C. Olcott, the de Young’s permanent Arts of the Americas curator, but a team of four Indigenous co-curators.

The result is a plurality of perspectives, nearly all Native. “Breaking down that institutional voice of authority,” Olcott tells KQED, “helps make this a more respectful and multivocal exhibition.”

Museums remain one of the most trusted institutions in the U.S. according to a 2021 study by the American Alliance of Museums. So it’s no small thing to admit, as Olcott puts it, that all exhibitions are “done by people.” The acknowledgement that information arrives from a perspective could strike some as destabilizing, but it’s a strong corrective to a history of museums presenting erroneous material about Native people without their input or consent.

Revised regulations under the Biden administration to the landmark 1990 NAGPRA (Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act) require institutions to consult with communities of origin for any item to be placed on view. Historically, many sacred items and other culturally sensitive objects have been displayed against the wishes of their communities of origin. Olcott sees the legal requirements as an “acknowledgement of the responsibility that has always been there.”

A Terra Foundation for American Art grant paid for the work of Joseph Aguilar (San Ildefonso Pueblo), Meyokeeskow Marrufo (Robinson Rancheria/Eastern Pomo), Will Riding In (Pawnee/Santa Ana Pueblo) and Sherrie Smith-Ferri (Dry Creek Pomo/Bodega Miwok) on the curatorial team, and for an advisory group of six, of whom four are Native.

Co-curator Aguilar, a scholar of Indigenous archaeology, credited Olcott’s inclusive approach with fundamentally changing museum spaces. He recalls visiting museum exhibits about his San Ildefonso Pueblo community as a child and feeling like “I had no control over how I’m being represented.”

Now, “we’re going to tell the stories,” says Aguilar. “That’s a total reverse from those feelings I had as a younger person going into museums.” As for working at the de Young, he says, “I felt pretty liberated in a space that probably has not felt very liberating for Native peoples in a very long time.”

Including Native voices in curation brings the de Young in line with what has rapidly become accepted as good practice among museums. The Metropolitan Art Museum in New York has included author-attributed “Native Perspective” labels alongside unnamed institutional labels since 2018.

“On the one hand you want to applaud institutions who employ this model,” Aguilar tells KQED. “But on the other hand, you’re like, I’m not going to pat you on the back too hard because you should have been doing this for a much longer time.”

Frankly, the changes are a relief. Walking through galleries without worrying you’re going to run into an object displayed without consent is an all-too-rare experience with Native American art. The reinstallation is so much better, I couldn’t help but want more: maps to underscore the curation’s point that place matters; another gallery so visitors can see more items from the museum’s ample collection and not be required to pass through a contemporary glass gallery disorientingly sandwiched between the Native American exhibition; permanent funding for Native curators.

Co-curator Marrufo, who is also an artist, now refers to the galleries as “our space,” noting with pride the addition of a desert sagebrush green wall paint to the gallery that holds Southwestern art and goldenrod yellow in the California gallery to match Wiyot land in Humboldt County — an idea originating from the curatorial group.

The heavy representation of contemporary art realizes Marrufo’s vision “to make sure when visitors come in, that they understand that we’re alive and vibrant — and that we’re still here.” That’s clear in the happy coincidence of the Rose B. Simpson exhibition in the Wilsey Court. A lowrider titled Maria, after the San Idlefonso Pueblo ceramicist Maria Martinez, pays homage to her famous black-on-black glazes, an example of which can be found in the reinstalled galleries.

According to Aguilar, “The work at the de Young is a huge success.”

‘Arts of Indigenous America’ is on view through Aug. 31, 2028 at the de Young Museum (50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr., San Francisco). The public is invited to an opening celebration on Sept. 13, 2025 with free admission for all.