The dream of the axe: Xakriabá traditional pottery and the art gallery

Abstract

Indigenous artists have been increasingly demanded by museums and art galleries, breaking a centuries-old institutional siege that placed indigenous people as object of art. We understand, however, that the philosophical foundations that support the cultural tradition of curatorships and exhibition proposals do not provide adequate tools to access the various layers of an artistic work formulated in indigenous contexts. We therefore intend to focus on three exhibitions in which the ceramicist Nei Xakriabá took part, based on three analytical devices: the dream, the repossession and the hunt. All of them were created in indigenous contexts and by indigenous people. We concluded that to penetrate indigenous universes, it is not enough to include works by indigenous artists in ordinary exhibitions. It is necessary to design exhibition projects with or built by indigenous people.