We Were Lost in Our Country will be temporarily closed Feb. 4 – Feb. 7 as part of the Museum’s expansion efforts.

Picasso In Clay

Vivienne Hall, Owner and Director of Squire Fine Arts in Los Gatos, California discusses the exhibition Picasso in Clay and shares insight on the shaping of the Robert Felton and Lindsay Wallis Collection.  

This program will be hosted in person as well as streamed live on Zoom. 

Lessons from Picasso’s Ceramics

Dr. Brett M. Van Hoesen, Associate Professor and Area Head of Art History at the University of Nevada, Reno, explores three key lessons in conjunction with Picasso’s ceramics: the importance of playfulness, the necessity for experimentation, and the culture of collaboration.

Program support and free program registration for students from the Core Humanities Program at the University of Nevada, Reno.

A Community Forum: Reckoning with Nevada’s Boarding School Past

NOTE: Pre-sale in-person tickets have sold out. Please join us virtually.

CLICK TO JOIN VIRTUALY: 
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81956495207?pwd=RFBEYmFhNWE0M3lUV3RZaTdnMUlsQT09
PASSCODE: 975563 

Beginning in 1890, thousands of American Indian children were sent to Stewart Indian Boarding School in Carson City, Nevada as part of the U.S. government’s policy of forced assimilation. This community forum provides an opportunity to learn about and discuss this history and the traumatic legacy that remains. Participants include Stacey Montooth, Executive Director of the Nevada Indian Commission;  Dr. Debra Harry, Associate Professor in the Department of Gender, Race, and Identity, University of Nevada, Reno; and the debut of Jean LaMarr’s performance, They Danced, They Sang, Until the Matron Came. 

This program is a hybrid presentation. 

Co-presented by Stewart Indian School Cultural Center & Museum, Carson City, Nevada 

For questions about registration, please email claire.munoz@nevadaart.org

Suzan Shown Harjo on Indigenous Rights, Arts and Activism (Hybrid)

Suzan Shown Harjo has worked for decades to shape a national Native American policy agenda that addresses issues at the core of Indigenous identity: sacred places protection and repatriation, religious freedom, treaty and inherent sovereign rights, mascot eradication, and language revitalization. Join together in the Museum’s theater, as Harjo speaks virtually from Washington, D.C. to discuss past and ongoing issues surrounding artists’ rights, women’s rights, and Native rights. Dr. Debra Harry, Associate Professor in the Department of Gender, Race, and Identity, University of Nevada, Reno, will moderate a conversation and Q&A following the presentation.

For those joining in-person, a light reception to follow program.

For those joining virtually, please click the link to join us virtually:

 
Passcode: 307878

Suzan Shown Harjo, a Cheyenne citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, born in her Treaty territory in El Reno, OK, also is Hotvlkvlke Mvskokvlke of Nuyakv Ground, raised on Muscogee Nation Reservation allotted farmland. A writer, curator, and policy advocate, she has developed landmark laws and led campaigns for Indigenous Peoples’ inherent sovereignty and human rights, protecting cultural, historic, and sacred places and recovering over one million acres of land. A Founding Trustee of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, she and others envisioned it in 1967 and achieved its 1989 enabling act with its historic repatriation provision, and she conceived, curated, researched, and edited its “Nation to Nation” Treaties book (2014) and exhibition (2014-2025). She also was Curator of the first Native contemporary art exhibit ever shown in the U.S. House & Senate Rotundas (1992). An award-winning Columnist and a School of Advanced Research Poetry Fellow and Summer Scholar, her policy and creative writings are widely published. Recipient of a 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom, she has helped reshape society with her leadership and successes toward ending “Indian” slurs and appropriations from sports, geographic locations, and popular culture, and with her persistent work protecting Native ancestors, arts, cultures, lands, languages, religious freedom, and waters.

Rose B. Simpson on Transformance: Film Screening and Dialogue (Virtual)

JOIN US ON ZOOM

As part of the fall 2021 Art + Environment Season, mixed-media artist Rose B. Simpson presented Transformance, a public performance developed in collaboration with members of the Southern Paiute (Nuwu) community. Join us for the premiere viewing of Transformance, a short film documenting Simpson’s residency at Nuwu Art + Activism Studios as well as the live performance. Simpson will be in dialogue with collaborator and artist, Fawn Douglas and filmmaker, Ben-Alex Dupris. 

The Transformance was realized with generous support from VIA Art Fund.

This is a virtual program hosted on Zoom. Pre-registration required.

Book Launch: “On the Trail of the Jackalope” with author Michael Branch

Join us for a book launch with celebrated author, Michael Branch for the release of his new book, On the Trail of the Jackalope. Discover the never-before-told story of the horned rabbit—the myths, the hoaxes, the very real scientific breakthrough it inspired—and how it became a cultural touchstone of the American West.  

Doors open at 5 pm for book sales and hosted beer. Book signing to follow.  

Michael Branch is University Foundation Professor of English at UNR. His nine books include three works of humorous creative nonfiction inspired by the Great Basin Desert: Raising Wild (2016), Rants from the Hill (2017), and How to Cuss in Western (2018). Mike has published more than 300 essays and reviews, including pieces recognized as Notable Essays in The Best American Essays, The Best Creative Nonfiction, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and the humor collection The Best American Non-required Reading. He is the recipient of Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award, the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Silver Pen Award, the Western Literature Association Frederick Manfred Award for Creative Writing, and the Montana Prize for Humor.

An Evening of Black Springs Stories (Virtual)

Join Nevada Humanities and Our Story Inc. for An Introduction to Black Springs, a conversation about the history of Black Springs, Nevada, a neighborhood located in the North Valleys, approximately six miles from downtown Reno.

The conversation will be moderated by Angie Taylor, President and Chief Executive Officer for Guardian Quest, Inc., and the event will feature past and present residents and community supporters of Black Springs, including Helen Townsell-Parker and Demetrice Dalton, with an overview of some ongoing collaborative projects to document and promote the neighborhood’s history from historian Alicia Barber. We will discuss the development and growth of this area from the 1940s to today, including the struggle and fight for basic infrastructure for the residents of Black Springs. Additionally, the story will be shared of how Black families purchased homes in Black Springs against seemingly insurmountable odds, including a lack of electricity, water, sewers, and paved roads, and began to build a lasting community.

This is a FREE program.

This program will be hosted live online via zoom. Click here to join this program for free. 

Image Credit: Nevada Black History Project, UNRS-P1977-56-0782, Special Collections and University Archives Department, University of Nevada, Reno. 

(Virtual) Art as Cultural Communication and the Intersections of Contemporary Native Life

Susan Lobo is a cultural anthropologist specializing in research and community-based advocacy work in urban and rural Native communities in the United States and Latin America. She has taught at the University of California, Berkeley where she was the coordinator of the Center for Latin American Studies, at U.C. Davis, and at the University of Arizona. Between 1978-1995 she was the coordinator of the Community History Project, located at Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland where she and artist Jean LaMarr first became friends. More recently she has worked for Tohono O’odham Community Action. Her publications include The Sweet Smell of Home: The Life and Art of Leonard F. Chana, the textbook Native American Voices, editor of American Indians and the Urban Experience and Organización Social, Patrones de Residencia e Idetidad en Comunidades Indígenas Urbanas en Estados Unidos. She currently lives in Tucson, Arizona and Tacuarembó, Uruguay. 

Join us for a conversation as Lobo explores art as cultural communication and the intersections of contemporary Native life, while also exploring the work of Jean LaMarr.

NOTE: This program is hosted virtually on Zoom. 

Protecting Nevada’s Dark Skies

Join wilderness historian Kirk Peterson from Friends of Nevada Wilderness for a talk that explores some of the most spectacular night skies in the world. Offered in conjunction with The Moon’s Tear: A Desert Night’s Dream Paintings by Sophie Sheppard.

Apsara DiQuinzio on New Time: Art and Feminism in the 20th Century

Apsara DiQuinzio, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art discusses the exhibition New Time: Art and Feminism in the 20th Century. Organized and on view at the Berkeley Art Museum, New Time presents a kaleidoscopic view of contemporary feminist artistic practices of the last 20 years. This landmark exhibition is international, intergenerational, and gender-inclusive in its scope, highlighting a diverse roster of emerging and established artists who have shaped the trajectory of contemporary art. 

Apsara DiQuinzio joined the Nevada Museum of Art in November 2021 as the new Senior Curator of Contemporary Art.

This talk will be hosted virtually via Zoom.