Word: tlingit
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...bird is a Tlingit Indian totem pole--a striking introduction to the museum's current exhibition of American Indian and Eskimo art. This exhibit, which the museum calls "the most important exhibition of Native Alaskan art ever assembled" finally brings ethnic art into the main exhibition halls of a great art museum, a place which, by its quality, it has long deserved...
THAT ELEMENT is the presence of the white man. Nineteenth century pioneers weren't attracted to the Aleutian islands, but the Alaskan gold rush made the land of the Indian tribes into a white-man's thoroughfare. The Tlingit and Athabaskan art comes to have European influences that disturb the fusion of beauty and purpose that makes the art of the Eskimos so moving...
...Tlingit art was infiltrated by white gold-seekers. That glaring Thunderbird and his ilk must have scared a good number of interloping foreigners back to safety and Seattle. But that glorious beast has been toned down enough by the 19th century classicism of the MFA rotunda to loose this power. On the whole, it's a good thing. People should not be scared away from this show...
...contention," Feder declares, "is that anyone can appreciate Indian art, regardless of his knowledge, background or previous experience." Perhaps-but in a strictly limited way. Few people could encounter the carved ceremonial masks of the Northwest Coast Indians, the Tlingit. Kwakiutl or Tsimshian, with their exquisite shell-inlay work and flowing, knife-blade forms that so inexplicably resemble archaic Chinese bronze decoration, without feeling some instant response to the vitality of their stylistic language. Through their art runs a supreme capacity to make sensation concrete: what European artist, for instance, could develop a more concise epigram of a grizzly bear...
...painted geodesic dome meant to symbolize a nugget, or else pan gold themselves, sourdough-fashion, in chutes from the Chena River; sip cocktails in the "Wheelhouse," a VIP lounge on the superstructure of the old Alaskan stern-wheeler Nenana; view an aboriginal village with Eskimo kayak rides and a Tlingit totem-pole carver at work; or ogle the cancan dancers from an authentic gold-rush...