Art 'intervention' counters misrepresentation of Native Americans in Marquette Building murals

Loop workers on their lunch breaks will now confront a compelling message as they dart down the corridor from the Marquette Building to Sterling Food Hall: “You Are on Potawatomi Land.”

The words are splashed on walls that also feature murals of bright skies and shores. Elsewhere in the space, graphite pencil portraits of historic indigenous leaders are juxtaposed with colorful photographs of contemporary Native people. Curved display structures offer tidbits of history, as well as maps of Native lands, villages and trails.

It is all part of a new exhibition, “Nwi Yathmomen, We Will Tell Our Story,” commissioned by the MacArthur Foundation. Designed as an “intervention,” the show counters the inaccurate and stereotypical representation of Native Americans in the architectural design elements of the historic Marquette Building. The artwork highlights the past, current and future presence of the Potawatomi in Chicago.

The exhibition was curated by Ohio State University professor John Low, who is an enrolled citizen of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, and artist Andrea Carlson, who is of Ojibwe heritage. It features art from Chicago artist Chris Pappan, who is of Kaw, Osage and Cheyenne River Sioux heritage, and photographs by Ho-Chunk artist Tom Jones, of Wisconsin.

Carlson said the show is a celebration of Native people, particularly the Potawatomi, who were early inhabitants of the land now known as Chicago.

“It demonstrates that we're living, surviving people today,” said Carlson, 45, who lived in Chicago for some time before moving back to Minnesota. “I hope the real takeaway is that we're here, we're present, we're thriving. We just need to be seen. We need those good images of us.”

The lobby of the Marquette Building features Louis Comfort Tiffany glass mosaics depicting Native Americans with French missionary Jacques Marquette and French-Canadian explorer Louis Joliet. However, the indigenous people are portrayed to look like Plains Indians instead of the Peoria Tribal members that the explorers would have encountered in the scene shown in the murals, according to historians. The art also perpetuates the false narrative of benevolent white men civilizing Native people, Carlson said. The lobby and mezzanine level also contain bronze bas-reliefs that misrepresent Native leaders.

“I think the Native community is kind of used to seeing these harmful projections onto Native lives and our histories,” she said. “What the lobby is selling is that settler nonsense that everything was fine.”

As the owner of the Marquette Building, a historic landmark, the MacArthur Foundation decided to take action four years ago. The organization sought out Native partners to help determine next steps.

“From our conversations with people in the community, we heard that the stereotyping images were causing harm,” said MacArthur Foundation staffer Jamie Waters, who is the co-chair of the exhibition working group. “And so we wanted to do something to address it.”

The curators’ vision was brought to life in part by Seven Generations AE, a Michigan-based design firm owned by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi.

Given the importance of the circle in Native culture, the design team incorporated curved edges in the structures. Instead of viewing the permanent column in the hallway as a nuisance, the team made it a central design element: Each of the show’s themes — time, power, land and recollection — are printed on the surface and oriented to cardinal directions. The rest of the exhibition is organized in a circle around the column.

This layout allows people to experience the exhibition in a nonlinear fashion, absorbing the art and text in bits and pieces from many entry points over several visits.

The curves of the vitrine holding the photographs and drawings pay homage to wigwams and other indigenous architecture. The vibrant colors and birch wood in the exhibition were incorporated to bring life into the space, according to the team.

The exhibition also features text in Potawatomi language, as well as a land acknowledgment.

Chris Pappan's portraits showcase more accurate interpretations of the Native people depicted by the bas reliefs, as well as other Native figures who played a significant role in Chicago.

“By reappropriating the Euro-American, colonial gaze, these leaders can now be regarded as activists and thinkers; as parents and grandparents," wrote Pappan, 53, of Albany Park, in his artist statement. "The opportunity to provide an indigenous perspective in this context is certainly long overdue, but I am grateful to have the chance to reinforce the delicate humanity of these ancestors, to bring dignity to these leaders that had to make agonizing decisions and profound sacrifices for our existence.”

In addition to curating, Carlson also created the exhibition's colorful murals.

She, along with Pappan, his wife, Debra Yepa-Pappan, and Monica Rickert-Bolter, founded the Center for Native Futures art gallery, also in the Marquette Building. (Yepa-Pappan also served as an adviser on the intervention exhibition.)

Although Center for Native Futures is not affiliated with the new exhibition, Carlson said its presence in the Marquette Building is also significant.

"So much of what Natives do is based on verbs and action," she said. "We're not objects. We're not the Indian in the cupboard. We're not put on the shelves. We have agency in this space."