Inside The Barnes Foundation's New Exhibit 'Water, Wind, Breath: Southwest Native Art In Community'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - From mesmerizing metals to colorful textiles and hand-hugged pottery, this weekend marks the beginning of how you can explore the traditions of Southwest Native art at the Barnes Museum. So dive in, take a deep inhale, and enter their newest exhibit "Water, Wind, Breath."
"This exhibition tells the story of Dr. Albert Barnes' trips to the Southwest - New Mexico and Arizona in 1929, 1930, and 1931," said Co-Curator Lucy Fowler Williams. "He eagerly attended Pueblo dances and he just experienced the community. This is just another window into Dr. Barnes. What was inspiring to him was to see how Navajo and Pueblo people were living with this art in their day-to-day."
"Many of the pieces in the Barnes collection were the first to ever be used in households. They were used in communities for different reasons, and that shows that transformation from things being used largely in communities and things being made or sale," said Co-Curator Tony Chavarria
There are 100 pieces that each hold a story.
"Textiles that you're seeing that are very bright are Navajo. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, the Navajos received commercially made yards from this area - from Germantown, Pennsylvania," said Fowler Williams.
If you look closely enough, the message just may move you.
"The pieces over here are from the Zuni Pueblo, they show this idea of a transformation - that light is basically possible through water," said Chavarria
The exhibit runs from Feb. 20 through May 15. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.