A Rochester art historian on the proliferation of indigenous fakes and replicas鈥攁nd the blurry line between appropriation and admiration.
knows a thing or two about fakes. For starters, they can be hard to spot.
鈥淢any things would fool me. I can鈥檛 be an expert on the art works of scores of Native nations,鈥� admits Berlo, a professor emerita in the at the . But a Northwest Coast Native mask made in Indonesia?聽鈥淲ell, that鈥檚 relatively easy.鈥�
As the commercial value of Native American art has increased dramatically over the last decades, so has .
At one point, a top international auction house approached Berlo, an expert on Native American art and visual culture, for her opinion on a notebook of complex 19th-century Native American pencil drawings. There was just one small problem.
Berlo knew it was a fake. She was also convinced that the late Mexican caricaturist, Miguel Covarrubias, in whose estate the notebook was discovered, had never meant for it to be sold as authentic but had merely entertained himself by making his own version of Native art.
An 鈥渁ccidental fake,鈥� as Berlo calls it.
The auction house Sotheby鈥檚, meanwhile, thanked her politely and then contacted other experts. Curators at the Smithsonian Institution agreed with Berlo鈥檚 assessment. Eventually some non-academic, a known collector, spun a whole fantasy around the notebook. And up it went for auction as the real McCoy.
鈥淎nybody in art history who deals with major auction houses gets disillusioned very quickly,鈥� Berlo says.
Of course, forgery and mimicry aren鈥檛 new phenomena. Renaissance artists classical originals. Take for example Sandro Botticelli鈥檚 famous , in which the goddess covers her nakedness with her hands. That particular pose鈥攃ribbed from classical sources鈥攚as so widely copied in the Renaissance that it had its own name, 鈥淰enus pudica.鈥�
Following decades of research and interviews with curators, collectors, restorers, Native artists, and replica makers, Berlo has traced the historical and social contexts of forgeries, imitations, replications, and appropriations by both Native and non-Native makers. The result is her newest book, (University of Washington Press, 2023).
What is 鈥榬eal鈥� Native American art?
鈥淎n excellent question,鈥� says Berlo with a sigh. Recently, the FBI called to ask if she could lead a Zoom conference for a group of special agents. She told them they鈥檇 be disappointed.
Those hoping for hard-and-fast rules won鈥檛 get them from Berlo, who says she鈥檚 not interested in being able to declare authoritatively, 鈥淭his is how you tell which one is fake. And, no, real moosehide doesn鈥檛 feel like this.鈥� Instead, she鈥檚 digging into the bigger cultural issues.
Her book is an invitation to ponder the tangled history of Native art. Thoughtful and nuanced in her writing, Berlo seeks answers in the gray areas, acknowledging that what constitutes 鈥済enuine鈥� versus 鈥渇ake鈥� when it comes to Native American identity and Native objects is often not clearcut.
Honored by the Native American Art Studies Association in 2023 with its , Berlo says she tried to show that 鈥渟omething that seems very simple, is in reality complex and complicated, not something to make a snap judgment about.鈥�
After a more than in art history, she wrote her latest book also in the hopes that younger generations of scholars won鈥檛 rush to immediate judgment and condemn automatically 鈥渁s cultural appropriation鈥� when non-Native people are involved in creating Native-style art.
The paradox of 鈥榓uthentic replicas鈥�
Replica-making by non-Natives, Berlo points out, can entail painstaking training with Native crafts people, researching tribal histories, becoming expert in various techniques, and attempting to ensure the preservation of knowledge and traditions.
She tells the story of , non-Natives who make 鈥渁uthentic replicas鈥� from scratch. The Arizona couple has experimented with various aspects of making so-called Mimbres pottery鈥攕pecifically, the pre-historic ceramic clay bowls featuring decorations of geometric patterns and natural life that were produced by the indigenous peoples of the in New Mexico about a thousand years ago.
Every aspect of the couple鈥檚 craft conforms as closely as possible to ancient Mimbres-making practice, Berlo observed颅鈥攆rom finding the right white clay, to firing bowls in open pits, to assessing the advantages of oak over cottonwood as fuel. Their experimentations, instructions, and results of nearly 40 years of reproducing Native pottery are carefully recorded in photos and notes that the couple intends to donate to the Arizona State Museum.
That begs the question鈥攊s Native art automatically a forgery if it鈥檚 made by a non-Native artist, even if it conforms to all the original procedures? Is careful reproduction a kind of illegitimate appropriation? Opinions differ widely, often depending on age.
鈥淔or many of my colleagues under 40, it鈥檚 cut and dry: You鈥檙e either Native or non-Native. It鈥檚 either right or it鈥檚 wrong,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut life is not that simple.鈥�
And then there鈥檚 the issue of Native artists鈥� making replicas themselves. Is that considered forgery, too?
Take, for instance, the example of the Seneca people of western New York who during the Great Depression, under the auspices of the 1935 , a government employment and infrastructure program created by President Franklin Roosevelt.
鈥淭he impetus may be principally economic, and arise from outside the community,鈥� Berlo writes, acknowledging that 鈥渁esthetic pride in the work of ancestors is not incompatible with a desire to earn a living through one鈥檚 art.鈥�
Of course, borrowing ideas and using techniques from other cultures is nothing new. 鈥淚f people only knew history, says the pedantic scholar in me, they would see that these actions are so old, and happen all around the world,鈥� says Berlo, who has authored, coauthored, and coedited a dozen books, including four textbooks and a memoir, (Bison Books, 2001). Hardly anybody would argue colonialism didn鈥檛 involve stealing and usurping. 鈥淚鈥檓 not saying, 鈥極h, that鈥檚 good.鈥� But it鈥檚 always been that way,鈥� she notes.
Native American arts have long been enlivened by outside influences and additions. 鈥淓veryone thinks of beadwork, when they think of Native American art,鈥� she says. But beads were introduced from Venice more than 200 years ago. 鈥淣o one would say that beads are now not 鈥榯raditional鈥� in Native art.鈥�
The spectrum from admiration to appropriation
While cultural sensitivities have evolved over the last two decades, leading to greater awareness of cultural appropriation or misappropriation (such as reducing Native culture to a Halloween costume or party theme), gray areas nonetheless persist.
Tracing the long history of non-Natives 鈥減laying Indian鈥� and replicating Native American art comes with a whole host of underlying motivations, many of which have no harmful intentions but, rather, are signs of admiration, Berlo contends. Often the answer lies in the eye of the beholder.
鈥淭he long-standing Anglo-American desire to recall and embody a mythic Native past is a troubling one, rooted in a deeply violent and racist past, as anyone with a cursory knowledge of American history recognizes,鈥� Berlo writes in her chapter 鈥淐ultural Cross-Dressers: A Long History of Imitating Indians.鈥� Describing her visits to non-Native groups who engage in various reenactments of either fictional or historic Native events, Berlo discovered that while some of the participants 鈥渄id have romanticized ideas,鈥� many more demonstrated 鈥渟o much knowledge and respect.鈥�
The role-playing phenomenon is not limited to America. Germans, Berlo notes, love imitating a romanticized version of Native Americans, a tradition that predates even the (often inaccurate) adventure tales of widely read German author Karl May (1842鈥�1912). According to Berlo, many Germans have been fascinated by North American Indians since the first translation of James Fenimore Cooper鈥檚 Leatherstocking Tales nearly 200 years ago. Today, one would be hard-pressed to find a German who doesn鈥檛 know the and his white 鈥渂lood brother鈥� Old Shatterhand, May鈥檚 most famous fictional characters.
Since the early 1990s, the German town of Radebeul (May鈥檚 last residence) has hosted an annual outdoor festival during which locals, dressed in pseudo-Native garb, participate as extras in the reenactments of the author鈥檚 famous stories. An even larger, live outdoor drama, the in Bad Segeberg, has been running 鈥淚ndian鈥� theater performances every summer for the past 70 years.
Lakota artist and scholar Arthur Amiotte, one of Berlo鈥檚 friends and past coauthors, has worked as a consultant for the Karl May Museum. 鈥淗e鈥檚 very relaxed about all of this,鈥� Berlo says.
At one point, her research took an unexpected turn.
In coastal British Columbia, Canada, Berlo met a Native American who admitted to buying 鈥淚ndian鈥� , used by his family for ceremonial dances, from 鈥渁 white guy.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 a cosmopolitan world,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no one-size-fits-all if you really take seriously the fact that Native cultures have interacted with so many forces in culture and history over the past 500 years.鈥�
In April 2024, Confluences: A Celebration of Janet Berlo was held at Rochester to recognize Berlo鈥檚 contributions to the discipline. for essays, reflections, and audio from the event.聽
