THE BACK

NATIVE PROSPECTS: INDIGENEITY AND LANDSCAPE PAINTING Farnsworth Art Museum Rockland, Maine March 8–July 6, 2025 The visual representation of land is rarely neutral, but saturated with identity, colonialism, and conflicting histories. The exhibition Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape Painting juxtaposes Native American historic objects, designs, and artworks alongside American artists working in the European visual tradition, including Thomas Cole and Frederic Church. The contemporary artist Truman Lowe of the Ho-Chunk Nation, whose wood and metal sculpture Waterfall VIII (2011) is pictured here, approaches the landscape with a dual knowledge of Indigenous and Western traditions. Lowe’s sculpture considers the role of the waterfall within both histories, drawing from his childhood memories of searching for black ash trees from which splints in traditional basketry are made. The familiar waterfall is transformed with…