Brooklyn Museum Collection

By exchange

Gift of the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Inc.

Gift of the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Inc.

Mask with fangs and inlaid eyes. Mask has a humanoid face, raised vertical ridge in centre of forehead, eyes of white and black inlay, white fangs and two ear-like protrusions on top of head. Ears are elongated with holes for ear plugs. Mask carved from wood with incised line detailing and inlays.

Native American artists Marcellus and Elizabeth Toya Medina and Kevin Pourier create works inspired by both old and new art forms. The painted designs on the water jar of classic Pueblo shape combine traditional masked Kachinas in static poses with naturalistic, muscled, male Pueblo dancers who seem to burst off the vessel’s surface. The inlaid buffalo-horn spoon, a traditional Plains implement, is given a contemporary twist in Pourier’s homage to M. C. Escher’s hypnotic prints.

Museum Expedition 1905, Museum Collection Fund

Decorative version of a kobyz stringed instrument, with two fibre strings, and two decorative removable wooden pegs (parts c-d). Part b is a wooden base with screws for displaying the instrument.