MIDLAND, Texas — West Texas might know a great deal of cowboys and Native Americans, and here at the Museum of the Southwest, they always have a new exhibit that you might've never seen before.
This exhibit, that’s running until December, definitely fits that bill--- even if you at least know the name of one of the artists.
The new exhibition is called "Warhol and Scholder: Cowboys and Indians".
Andy Warhol, an icon of the pop art movement, might sound familiar to the common ear, but Fritz Scholder is an artist you might not know about.
"Fritz Scholder, who's fairly well known in the southwestern region, but less so on a national or international scale, [...] was a painter and a printmaker best known for reimagining the way the American Indian was presented in the arts," Museum Curator Matthew Ward said. "Scholder himself was one quarter Luiseno American Indian, and he taught at IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts) in Santa Fe in the 1970s. It was during that period of time that he realized that somebody had to re-envision the way the Native American was being presented visually, because a cliché had developed around the figure of the American Indian one that he wanted to challenge."
So why are these two artists in the same exhibit?
"What we have in this exhibition is a conversation between two artists, Scholder and Warhol, around the idea of the American West," Ward said. "Both of them utilize icons from this mythology of the West, in turn, affirming a national narrative of what the frontier is, and also questioning it, critiquing it and complicating it. I think some artists when you put them together, their work just has a good conversation that we can sort of stand back and listen to and be a part of, and I think these two artists do that."
And the connection between the two far exceeds the collaboration they’re having in 2023 Midland.
"Andy Warhol actually painted Scholder’s portrait, did silk screens of Fritz Scholder in the late 1970s, which is when they met for the first time," Ward said. "But the real significant part of their relationship is in their work, and how their work relates to collective ideas of what America is and how it formed."
The two did this through a number of subjects, but this specific exhibit focuses, fittingly, in the West.
It fits because Andy Warhol’s last portfolio that he did before he died was his Cowboys and Indians series, featured at the exhibit.
He used his iconographic style to make art of fictional and historical figures of the west. All in his glamorous, colorful, pop art style.
"It makes us wonder how we do that on a regular basis with historical figures." Ward said. "What lenses do we channel them through? How do we process our history? How do we alter it to make it a more consumable product? So I think that's a big part of this show."
If you want these questions answered and much more, you can come to the Museum of the Southwest yourself until Dec. 10. They even have a QR code you can scan that will guide you through what you’re seeing.
So stop by and maybe lasso in a lesson from two amazing artists, who can show you another perspective of life in the west.