A stunningly beautiful, moving and, ultimately, sobering exhibition of Plains Indian masterworks is a must see at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Co-produced with the Musee du quai Branley and in partnership with The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, the material has a 2000-year chronological scope and showcases a diversity of forms and media from painting, sculpture, beading and video using leather, metals, porcupine quill, glass beads, textiles and paint.  The aesthetics and handiwork are breathtaking; the fact that the lifestyle which produced such exquisite objects of daily use and desire was virtually eradicated in a 60-year span is a shocking reminder of a genocide.

The show is narrated with texts written by five distinct voices whose layering creates an instructive, emotional roadmap to a region and its indigenous cultures.  The materials, so wonderfully chosen,  sing the songs of the centuries, the decades and even the specific years in which they were produced.

Like this Lakota calendar above, which served as a memory aid for an oral historian of the Brule Lakota of South Dakota in 1902, the many objects in this remarkable show are, sadly, memory aids for us about cultures and a way of life that we destroyed in a few years.  If you are unable to see the show, the text and photographs of the exhibition catalogue will relay the story.

The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Store