Marie Watt retrospective at Krannert Art Museum builds community through art and storytelling

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Artist Marie Watt is well-known for her large-scale sculpture and textiles that draw on pop culture as well as her Seneca and German-Scots ancestry. She also is an accomplished printmaker, and a traveling exhibition at Krannert Art Museum examines the significance of prints and storytelling in her artistic practice.

“Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt from the Collections of Jordan Schnitzer and His Family Foundation” opens at KAM on Aug. 31 and runs through Dec. 2. Organized by University Galleries at the University of San Diego and curated by John P. Murphy, the exhibition includes early prints that Watt made as a master’s student in fine arts at Yale University in addition to more recent work.

Watt’s artwork explores storytelling, community-building, environmental stewardship and social justice, especially the fight for civil rights and Indigenous sovereignty. Much of her work revolves around the idea of identity and interconnectivity, said Maureen Warren, the site curator of “Storywork” and the curator of European and American art at Krannert Art Museum, whose own research centers on printmaking.

Watt’s interest in creating communities is reflected in her collaborative printmaking process and in her practice of convening sewing circles with friends and family. The exhibition includes Watt’s collaborations with master printers at Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology and Mullowney Printing Company, all of which are in Oregon, and Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, N.M.

Jordan Schnitzer learned of Marie Watt’s work through his connections with the Crow’s Shadow and Sitka Center printmakers in his home state of Oregon. Schnitzer collects post-war and contemporary art and has more than 21,000 pieces in his collections, including what has become the largest private collection of prints in the country. He is particularly passionate about Native American art, and “Storywork” is drawn entirely from his collection.

His foundation shares the collection with museums around the country. Schnitzer said he hopes exhibitions such as “Storywork” help visitors better understand different races, religions and cultures. He especially likes to have exhibitions at regional and university museums.

“With a collection this big, our obligation is to get the work out to audiences like the one that Krannert Art Museum will have. I like taking nationally and internationally important art to smaller communities,” he said. “It won’t be too much longer before we see an exhibition of Marie Watt’s work at Museum of Modern Art in New York.”

Watt uses printmaking to explore new concepts or develop ideas, Warren said.

“She moves back and forth among printmaking, three-dimensional sculpture and textiles, exploiting the best qualities of each to push her ideas further. It’s a nonlinear, nonhierarchical practice that, I think, complements her expansive and inclusive worldview,” Warren said.

“For Watt, human beings are kin to the entire natural world – every animal, plant and even the wind and sun. Because we are all interconnected, we need to protect the most vulnerable people and parts of the planet, because their well-being is our well-being,” she said.

Watt weaves together stories and symbols from pop culture, Roman mythology and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, to which the Seneca Nation belongs. For example, her work “Landmark, Skywalker” features two geometric columns evoking the rectangular forms of a traditional Seneca longhouse stood on end to look like skyscrapers. The title references both Luke Skywalker from the “Star Wars” movies and the Mohawk ironworkers (also part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) who riveted the steel beams that formed skyscrapers in New York City including the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Plaza.

Watt is best known for her “Blanket Story” sculptures, tall stacks of reclaimed blankets that look like a column or tower. Silhouettes of the blanket sculptures appear in some of her prints.

“The blanket is laden with symbolism. We swaddle babies in blankets, make quilts for special occasions, wrap our deceased loved ones in shrouds. Blankets have special significance for Indigenous communities where they are used in gift economies and as heirlooms,” Warren said.

“When I see the blankets, I see a myriad of things – Native tribes pushed onto reservations, the beautiful artistic designs that tribal members weave into blankets with religious and cultural images, the tribal chiefs who give them to honor each other,” Schnitzer said.

KAM director Jon L. Seydl was familiar with Watt’s blanket sculptures, but he said her printmaking was new to him when he first learned about the exhibition.

“They are absolutely gorgeous. I am really struck by how she uses abstraction as way to get to much deeper and complicated issues,” Seydl said.

Bringing the traveling exhibition of Watt’s work to KAM is a continuation of the museum’s efforts to center Native arts and cultures in exhibitions, collecting and programming, he said.

“Part of what we’re doing is making sure there is a constant and steady presence of work by Native artists, so any time someone comes to Krannert Art Museum, they will encounter Native American arts and culture. Even 10 years ago, that wouldn’t have been possible because we didn’t have the works of art to do it,” Seydl said.

In recent years, the museum has acquired works by Native North American artists, several of which are currently on view. Just outside of the gallery hosting the Watt exhibition is a group of works curated by U. of I. graduate students that address issues of Native identity.

The museum, as part of a land-grant university, has a particular responsibility to present work by the land’s original inhabitants and provide teaching opportunities. Whenever KAM features these works, whether by Kay WalkingStick, Preston Singletary, Sonny Assu or now Watt, it’s bringing contemporary Native voices, experiences and stories to campus and the community, which is central to its mission, Seydl said.

Editor’s notes: To contact Maureen Warren, email maureen@illinois.edu. To contact Jon Seydl, email jseydl@illinois.edu. More information about “Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt from the Collections of Jordan Schnitzer and his Family Foundation” is available online. For information about Krannert Art Museum, contact Julia Nucci Kelly at jkell@illinois.edu. For more information  on the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, visit jordanschnitzer.org or email michaeln@jordanschnitzer.org.