A New Perspective on Historical Native American Art at the Met
The New York Times
Writing for The New York Times, Elizabeth Pachoda compliments Patricia Marroquin Norby for bringing a Native perspective to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. By emphasizing 'the spirit of community and the continuity of past and present,' the author writes, Norby’s approach to exhibiting Native American art blurs the ‘boundaries many museums live with — historic/contemporary, Native/non-Native, European/Native American, fine art/decorative art.'
Appointed as the museum’s first Native American curator and its first curator of Native American art in September 2020, Norby’s first curatorial innovation involves a new rotation of the ongoing exhibition Art of Native America, which the author describes as a ‘pathbreaking collection of gifts, promised gifts and loans from Charles and Valerie Diker,’ and which was largely acquired with the assistance of Donald Ellis Gallery.
Of Purépecha descent, Norby grew up in an urban environment on Chicago’s West Side. She holds a Ph.D. in American Studies with a specialization in American Indian History, Art and Visual Culture from the University of Minnesota. Norby has previously held positions at the Newberry Library in Chicago and the National Museum of the American Indian in New York. She is known for focused work on the deaccessioning and repatriation of cultural material.
