Honoring Modern Unidentified .3, Gina Adams

Artwork Overview

Gina Adams, artist
born 1965
Honoring Modern Unidentified .3, 2013
Where object was made: Lawrence, Kansas, United States
Material/technique: ceramic; oil; encaustic
Dimensions:
Object Height/Diameter (Height x Diameter): 23 x 23 cm
Object Height/Diameter (Height x Diameter): 9 1/16 x 9 1/16 in
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 31.5 x 25 x 25 cm with base
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 12 3/8 x 9 13/16 x 9 13/16 in
Credit line: Museum purchase: Peter T. Bohan Art Acquisition Fund
Accession number: 2014.0033
Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Brosseau Center for Learning: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Access

To reclaim her history and in honor of unrecorded Indigenous artists, Gina Adams etches Native beadwork designs from the Spencer’s collection onto ceramic basketballs. Nearby, Haskell Indian Nations University is one of the leading four-year accredited Native American colleges in the United States and has a strong basketball program for Native athletes. For many Native Americans, basketball and other sports are an extremely accessible survival method, both financially and physically.

The Power of Place: KU Alumni Artists

For her Honoring Modern Unidentified series, Gina Adams responded to the anonymous ways that many Native peoples are represented in museum collections. Adams’s work honors the unknown makers, as well as the countless other Native peoples whose names, cultural identities, and homelands have been lost because of colonialism and oppression. For these works Adams etched Native beadwork designs from the Spencer’s collection onto ceramic basketballs. Originally taught at boarding schools as part of assimilation attempts, basketball has since been reappropriated by Native communities and is now viewed as a source of resistance, opportunity, and means for survival.
Adams states:
“The form of the basketball was specifically chosen for many reasons. First and foremost, James Naismith was the University of Kansas’s first basketball coach. Second, Naismith pioneered the KU basketball program, which today has become an athletic enterprise. Nearby, Haskell Indian Nations University was once a Native American Bureau of Indian Affairs Children’s Boarding School. Today, Haskell is one of the only four-year accredited Native American colleges in the United States, and continues the Naismith tradition, with a strong basketball program for Native athletes. For many Native Americans, basketball, as well as many other sports, is considered an extremely viable way towards survival, both monetarily and physically. It is also a way to achieve excellent educational opportunities through athletic scholarships. Choosing the basketball to make a ceramic cast was deliberate; I wanted to bring the game into these post-colonial issues. The ceramic body represents the idea of craft that would have been passed down to me by my ancestors, were their way of life and well-being not purposely divided and conquered. To ancient peoples, clay was a means of survival; here I purposely use it to signify survival that continues, despite the Dawes Act and the assimilation practices that occurred.”

The Power of Place: KU Alumni Artists

For her Honoring Modern Unidentified series, Gina Adams responded to the anonymous ways that many Native peoples are represented in museum collections. Adams’s work honors the unknown makers, as well as the countless other Native peoples whose names, cultural identities, and homelands have been lost because of colonialism and oppression. For these works Adams etched Native beadwork designs from the Spencer’s collection onto ceramic basketballs. Originally taught at boarding schools as part of assimilation attempts, basketball has since been reappropriated by Native communities and is now viewed as a source of resistance, opportunity, and means for survival.
Adams states:
“The form of the basketball was specifically chosen for many reasons. First and foremost, James Naismith was the University of Kansas’s first basketball coach. Second, Naismith pioneered the KU basketball program, which today has become an athletic enterprise. Nearby, Haskell Indian Nations University was once a Native American Bureau of Indian Affairs Children’s Boarding School. Today, Haskell is one of the only four-year accredited Native American colleges in the United States, and continues the Naismith tradition, with a strong basketball program for Native athletes. For many Native Americans, basketball, as well as many other sports, is considered an extremely viable way towards survival, both monetarily and physically. It is also a way to achieve excellent educational opportunities through athletic scholarships. Choosing the basketball to make a ceramic cast was deliberate; I wanted to bring the game into these post-colonial issues. The ceramic body represents the idea of craft that would have been passed down to me by my ancestors, were their way of life and well-being not purposely divided and conquered. To ancient peoples, clay was a means of survival; here I purposely use it to signify survival that continues, despite the Dawes Act and the assimilation practices that occurred.”

Exhibitions

Cassandra Mesick, curator
2014–2015
Nancy Mahaney, curator
Cassandra Mesick, curator
Celka Straughn, curator
2011–2014
Susan Earle, curator
2020
Spencer Museum of Art Interns 2021–2022, curator
2022