Within the hallowed halls of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, a profound dialogue unfolds in a series of galleries dedicated to "Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country." This groundbreaking exhibition boldly juxtaposes the iconic landscapes of Georgia O’Keeffe with the vibrant artistic expressions of twelve Tewa Indigenous artists, scholars, and culture bearers. The exhibition serves as a powerful counter-narrative to the widely accepted, yet often incomplete, portrayal of Northern New Mexico as solely "O’Keeffe Country," asserting the enduring presence and deep-rooted connection of the Tewa people to their ancestral lands.

One of the most compelling installations features the work of Jason Garcia, an artist from Santa Clara Pueblo (Kha’p’o Owingeh), whose Tewa name is Okuu P’in. Garcia has dedicated a significant portion of his artistic practice to depicting Ts’í P’ín, known in Spanish as Cerro Pedernal or "Flint Hill," a sacred mesa in northern New Mexico. Visitors to the museum encounter not just one, but nineteen of Garcia’s renderings of Ts’í P’ín, each offering a unique perspective from a consistent vantage point. Some are minimalist in their execution, while others are intricate studies of light and shadow, including striking nocturnal interpretations. This deliberate and extensive repetition is a deliberate act of reclamation, as Garcia aims to have more of his depictions of Ts’í P’ín displayed in the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum than O’Keeffe herself created throughout her career. His ambitious project, "Our Private Mountain," envisions over thirty such depictions, signifying a profound reassertion of Tewa ownership and relationship to this significant landscape.

O’Keeffe’s evocative paintings of the Southwest have indelibly shaped the popular imagination, with her sweeping landscapes often becoming synonymous with the region itself. Her works, typically devoid of human figures, conveyed an image of an untouched, isolated paradise. This perspective, famously articulated by O’Keeffe herself in a 1977 Newsweek interview, where she described Ts’í P’ín as "my private mountain" and believed she could "have it" by painting it sufficiently, contributed to the notion of her singular ownership. This sentiment was further amplified in a 2021 New Mexico Tourism Department advertising campaign, which utilized her quote, "When I got to New Mexico, that was mine." Such pronouncements, while reflecting O’Keeffe’s personal connection, inadvertently echoed a language of possession that threatened to erase the millennia of Tewa presence and stewardship.

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum has actively confronted this legacy of erasure, issuing a statement that explicitly rejected the framing of the New Mexico landscape as exclusively "her country" or "mine." The museum acknowledged that these quotes, while from the artist, employed "the language of possession, colonization, and erasure." This institutional self-reflection culminated in a 2020 panel discussion titled "This is Not O’Keeffe Country," moderated by the exhibition’s co-curator. The panel featured prominent voices such as Corrine Sanchez, executive director of Tewa Women United, and Christina Castro, founder of Three Sisters Collective, an Indigenous and Pueblo-women-led organization. Jason Garcia was also a key participant, highlighting the growing imperative to center Indigenous perspectives.

The "Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country" exhibition is a direct outgrowth of this critical re-evaluation, offering a more expansive and inclusive understanding of Tewa Nangeh. It aims to fill the voids left by O’Keeffe’s pervasive influence and the institutions that historically capitalized on her mystique. By showcasing the work of twelve Tewa artists, the exhibition underscores that O’Keeffe, for all her renown, was but one individual within the vast and complex tapestry of Tewa history and presence on this land.

Among the featured artists is Charine Pilar Gonzales, a filmmaker from San Ildefonso Pueblo and a 2024 Sundance Institute Native Lab Fellow. Her experimental documentary, This Land Carries Us, exemplifies the exhibition’s commitment to rich visual storytelling and the inseparable connection between land and people. Gonzales’s film masterfully blends stop-motion animation with evocative imagery, opening with a scene of trees ablaze with autumnal color under a setting sun. Superimposed upon this vibrant landscape are Polaroid photographs of elders, children, and traditional ceramics, a visual testament to her assertion that "You cannot speak of Tewa land without also speaking of Tewa people."

Eliza Naranjo-Morse, also of Kha’p’o Owingeh, contributes Coming Home, a striking mural painted directly onto the gallery walls. Naranjo-Morse meticulously gathered clay from across the region to create this piece, which depicts the northward view through the badlands and mesas of Tewa Country—a vista she experiences on her drives home from Santa Fe. Her work prompts contemplation on the "understated but significant acts that maintain relationship to land, preserve the Tewa language and the values of respect and reciprocity with all life."

The exhibition also bravely confronts the profound environmental and historical traumas that have impacted New Mexico, particularly the lingering specters of climate change and nuclear weapons. Michael Namingha, an artist from Ohkay Owingeh and Hopi, presents Disaster #8. This powerful piece features a massive, ominous cloud of smoke hovering above a mountain landscape. While directly referencing the devastating Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire of 2022, the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s history, the smoke also evokes the chilling imagery of mushroom clouds from atomic tests. Namingha masterfully places his work in dialogue with O’Keeffe’s 1945 painting, Red with Yellow. O’Keeffe’s painting was created in the same year scientists detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in a New Mexico desert area then deemed unpopulated. Namingha utilizes a similar fiery palette of acid oranges and reds, but in his work, these colors are recontextualized to represent the Air Quality Index chart, a stark reminder of contemporary environmental anxieties.

Other artists directly challenge O’Keeffe’s perceived proprietorship of the landscape. Jason Garcia, in his series Tewa Tales of Suspense, presents comic book-style clay tablets, each roughly the size of an iPad, fired using traditional Pueblo pottery techniques and painted with locally sourced mineral pigments. In one particular piece, Garcia depicts O’Keeffe herself standing before Ts’í P’ín, clad in her signature black wrap dress and hat. A sign behind her, initially reading "Welcome to O’Keeffe Country," has been defaced; the word "O’Keeffe" is scratched out and replaced with "TEWA," a clear and assertive reclaiming of narrative and space.

This exhibition arrives at a critical juncture, amidst a national discourse increasingly polarized on issues of history and representation. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum began its critical examination of O’Keeffe’s role in Indigenous erasure six years ago. However, the current national climate, marked by a rightward political shift, has seen a resurgence of narratives that can be seen as promoting cultural dominance. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s recent posting of John Gast’s "American Progress," a notorious Manifest Destiny tableau, accompanied by a quote echoing white nationalism, exemplifies this trend. Furthermore, federal funding for public art institutions that champion diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, such as those at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, faces potential cuts under proposed budgets, threatening the viability of programs vital to Indigenous and minority-serving higher education.

Bess Murphy, the O’Keeffe Museum’s Luce Curator of Art and Social Practice and co-curator of the exhibition, emphasizes the importance of a compassionate approach, stating, "We can and should do better and work from a place of care instead of violence, fear or racism." The collaborative spirit of "Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country" is central to its ethos; the twelve participating artists were involved in every stage of curation, from selecting the O’Keeffe works to be displayed to writing their own exhibition texts. These texts were then meticulously copyedited by Dr. Beverly Singer, an Indigenous anthropologist from Santa Clara Pueblo. Garcia also highlighted the collaborative creation of a map detailing the six Tewa pueblos, incorporating Tewa place names and ancestral village sites, further solidifying the exhibition’s commitment to collective voice and accuracy.

Ultimately, the "Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country" exhibition champions a vital argument for self-representation. Through artist and community-led exhibitions, it offers nuanced and instructive dialogues about a region that has too long been defined by external gazes. By centering Tewa perspectives, the exhibition actively reshapes the narrative, ensuring that the enduring stories, cultural heritage, and rightful presence of the Tewa people are recognized and celebrated.