Norval Morrisseau: Shaman Artist

October 20, 2007–January 20, 2008

New York, NY

Organized and circulated by the National Gallery of Canada.

Between the 1960s and the 1990s, Canadian Anishnaabe artist Norval Morrisseau (b. 1931 or 1932) amassed a body of work that has been vastly influential in the world of contemporary Native art. Drawn from across the span of Morrisseau's career, Norval Morrisseau: Shaman Artist examines his profound sense of spirituality, which springs from his understanding and knowledge of Anishnaabe traditions, his personal experience of shamanistic practice and Catholicism, and his integration of other spiritual ideas. The boundary between Morrisseau's art and his shamanism is always overlapping, at times becoming one and the same. A living form of Anishnaabe culture, his art provides a record of his otherwordly experiences, acting at times as a conduit to a separate reality.