Between the sacred and the profane

More images exist today than ever before. Lacking the time to notice most of what flashes before our eyes, we tolerate a lot of nonsense. But every once in a while, something rivets our attention. Stirred to respond, we come face to face with the promiscuity of powerful images.

At the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, this is what happens in “Katsina/Kachina: Tradition, Appropriation, Innovation.” Organized by Zena Pearlstone, assistant professor of art history at Cal State Fullerton, the evenhanded exhibition tells the story of how the katsina spirits of the Hopi, a small Pueblo nation in Arizona, have become international symbols whose meanings have nothing to do with the originals.

The show opens with an empty vitrine. Its label reads: “Sacred Spirits -- Not on Display.” Around it stand six smaller display cases containing 16 carved representations of Hopi supernaturals, dating from 1920 to the present, and one Zuni figure, made in the 1870s. The point is twofold: The doll-size figures are not sacred; what is sacred to the Hopi cannot be displayed in museums.

Carved from the roots of cottonwood trees, each figure is a tihu, a doll that represents one of about 400 benevolent spirit-beings that are integral to Hopi beliefs. Simple, typically flat tithu (plural of tihu) are given to babies. The five here share similar bodies and palettes. Only their stylized faces, headgear and hairdos distinguish, say, a happy mother from a cloud maiden. As girls grow up, they receive more elaborately decorated three-dimensional ceremonial figures, which they play with or hang on their walls. The 12 here are diverse, including a bear, a black fly and a mountain sheep, as well as a mud-head warrior, a lightning longhair and a wood carver.

Outsiders commonly call these gifts kachinas, mispronouncing the word katsina, which refers to the Hopi supernaturals. (The katsina also appear as masked “friends” in religious ceremonies. The masks are among the Hopi’s most sacred possessions, never to be reproduced, sold or displayed. The exhibit, which was organized in cooperation with members of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, includes only the dolls.)

The meanings and appearances of these figures are constantly changing. You don’t need to be an anthropologist to see that the ones in the first gallery are authentic. All are first-rate, beautifully carved, handsomely painted and stylishly decked out in feathers, leather and fabric. Also impressive is the way they fuse cartoon playfulness with dignity of purpose. In a world overrun by one-dimensional thinking, tithu make room for complexity. Beginning with silliness and seriousness and extending into fiction and faith, they acknowledge the interconnectedness of all things.

It’s easy to distinguish the objects in the next two galleries from one another. But the boundary between authenticity and its opposite is not so clearly defined.

In the gallery on the left are sculptures and paintings by contemporary Hopi artists, all of whom are inspired by traditional imagery. Modeled after early 20th century tithu, Clark Tenakhongva’s single figure most closely resembles those in the first gallery. Wilmer Kaye’s “Kau-A-Kachi Mana” combines elements of tithu with the streamlined shapes of Euro-American modernism. Likewise, paintings by Gerry Quotskuyva (a Hopi artist who lives near Flagstaff) and Poteet Victory (a New Mexico-based artist of Cherokee and Choctaw ancestry) seem to have one foot firmly planted in each of at least two worlds.

In the gallery on the right is a mock souvenir stand, complete with a mannequin in the form of a sleepy proprietor. On first glance, it looks as if a well-stocked museum gift shop has been moved into the gallery, its walls covered with coffee cups, baseball caps, T-shirts, watches and books, all emblazoned with imagery that screams “I visited the Southwest.”

Juxtaposed, these galleries represent radically different approaches to marketing. The cheap, mass-produced stuff of tourist traps contrasts dramatically with the more expensive, handmade works by Hopi and non-Hopi artists.

But rather than pretend that art has nothing to do with commerce, the exhibition emphasizes that what’s valued in modern art -- stylistic innovation and individualism -- often flies in the face of age-old Hopi values. For example, tithu that serve ceremonial purposes are not signed. They are used, not preserved like museum objects. They are valuable because they are embedded in a community’s social fabric, not because they are rare collectibles available for purchase by anyone with enough disposable income. In this light, the sculptures and paintings have more in common with the tawdry souvenirs than might first be assumed.

The collision between sacred traditions and economic reality is fleshed out more fully in the remaining two galleries. On the left, the section of the show titled “Innovation” charts the formal changes that have taken place within tithu carving.

In the early 20th century, when these figures were used only as ceremonial gifts, their poses were static and they rarely had bases. When Euro-Americans began to collect them, the Hopi began to carve them in more animated poses. Destined for middle-class mantels and bookshelves, rather than indigenous walls and playtime, they needed bases. They also grew in size. A few, like those by Cecil Calnimptewa and Loren Phillips, look more like dioramas than conventional tithu.

On the right, the section titled “Appropriation” focuses on blatantly commercial rip-offs of katsina imagery. Photos document its appearance on U-Haul trailers, a public shower in Gallup, N.M., a Bank of America building in Scottsdale, Ariz., and a fashion show in Tokyo. A silk scarf designed for Hermes of Paris, a bag of Hopi Blue Popcorn manufactured in Reno, and a set of ceramic whiskey bottles from Frankfort, Ky., are among the many examples of exploited Hopi imagery. Closer to home, a large display chronicles two Navajo factories that produce fake Hopi artifacts to sell to tourists who can’t tell the difference or simply don’t care.

Both galleries include works made by people who have great respect for the Hopi traditions that their marketable objects freely draw on. But as a whole, “Katsina/Kachina” reveals the limits of good intentions.

No matter what an image means to an individual -- or a cohesive group to whom it seems to belong -- all bets are off when it enters the public domain, where chaos reigns. “Katsina/Kachina” is exemplary in its sensitivity to meaning’s promiscuity and the gray areas between authenticity and fraudulence. Its poignancy resides in how effectively it catches viewers in the cross-fire between a venerable tradition and voracious consumerism.

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‘Katsina/Kachina’

What: “Katsina/Kachina: Tradition, Appropriation, Innovation”

Where: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA campus, Westwood

When: Closed Mondays and Tuesdays

Ends: March 23

Price: $5, adults; $3, seniors and students; $1, UCLA students and children under 17

Contact: (310) 825-4361