Preview: Jules Tavernier and the Elem Pomo Exhibition
By Ishmael A. Elias
On view now through November 28 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and online at metmuseum.org is the Jules Tavernier and the Elem Pomo exhibition.
Centered around French painter and illustrator Jules Tavernier (1844-1889) and his rediscovered masterwork painting Dance in a Subterranean Roundhouse at Clear Lake, California (1878), the exhibition explores Tavernier’s life and works in conjunction with the Elem Pomo community.
Tavernier spent two years on the piece, which depicts nearly one hundred people, including Pomo dancers, musicians, and artists in the ceremonial dance of mfom Xe, or “the people’s dance” in an underground roundhouse, Xe-xwan, at Clear Lake, California. Also featured are non-Native on-lookers, most notably Tiburcio Parrott y Ochoa, San Francisco’s leading banker at the time who commissioned the work, and his business partner, Baron Edmond Rothschild. According to notes from The Met, Parrot became the new owner and operator of the Sulphur Bank Quicksilver Mining Company, which mined mercury on Elem ancestral lands. Due to the mining activity, mercury contamination of the lake and surrounding area had detrimental effects on the health and culture of the Elem community.
In addition to Tavernier’s major works, a collection of over 60 paintings, prints, watercolors, and photographs from an array of artists gives the exhibition a diverse range of voices and perspectives. Also included are examples of 19th- to 21st-century Pomo basketry and regalia, with works by renowned weaver Clint McKay (Dry Creek Pomo/Wappo/Wintun).
An in-gallery guide is accessible on the exhibition main page. One notable gallery aid is a short film that provides insight to the ceremony and drama captured in Dance with narration from Elem Pomo cultural leader and regalia maker Robert Joseph Geary, Dry Creek Pomo/Bodega Miwok scholar Sherrie Smith-Ferri, PhD, and Eastern Pomo artist and curator Meyo Marrufo.
For more information on the exhibition, visit: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2021/jules-tavernier
