The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art will screen short films by Apache filmmaker Dustinn Craig from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday as part of a current exhibit on the work of Apache artist Allan Houser.
Craig is an established filmmaker whose art represents a generation influenced by many historic artists, such as Houser.
“We were looking for examples of contemporary Apache artists, and Dustinn Craig’s work is exemplary of an artist who examines the Apache culture both historically and in the present,” said Susan Baley, the museum’s director of education.
Baley said Craig’s films will provide a more expansive vision of the present Apache culture, in addition to the historic vision provided by the Houser drawings.
The Houser exhibition will be at the art museum until May 18 in celebration of what would have been his 100th birthday. Accordingly, the exhibition features 100 of Houser’s drawings, which encompass a variety of subjects.
Baley and the Houser exhibition curator, W. Jackson Rushing III, worked to bring Craig to OU to create another opportunity to reach out into the community.
“We wanted to celebrate Houser as someone who has an influence on contemporary artists,” Rushing said. “Dustinn Craig has achieved some renown at a rather young age for the quality of his work.”
One of Craig’s films, “Geronimo,” especially relates to the exhibition because Houser was the first member of the Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache tribe to be born outside captivity after Geronimo’s surrender and tribe imprisonment in 1886, Baley said.
Craig has also been very involved with the promotion and depiction of modern Apache skateboard culture as a way of bringing modern Apache art to life. Some of his work in this subject is currently a part of the “Ramp It Up” exhibition at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History.
“I think he brings another contemporary voice to the exhibition in another form of native expression,” said Dan Swan, curator at the natural history museum.
The inclusion of Craig’s films and involvement in youth culture will bring understanding of the history of the Apache tribe and how its culture continues today to the Houser exhibition.
The film-screening event with Craig is free and open to the public.
