Mask

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The peoples of the Arctic region use music and performance to invoke the spirit realm. According to native Alaskan beliefs, spirits communicate with people through whistling: these masks may be the faces of such supernatural beings, as they appear to whistle at their beholders. The formal resemblance between the pair, including the prominent noses, minimal eyes, and pointed head decorations, may mark them as specific, linked characters in a myth. Early twentieth-century modernist artists and collectors were drawn to the bold simplicity of such works.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art