The Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center and Museum organized a program that explores Native American culture and influences on Pop Art, "Shinnecock Experiences Pop Art," in collaboration with The Parrish Art Museum's exhibition "Roy Lichtenstein: American Indian Encounters." "Shinnecock Experiences Pop Art" is a series of engaging adult and children's events that connects Shinnecock and Native American art and culture with Lichtenstein's Pop-style work with American Indian themes. Events will be held at the both the Shinnecock Museum and The Parrish Art Museum, Sept. 30 through December 31, 2006.

The Lichtenstein exhibition features more than 30 paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures, including a rare sketchbook of American Indian design motifs, and considers the artist's Cubist abstractions-based on 19th-century American history paintings of Native American themes-and his "Amerindian" Pop-style works from 1979-1981.

The public can enjoy an array of programs, including a Pop Art creation children's workshop with Wendy Gottlieb at the Shinnecock Museum on September 30; a slide show of works by the Shinnecock artist and Museum Director/Curator David Bunn Martine on October 13 at The Parrish; a lecture on Pop Art tributes to indigenous culture with Native American artist and writer Lloyd Oxendine on October 28 at The Parrish; a workshop on Native American art and dance on November 5 at The Parrish; a slide show on Pop Art and its indigenous influences on December 9 at The Shinnecock Museum; and much more.  For additional information on any of the Shinnecock and The Parrish's events, visit www.shinnecock-museum.org or call 631-287-4923 or The Parrish, at www.parrishart.org or call 631 -283-2118, ext. 22.

One of the highlights of the partnership between the two museums is the building of a Wikiup by the Shinnecock Museum inside The Parrish's Transept Gallery. The dome shaped Wikiup in its completed state covered in woven cattail mats or elm bark is an ancient dwelling once used by the Shinnecock Indians.  This six by nine foot frame structure, composed of collected birch saplings and bound with leather ties.  Children will be invited to sit, read and sketch inside of the Wikiup, where they can learn about the stories, myths and symbolism of works on view.

"The Shinnecock people, an Algonquin tribe that inhabited the Northeastern woodlands, in Long Island's Southampton area, expressed themselves with similar motifs as the Northwest and Plains Indians that informed Roy Lichtenstein's Pop art works," notes David Bunn Martine, Shinnecock Museum Director. "The Shinnecock designs for beadwork on our textiles, baskets, pottery, elaborate regalia worn for celebrations and dancing, and the ancient and living traditions that inform all aspects of Shinnecock art and culture, can be experienced right here in Southampton at the Shinnecock Museum, and now, at The Parrish during our collaboration, of which we are privileged to be a part."

Parrish Art Museum Director Trudy C. Kramer notes, "This outstanding exhibition provides a wonderful opportunity for our visitors to experience how Lichtenstein's work has been influenced by the deep cultural power and symbolism of Native American art."

The later works in the Lichtenstein exhibition, which were partially stimulated by Lichtenstein's experiences in Southampton, include a 1979 sketchbook of Native American images based on motifs from textiles, ceramics, beadwork, quillwork, and baskets.  Also featured is a major series of Surrealist-Pop paintings from 1979 such as Pow Wow, Amerind Composition, and Indian Composition, based on Native American themes.  According to Lichtenstein, "They're a mixture of every kind of Indian design from Northwest Indians to Plains Indians to Pueblo.  They are no particular tribe of Indians...anything that I could think of that was `Indian' got into them...the cliché of the Indian got into them."

The Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center and Museum is the only Native-owned and operated museum on Long Island. Museum programs are funded, in part, by the Administration for Native Americans (ANA), U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services; Town of Southampton; and New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA. The Museum is located on the Shinnecock Reservation, Montauk Highway (Route 27A) and West Gate Road in Southampton.