An Indigenous Present @ ICA Boston - An Exhibition spanning 100 years of Contemporary Indigenous Art - Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston + Frist Art Museum, Nashville + Frye Art Museum, Seattle

An Indigenous Present

ICA Boston

October 9, 2025 - March 8, 2026

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) opens An Indigenous Present, a thematic exhibition spanning 100 years of contemporary Indigenous art. The exhibition includes new commissions and significant works by 15 artists who use strategies of abstraction to represent personal and collective narratives, describe specific and imagined places, and build upon cultural and aesthetic traditions. Co-organized by artist Jeffrey Gibson and independent curator Jenelle Porter, the exhibition offers an expansive consideration of Indigenous art practices that highlights a continuum of elders and emerging makers, and premieres newly commissioned site-specific works by Raven Chacon, Caroline Monnet, and Anna Tsouhlarakis. An Indigenous Present emerges from Gibson and Porter’s 2023 landmark publication of the same name, which, through a collaborative process, brought together work by Native North American artists exploring diverse approaches to concept, form, and medium. Their engagement with artists during the making of the book inspired this exhibition—one that demonstrates the endless variability of abstraction and its capacity to hold multiple forms and histories. 

An Indigenous Present debuts at the ICA, before traveling to the Frist Art Museum in Nashville (June 26—September 27, 2026) and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle (November 7, 2026—February 14, 2027). 

“This exhibition is one take on the field of contemporary art and culture by Native and Indigenous makers. Some of these artists have been working for decades, and I follow in their path; others are at an earlier stage in their career, and I see new routes and possibilities in their respective practices. Together, they are amplifying the histories that have come before them and building a new context for present and future artists,” said Jeffrey Gibson.

​​Jenelle Porter added: ​“Since curating Jeffrey’s first solo museum exhibition at the ICA in 2013, he and I have continued to think together about ways to enlarge art histories. This exhibition is a proposal, one that explores the ways that these artists challenge the often arbitrary, historical categorizations of art by Indigenous makers​.”​ 

The exhibition unfolds across 10 galleries, beginning with a focus on the work of George Morrison and Mary Sully, two important forebearers in the development of contemporary Indigenous art during the first half of the 20th century. Throughout the exhibition, works by emerging artists are positioned in dialogue with those by more established makers. Kay WalkingStick and Dakota Mace explore seriality and repetition in bodies of work realized in the 1970s and 2020s, respectively. WalkingStick’s Chief Joseph Series—dedicated to the heroic Niimíipuu / Nez Perce chief—presents a grid of 32 paintings that characterize the artist’s decades-long devotion to serial forms and storytelling. Mace’s So’ II (Stars II) is composed of 40 unique chemigram prints that draw on Diné (Navajo) design histories and heritage. In another artistic dialogue, George Morrison and Teresa Baker evoke the land and light of their own ancestral homelands through an interplay of color and form. George Morrison, who trained alongside Abstract Expressionists painters in New York in the 1950s, is known for vibrant compositions, especially those inspired by the horizon near his Lake Superior, MN, home. Theresa Baker composes with yarn, paint, willow, and hide on irregularly cut artificial turf to create large-scale abstractions that convey her memories of place, such as the Northern Plains of her youth, as well as legacies of color field painting and collage.

At the ICA, An Indigenous Present includes two new commissions that expand the exhibition beyond the galleries. An immersive sound work by Raven Chacon will fill the ICA’s Founders Gallery overlooking Boston Harbor. Monnet’s site-specific installation for the museum’s Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall is composed of commercial building materials—such as Tyvek and roofing underlayment—that are sewn into a fractal-based composition inspired, in part, by Boston’s 600-year history of land reclamation and the ICA’s harbor location. The fractal patterns, or population “blooms,” derive from Anishinaabeg designs that, for the artist, symbolize interconnectedness, knowledge transmission, and kinship. Throughout the run of the exhibition, the ICA will host a series of performances of Raven Chacon’s scores and sound works, a film series curated by artist Sky Hopinka in the ICA’s Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater, and a number of other public programs. 

An Indigenous Present - Artist List

Teresa Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa; born 1985 in Watford City, ND)

Raven Chacon (Diné; born 1977 in Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation)

Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation; born 1984 in Bellingham, WA)

Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Iñupiaq/Athabascan; born 1969 in Bethel, AK)

Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill (Cree and Métis; born 1979 in Comox, British Columbia)

George Longfish (Seneca and Tuscarora; born 1942 in Ohsweken, Ontario)

Dakota Mace (Diné; born 1991 in Albuquerque, NM)

Kimowan Metchewais (Cree; born 1963 in Oxbow, Saskatchewan; died 2011, St. Paul, Alberta)

Caroline Monnet (Anishinaabe [Algonquin] and French; born 1985 in Ottawa, Ontario)

George Morrison (Ojibwe; born 1919 in Chippewa City, MN; died 2000, Red Rock, MN)

Audie Murray (Cree and Métis; born 1993 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation; born 1940 in St. Ignatius Mission, Flathead Reservation, MT; died 2025, Corrales, NM)

Mary Sully (Susan Mabel Deloria) (Yankton Dakota; born 1896 in Standing Rock Reservation, ND; died 1963, Omaha, NE)

Anna Tsouhlarakis (Navajo/Creek/Greek; born 1977 in Lawrence, KS)

Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee and Anglo; born 1935 in Syracuse, NY)

An Indigenous Present is organized by Jeffrey Gibson and Jenelle Porter, guest curators, with Erika Umali, Curator of Collections, and Max Gruber, Curatorial Assistant.  

ICA - INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART / BOSTON

25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston MA 02210

www.icaboston.org

Sky Hopinka: Fainting Spells @ Guggenheim Museum Bilbao - Video Exhibition Overview + Artist Biography

Sky Hopinka: Fainting Spells 

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

September 18, 2025 – January 18, 2026

Sky Hopinka

Fainting Spells, 2018

Three-channel color video, with sound, 9 min., 45 sec.

A.P. 1/2, edition of 3

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 

Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Council, 2021

© Sky Hopinka

Sky Hopinka

Fainting Spells, 2018

Three-channel color video, with sound, 9 min., 45 sec.

A.P. 1/2, edition of 3

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 

Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Council, 2021

© Sky Hopinka

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Sky Hopinka: Fainting Spells, an exhibition in its Film & Video program.

Fainting Spells (2018), a film by the artist Sky Hopinka (Ferndale, Washington, 1984), explores the creation mythology of Xąwįska, or Indian Pipe Plant, also known as “ghost flower” or “corpse plant.” This medicinal plant is traditionally used by the Ho-Chunk people of Wisconsin to revive those who have fainted. It is also emblematic of Indigenous identity, knowledge, and culture and can be linked to the cycles of life and death and the spiritual world. Despite his extensive research, Hopinka could not unearth an origin myth for the plant and instead created one to engage with and reclaim the practice of mythkeepers and mythmaking in his own Indigenous culture.

This three-channel video begins with a handwritten poem that moves across scenes showing expansive colorful landscapes accompanied by lyrical music. The poem, a printed version of which is also showcased at the exhibition, speaks directly to Xąwįska, who later appears personified as a cloaked figure and leads viewers on a walk through the spirit world in different states of consciousness. Filmed in Washington, Colorado, Wisconsin, Oregon, and New Mexico, the film creates a dreamlike visual narrative by collaging together music, poetry, image, sound, and color, inviting viewers into a unique immersive experience created specifically for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao’s Film & Video gallery.

Sky Hopinka

Fainting Spells, 2018

Three-channel color video, with sound, 9 min., 45 sec.

A.P. 1/2, edition of 3

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 

Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Council, 2021

© Sky Hopinka

Sky Hopinka

Fainting Spells, 2018

Three-channel color video, with sound, 9 min., 45 sec.

A.P. 1/2, edition of 3

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 

Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Council, 2021

© Sky Hopinka

Sky Hopinka explores Indigenous culture, history, and traditional beliefs through themes like identity, memory, language, and myth. A member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and a descendent of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño people (California), the Pacific Northwest holds a special place in his artwork, especially as he delves into investigating notions of homeland, personhood, and landscape. His films reflect on the complexities of contemporary Indigenous life by blending non-narrative filmmaking and abstract imagery with an ethnopoetic approach—a response against the ethnographic gaze that has long objectified Indigenous cultures in moving image.

Ethnopoetic cinema examines themes of cultural identity, displacement, and the everyday experience through a combination of documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques, thereby emphasizing the artistic and performative aspects of cultural expression. At the core of Hopinka’s work is a profound commitment to storytelling through his Indigenous perspective, a narrative that has long been marginalized within the Western canon. He explains, “Part of the desire I had to make films was to tell Indigenous stories that were unique to my own community and my own identity.”

Sky Hopinka (b. 1984, Ferndale, Washington)

Courtesy the artist

© Sky Hopinka

Sky Hopinka - Biography

Sky Hopinka was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington, and spent a number of years in Palm Springs and Riverside, California; Portland, Oregon; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In Portland, he studied and taught chinuk wawa, a language indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, and began to take an interest in documentary filmmaking. In Milwaukee, he enrolled in a graduate degree in experimental filmmaking and discovered unconventional ways of documentary filmmaking that enabled him to uniquely express his interest in Indigenous languages and Native American life today. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is an assistant professor in the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University, Cambridge.

Sky Hopinka’s work has played at prestigious festivals including Sundance Film Festival, Utah; Toronto International Film Festival, Ontario; Courtisane Festival, Ghent; Festival Punto de Vista, Pamplona; and the New York Film Festival, New York. His work has also been recognized internationally in numerous solo exhibitions at institutions like the Center for Curatorial Studies–Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, New York (2020); Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis (2020); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2021); LUMA, Arles, France (2022); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2023); Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2024); and Kunsthalle Friart, Switzerland (2024). Moreover, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017); the Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2023); and the Göteborg International Biennial, Sweden (2023).

Sky Hopinka’s films, videos, and photographs are in the collections of some of the most important museums in the world. Additionally, Hopinka was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Cambridge (2018–19); Sundance Art of Nonfiction Fellow, Sundance Institute, Los Angeles (2019); Guggenheim Fellow for Creative Arts (2020); Forge Project Fellow (2021); and a MacArthur Fellow (2022). His multiple awards include the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Film, & Video (2020); the Infinity Award in Art from the International Center of Photography (2022); and the Persistence of Vision Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival (2025).

Curator: Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães

Guggenheim Bilbao also presents, from October 16, 2025 through February 22, 2026, the exhibition Maria Helena Vieira da Silva: Anatomy of Space.

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBAO

www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus

Earthwork Exhibition @ Art Museum at the University of Toronto - Curated by Mikinaak Migwans

Earthwork 

Alex Jacobs-Blum, Art Hunter, BUSH Gallery, Edward Poitras, Faye HeavyShield, Lisa Myers, Michael Belmore, Mike MacDonald, Protect the Tract Collective

Curated by Mikinaak Migwans 

Art Museum at the University of Toronto

September 4 – December 20, 2025

Faye HeavyShield

Clan (performance documentation), 2019 

Courtesy of Blaine Campbell

BUSH gallery 

MOMENTA 2021

Photo by Jean-Michael Seminaro 

The Art Museum at the University of Toronto presents the exhibition Earthwork, which reassesses the art historical framing of the “earthwork” popularized by the land art movement of the 1960s and ’70s, reclaiming it from an Indigenous perspective. It is curated by Mikinaak Migwans, Curator of Indigenous Contemporary Art at the Art Museum and Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Toronto.

Works by Alex Jacobs-Blum, Art Hunter, BUSH Gallery, Edward Poitras, Faye HeavyShield, Lisa Myers, Michael Belmore, Mike MacDonald, Protect the Tract Collective

Earthwork redefines a term that until now has referred to a type of artistic practice associated within the larger conceptual framework of land art. In this exhibition, Mikinaak Migwans shifts our understanding of earthwork to refer to a way of working, rather than the making of singular objects — similar to the term “beadwork.” With a Canada-wide scope emphasizing the Great Lakes region, the exhibition takes as its starting point an understanding of ancestral earthworks less as monuments and more as sites of ongoing stewardship and care. It considers multiple layers of engagement with the land, including a history of land defense movements, medicine walks, and ancestral practices of prescribed burns, alongside contemporary artworks as creative acts of relational intervention.

“Redefining earthwork in this way helps us think about land as part of the cycles of life and death, rather than eternal monuments outside of time,” says Mikinaak Migwans. “It also helps us to see the huge labour investment that goes into maintaining relations on the land, getting away from this idea that the natural is something opposite to the human. Indigenous connections to land, especially, have been erased in colonial accounts that talk about a natural environment that is ‘virgin,’ ‘untouched,’ and in this way, unclaimed. But recent scholarship is starting to show that North America’s ecosystems were carefully cultivated and maintained by Indigenous Peoples. They’ve quite literally shaped the landscape through generations.” 

Art Hunter 

Untitled (Controlled burn at Kay-nah-chi-wah-nung mounds), 2023

Digital print

Photo courtesy of the artist

Art Hunter 

Untitled (Controlled burn at Kay-nah-chi-wah-nung mounds), 2023

Digital print

Photo courtesy of the artist

Central to the exhibition is photo and video documentation by Art Hunter of land stewardship practices at the ancestral Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre, a national historic site and one of the most significant places of early habitation and ceremonial burial in Canada located in northwestern Ontario. Art Hunter’s description of the Anishinaabe community’s controlled burn and other processes to maintain the site’s special ecology served as the inspiration point for Earthwork. 

Michael Belmore

drift, 2025 

Steel, wood, 2.43 m x 9 m x 4.5 m

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Michael Belmore

drift, 2025 

Steel, wood, 2.43 m x 9 m x 4.5 m

Photo courtesy of the artist

Internationally recognized artist Michael Belmore will create a new piece in his snow fence series, which will be on view from November 2025 through March 2026—following the seasonal cycle rather than the exhibition cycle. 

A new audio work by independent curator and artist Lisa Myers helps visitors think about land relations through walking and listening. 

Other featured artists are #BUSH Gallery (Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Peter Morin, Tania Willard), Alex Jacobs-Blum, Faye HeavyShield, Mike MacDonald, Edward Poitras, and Protect the Tract Collective. 

The exhibition offers visitors a printed Engagement Guide, to better connect with the works on view by sharing specific histories and information in an accessible way.

ART MUSEUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

University of Toronto Art Centre

University College, 15 King’s College Circle, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H7

artmuseum.utoronto.ca

Yee I-Lann @ Kunstmuseum Thun - "Mansau-Ansau" Exhibition

Yee I-Lann

MANSAU-ANSAU

Kunstmuseum Thun

23 August - 30 November 2025

Yee I-Lann 

Photograph by Wee Seng

Yee I-Lann 

TIKAR MEJA PLASTIK’ (2023) Detail

Woven by Aisyah Binti Ebrahim, Alisyah Binti Ebrahim, 

Ardih Binti Belasani, Dayang Binti Tularan, Darwisa

Binti Omar, Dela Binti Aniratih, Endik Binti Arpid, Erna, 

Fazlan Bin Tularan, Kinnuhong Gundasali, Kouh, Luisa

Binti Ebrahim, Makcik Lukkop Belatan, Malaya Binti Anggah, 

Ninna Binti Mursid, Noraidah Jabarah (Kak Budi),

Roziah Binti Jalalid, Sabiyana Binti Belasani, Sanah Belasani, 

Makcik Siti Aturdaya, Tasya binti Tularan and

Venice Foo Chau Xhien

Pandaus fabric, chemical dye, collected plastic waste

Variable format

Artist’s Collection

Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

Yee I-Lann 

Sulu Stories: The Ch’i-lin of Calauit, 2005

Archival pigment inkjet on Epson Premium Photo Luster

60.9 x 60.9 cm

Collection of Singapore Art Museum

Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

MANSAU-ANSAU at the Kunstmuseum Thun is the first major exhibition in Europe devoted to the work of YEE I-LANN. The multidisciplinary Malaysian artist explores traditional arts and crafts from a contemporary vantage point, delving into the narratives of her homeland and addressing the influences of colonialism and the persistence of Indigenous heritage and communities today.

Walking on and on, without a clear destination – this is an approximate translation of MANSAU-ANSAU from the language of the Indigenous Kadazan and Dusun tribes in Yee I-Lann’s homeland of Sabah, Malaysia. The notion of this venturing into the unknown can be frightening, as there is always the risk of getting lost. But it offers an equal chance of discovering something new. The travelling exhibition, shown at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) from 24 December to 25 March and on view at the Kunstmuseum Thun starting 23 August, sheds light on issues involving art and colonialism from a fresh point of view.

The centrepiece of MANSAU-ANSAU is a mat woven from bamboo that forms the basis for people to sit down and commune together. The mat symbolises a space for intimacy and, in the artist’s view, offers a platform for local, democratic, feminist and social equality. “The mat is a place for storytelling and a way to discover new knowledge,” says Yee I-Lann.

In a broader context, Yee I-Lann (b. 1971, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo) examines in her work the complex geopolitical history of Southeast Asia. Working closely with a collective of women weavers from her homeland gives the artist a way to expose oppression using art and craft. In addition to textiles, the exhibition also features photographs, video works and sculptures dealing with themes such as collective reorganisation, realignment and imagination as strategies for the personal and collective future.

Yee I-Lann has ties to Switzerland: her great-granduncle was a mountaineer in Zermatt at the turn of the last century and was buried in the cemetery there after a fatal fall. The fact that she is presenting her first major European exhibition in Thun, in an environment that displays “similar forms and a similar strength” to her homeland, is the result of a chance discovery. Helen Hirsch, Director of the Kunstmuseum Thun and curator of the exhibition, became aware of the Malaysian artist at Art Unlimited in Basel in 2022. “I was captivated by her independent, multidisciplinary and multi-layered form of expression and her respectful attitude towards the local communities she works with,” says Helen Hirsch. Yee I-Lann always makes sure to include the names of the weavers on the labels for her works, something that distinguishes her from many other artists who have their textile works woven anonymously, for example in Morocco or South America. “She collaborates with the weavers on an equal basis.”

Yee I-Lann 

A map of Mansau-Ansau, 2024 (Detail)

Woven by Lili Naming and Shahrizan Bin Juin

Split bamboo pus (Schizostachyum pilosum S.Dransf.) weave, 

Multifilla Matt Sealant, 91 x 183 cm

Artist’s Collection

Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

Yee I-Lann

Installation view of Yee I-Lann’s Picturing Power (2013) 

Giclée print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, Ultra Smooth Fine Art

Variable format

Collection of Singapore Art Museum

Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

The exhibition includes works from the Singapore Art Museum’s collection, including early photo collage series (Sulu Stories [2005], Picturing Power [2013]) as well as a range of woven works, from batik on silk (Orang Besar series [2010]) to split bamboo (Tepo Putih [2019], Tika-a-gagah [2018-19]). Yee I-Lann’s commitment to deconstructing relationships and her incorporation of diverse symbols and aesthetics is evident in works that transcend time and media. All the while, however, her oeuvre is distinctly rooted in material and communal realities, especially those of Indigenous peoples.

Curator: Helen Hirsch, in collaboration with the Singapore Art Museum (SAM)

KUNSTMUSEUM THUN

Thunerhof, Hofstettenstrasse 14, 3602 Thun

www.kunstmuseumthun.ch

Australian artist Emily Kam Kngwarray @ Pace Gallery, London - "My Country" Exhibition in collaboration with D’Lan Contemporary

Emily Kam Kngwarray: My Country

Pace Gallery, London

June 6 - August 8, 2025

Alhalker Country is ours—so is the anwerlarr yam. I paint my plant, the one I am named after—those seeds I am named after. Kam is its name. Kam. I am named after the anwerlarr plant. I am Kam! -- Emily Kam Kngwarray [1]

Pace presents an exhibition of works by renowned Australian artist Emily Kam Kngwarray, in collaboration with D’Lan Contemporary, at its London gallery. The show—titled My Country— coincides with Tate Modern’s major survey of Emily Kam Kngwarray, which will open in July. My Country traces Kngwarray’s artistic evolution from her early organic forms to her later vibrant, dot-filled color fields, culminating in the minimalist compositions that defined her mature work. To reflect her profound influence on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, as well as on women artists and the broader Australian art landscape, the exhibition will also include historical and contemporary batiks by artists inspired by Kngwarray’s pioneering practice.

Emily Kam Kngwarray (ca. 1914–96) is one of Australia’s most critically acclaimed contemporary artists. Her use of new art media began in the 1970s, when she was introduced to batik at Ankerrapw (Utopia Station homestead) in Australia’s Northern Territory. After developing a distinctive style with little external influence, she shifted from batik to acrylic on canvas in 1988, marking the start of an extraordinary eight-year painting career during which she is estimated to have created around 3,000 works.

An Elder of the Anmatyerr people and custodian of her ancestral Country, Alhalker, Emily Kam Kngwarray produced vivid, deeply personal works that express the ancestral and ecological relationships that continue to shape her land. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the term Country encompasses not only the physical terrain but also waters, skies, and all living beings, together with the cultural, spiritual, and familial responsibilities that connect them. Kngwarray’s practice was rooted in the Dreaming: a dynamic, lived worldview in which ancestral creation stories and laws animate the land, its people, and their connections. Her paintings do more than depict these forces; they embody them, giving visual form to the rhythms and energies of her Country.

The works on view at Pace, some of which have never been exhibited before, trace Kngwarray’s rapid stylistic and thematic evolution, illuminating the inseparable interior and exterior worlds that shaped her practice. Harmony of Spring (1990), included in the exhibition, exemplifies the immediate confidence of her early paintings, marked by linear compositions overlaid with fields of singular and concentric double dots. In this work, as in others from the same period, the underlying structure recalls the rhizomatic paths of the anwerlarr yam, along with its seed and seedpods—kam—from which Emily Kam Kngwarray takes her middle name. Nested within the dense interplay of lines and dots are arrow-like forms depicting the tracks left across the ground by emus. These paintings can be read as experiential maps, charting time—seasonal shifts and the life cycles of plants and animals—and space, encompassing the vast terrain of Alhalker and the networks of roots and foliage above and below the earth’s surface. Kngwarray’s paintings not only make her relationship with this living world tangible, but extend its presence, drawing work, viewer, and artist into an ongoing expression of cultural and ecological responsibility.

Between 1992 and 1993, Kngwarray’s paintings surge with stippled fields of dots that engulf the linear foundations of her earlier works. Her use of color is denser, structuring the compositions through vibrant, often unexpected flashes of contrast and harmony—as seen in Desert Storm (1992), included in the exhibition, where an effervescent patch of mossy greens and earthy reds rolls off the right edge of the canvas, returning to the meteorological energy it describes. Kngwarray’s shifting use of tools and techniques is evident throughout this transformative period: larger canvas stretchers and longer brushes allowed for an expanded gestural range, while trimmed brushes enabled her to manipulate the texture of each daub.

As a senior member of her community, Kngwarray played a central role in awely— women’s ceremonial traditions encompassing song, dance, and the painting of bodies with ground ochres. Often painting her canvases while seated, her mark-making is defined by a fluid expressiveness and an ease with materials that echoes the ritual movement and touch of ‘painting up’ for awely. The striped designs of these ceremonies translated into the astonishing, austere canvases of her final years. These works—often composed of minimal, webbed structures painted over dark backgrounds—combine an assured command of linear form and the picture plane with the gestural force that defines all of Kngwarray’s work, from paintings and batiks to the ancestral, familial contact of ochre onto skin.

Alongside a 1987 batik by Emily Kam Kngwarray, this exhibition also includes textile works by Judy Greenie Ngwarai, Audrey Morton Ngwarai, Ruby Morton Ngwarai, Annie Petyarre, and Lena Pula Pwerle. Together, these works demonstrate the enduring influence Kngwarray continues to have on generations of artists working in Australia today.

Emily Kam Kngwarray (b. ca. 1914, Alhalker, Utopia, Australia; 1996, Mparntwe/Alice Springs, Australia) began painting on silk and cotton fabric in the batik style alongside the women in her community, and, in 1977, became a founding member of the Utopia Women’s Batik Group. Introduced to canvas in 1988, Kngwarray’s practice shifted in part due to the adaptability of paint as a medium, which allowed her to create spontaneous, gestural marks using various implements. Kngwarray’s paintings are a continuation of the deep-rooted oral and visual traditions that inspired her batik work. When she was already in her seventies, her first painting, Emu Woman (1988–1989), debuted in the group exhibition, A Summer Project: Utopia Women's Paintings held at S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney (1989). Emily Kam Kngwarray was a prolific artist, executing an estimated three thousand paintings in an eight-year span. In 1997, she was represented posthumously at the 47th Venice Biennale. Her work is held in public collections worldwide including Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, Australia; Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and The Vatican Museums, Vatican City, among many others. In July 2025, Tate Modern, London, will open the first major survey of Emily Kam Kngwarray’s work in Europe. 

[1] Emily Kam Kngwarray quoted in Jennifer Green, “The life and legacy of Emily Kam Kngwarray” in Emily Kam Kngwarray, ed. Kelli Cole, Jennifer Green, and Hetti Perkins (National Gallery of Australia, 2023), 150.

PACE, LONDON

5 Hanover Square, London W1S 1HQ

www.pacegallery.com

Jeffrey Gibson @ The Broad, Los Angeles - "the space in which to place me" Exhibition

Jeffrey Gibson 

the space in which to place me

The Broad, Los Angeles

May 10 - September 28, 2025

Jeffrey Gibson 

BIRDS FLYING HIGH YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL, 2024 

Mural, acrylic on Polytab, 

12 ft. 6 ¾ in. × 26 ft. 5 ¾ in. (382.9 × 807.1 cm)

The Broad presents Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me, a special exhibition of the artist’s multidimensional work, adapted from its original presentation at the U.S. Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, where Jeffrey Gibson was the first Indigenous artist to represent the United States with a solo exhibition. Gibson’s first single-artist museum exhibition in Southern California, The Broad’s presentation includes over thirty artworks joyously affirming the artist’s radically inclusive vision. The exhibition highlights Gibson’s distinct use of geometric design and saturated color alongside references to 19th and 20th century foundational American documents and modern music, critiquing systemic injustices and imagining a more equitable future.

Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me borrows its title from the Oglala Lakota poet Layli Long Soldier’s poem “Ȟe Sápa,” which contemplates Indigeneity using a playful geometric format. Like Long Soldier, Gibson probes the visceral feeling of belonging. Across ten paintings, seven sculptures, eight flags, three murals, and one video installation, Jeffrey Gibson honors the multiplicity of identity. Museum galleries morph into kaleidoscopic environments of Gibson’s paintings.

Jeffrey Gibson 

THE RETURNED MALE STUDENT FAR TOO FREQUENTLY 

GOES BACK TO THE RESERVATION AND FALLS INTO THE 

OLD CUSTOM OF LETTING HIS HAIR GROW LONG, 2024 

Acrylic on canvas, glass beads, plastic beads, 

inset in a custom wood frame

244.8 x 194cm (96 3/8 x 76 3/8in)

The Broad has acquired Gibson’s 2024 painting THE RETURNED MALE STUDENT FAR TOO FREQUENTLY GOES BACK TO THE RESERVATION AND FALLS INTO THE OLD CUSTOM OF LETTING HIS HAIR GROW LONG, which was first presented at the Venice Biennale. Incorporating his signature use of patterned text, radiating color, and glass beads, the painting directly quotes a letter written in 1902 by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to a school superintendent in Central California, urging Native school children to cut their hair and assimilate into white Eurocentric modes of dress and appearance. The painting transforms historical oppression into both an opposition to tyranny and a celebration of cultural identity.

The Broad’s presentation includes two additional artworks first displayed together in Gibson’s 2020 Brooklyn Museum exhibition, When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks. A monumental bronze from the museum’s collection by Charles Cary Rumsey titled The Dying Indian (1900s) wears newly commissioned moccasins by John Little Sun Murie titled I’M GONNA RUN WITH EVERY MINUTE I CAN BORROW (2019). The Roberta Flack lyrics featured from the 1971 song See You Then are also spelled in the beadwork on the moccasins. These works speak to overarching themes in the space in which to place me, whether directly engaging in America’s past and present, paying tribute to histories of resistance, and boldly celebrating belonging, while bringing into this dialogue the topic of monumental sculpture as a mode of US historytelling.

“Jeffrey Gibson imbues unabashed radiant color into his paintings, murals, sculpture and video installations, signaling through his art that frank examination of difficult truths can be affirmative expressions of hope, identity and beauty,” said Joanne Heyler, Founding Director of The Broad. She added, “We are proud to be bringing this groundbreaking work to Los Angeles, directly from the Venice Biennale, where for the first time an Indigenous artist represented the United States, and we hope our audiences will be dazzled by the joy they convey and the belief in the resilience of community the works represent.”

Gibson’s practice celebrates individuals and communities who have maintained their dignity and traditions in impossible circumstances. His work reflects his admiration and respect for the generations of Indigenous makers who have come before him, situating his work within art histories that have previously excluded Native artists, and in the footsteps of postwar painters and printmakers such as Corita Kent, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and Andy Warhol. Jeffrey Gibson uses recognizable language and images and unsettles the beliefs that might typically be associated with them.

“Developing this project for the Venice Biennale made me interrogate my relationship with the United States as an Indigenous person,” said Jeffrey Gibson. "I wanted to showcase that complexity while celebrating the resilience and joy present in the liberation stories and legacies of Indigenous makers. The show is about turning margin and center inside out, putting topics and people who have been pushed aside in the spotlight. I’m excited for the project to reach audiences in Los Angeles—in a way it’s coming home, from representing the country on an international stage to speaking to histories that are part of our lived experiences here in the U.S.”

“Across the exhibition’s diverse media, Jeffrey Gibson engages a wide range of texts, from foundational legal documents to quotes from civil rights activists, poems by Indigenous authors, and pop song lyrics,” said Sarah Loyer, Curator and Exhibitions Manager. “Kaleidoscopic colors and geometric forms are combined with these references to create an installation that at once pays tribute to histories of resistance in the United States and expresses the relational nature of identity and belonging, all articulated in a style that is vivacious and optimistic.”

On view are towering ceramic sculptures like WE WANT TO BE FREE (2024), made with colorful nylon fringe, tin jingles, and steel. Standing at nine-feet tall, the figure’s torso spells out its title in beads as a political demand, referencing the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first federal law to define citizenship and claim all citizens equal under the law. Alongside its companion sculpture The Enforcer (2024), the two figures possess an ancestral presence to serve as protective guardians.

The Broad’s exhibition also includes geometric mixed-media paintings in Gibson’s distinct and internationally celebrated style. The large-scale mixed media painting ACTION NOW ACTION IS ELOQUENCE (2024) references Congressman Emmanuel Celler’s words to his fellow representatives during a session of Congress in 1964 when they were voting on the Civil Rights Act. The landmark civil rights legislation was signed into law that day, and outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin in the United States. The surface is adorned with a beaded, heart-shaped bag and sash made by an Indigenous Columbia River Plateau or Crow artist, acknowledging a lineage of unnamed Indigenous makers and extending a living Native art history.

The mural BIRDS FLYING HIGH YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL (2024) borrows lyrics from the song Feeling Good, originally composed by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse and made famous by the American singer Nina Simone in 1965, an anthem for freedom and justice during the Civil Rights era. Synchronized, abstract avian shapes are centered between the title’s geometric text and a glowing yellow sun in the background. This mural exemplifies Gibson’s ability to demonstrate how history informs our present, locating significant moments of collective power, persistence, and strength amidst oppression.

Jeffrey Gibson collaborates with The Broad on a dynamic slate of programming. The relationship between art and community is central to Gibson’s practice. These performances, talks, and workshops create spaces for recognition and response, inviting audiences to engage more deeply with his work. 

Born in Colorado in 1972, interdisciplinary artist JEFFREY GIBSON is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent. Gibson received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995 and his Master of Arts in painting from the Royal College of Art, London, in 1998. Throughout his career, Jeffrey Gibson has centered Indigenous and LGBTQ+ perspectives, exploring cultural authenticity, stereotypes of Native people, and how aesthetics circulate amongst different groups. Vibrant colors, geometric patterns and found objects are common throughout his art, resulting in a distinct visual language that celebrates interconnectedness and assemblage.

Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me was first presented by Portland Art Museum, Oregon, and SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico at the United States Pavilion of La Biennale di Venezia, the 60th International Art Exhibition (April 20, 2024 through November 24, 2024); commissioned by Louis Grachos, Phillips Executive Director, SITE Santa Fe; commissioned and curated by Kathleen Ash-Milby, Curator of Native American Art, Portland Art Museum and Abigail Winograd, Independent Curator. 

The Broad’s presentation is organized by Sarah Loyer, Curator and Exhibitions Manager, with the participation of Abigail Winograd.

THE BROAD

221 S. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012

www.thebroad.org