In 2023, weekend gridlock returned to the lobbies of some of our big museums — and a heartening sight it was, a sign of continuing rebound from pandemic doldrums. As might be expected from institutions in comeback mode, we got lots of box office names (Picasso, Picasso and Picasso). But there were also surprises: unfamiliar histories, hidden careers brought to light and, at a slack moment in contemporary art, some jolts of forward motion.
‘Indian Theater’ at the Hessel Museum of Art
“Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art and Self-Determination Since 1969” at the Hessel Museum, Bard College, was, hands down, the most stimulatingly inventive contemporary group show I saw this year. It was part of a surge in visibility for new Native American art, one that began in the spring with the Whitney Museum’s stirring five-decade-career survey of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and that continues with “The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans,” organized by Smith at the National Gallery of Art. (Read our review of “Indian Theater.”)