Curated by Jill Ahlberg Yohe and Teri Greeves
This groundbreaking exhibition will gather over a hundred works by more than seventy artists, all women, from many different indigenous tribes and nations across North America. The show will present a continuum of indigenous aesthetics that spans a millennium: The earliest pieces include painted ceramics from around 1000 ce (from the Hohokam and Mimbres tribal communities). Recent works are characterized by dreamlike photocollage (Jaune Quick-To-See Smith), experimental garment construction (Jamie Okuma, Lisa Telford), and an emergent indigenous futurism (Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie). Meanwhile, Shan Goshorn’s Hearts of Our Women, 2015, incorporates ten baskets, each printed with an archival photo of an anonymous native woman, emblematizing the show’s bold inscription of forgotten figures—and their dynamic modes of survival—on art history. Travels to the Frist Art Museum, Nashville, September 27, 2019–January 12, 2020; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, February 21–May 17, 2020; Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, June 28–September 20, 2020.
— Lou Cornum