Join us for a conversation featuring exhibiting artist Jeffrey Gibson and contemporary artist and curator, Dyani White Hawk. The two will reflect on Gibson’s most recent installation I AM YOUR RELATIVE, examining both the work and the title through means of their own experiences and understanding of the imagery and phrasing. The conversation will be followed by a Q&A.
I AM YOUR RELATIVE by Gibson is a site-specific project co-commissioned by MOCA and the Toronto Biennial of Art. The work consists of a series of brightly coloured stages that can be moved and reconfigured for spontaneous gatherings and organized performances within the Museum. Cut-out shapes allow views into, and out of, the semi-private enclosures these arrangements create. The shapes reflect the formal language that Gibson uses in his paintings, beadwork, and patterns and are in configurations that seem like symbols for communication.
Artist Bios
Jeffrey Gibson, a Member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and Half Cherokee, is an interdisciplinary artist based in Hudson, New York.
Jeffrey Gibson’s artworks make reference to various aesthetic and material histories rooted in Indigenous cultures of the Americas, and in modern and contemporary subcultures. He is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and is half Cherokee. Jeffrey is represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co Gallery in NYC, Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago, Roberts Projects in Los Angeles, and Stephen Friedman Gallery in London. His work can be found in the numerous public and private collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Crystal Bridges Museum, and the Wellin Museum, among others.
Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota) is a visual artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Recent support for White Hawk’s work has included 2021 Anonymous Was a Woman Award, Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Art, and McKnight Visual Art Fellowship, 2019 United States Artists Fellowship in Visual Art, Eiteljorg Fellowship for Contemporary Art, Jerome Hill Artists Fellowship, and Forecast for Public Art Grants, and 2018 Nancy Graves Grant for Visual Artists.
White Hawk’s work is currently featured in the 2022 Whitney Biennial and a solo exhibition, Dyani White Hawk: Speaking to Relatives, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Her work is among many public and private collections such as the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Denver Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and Walker Art Center. She is represented by Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis.
