John P. Lukavic

A citizen of the Mississippi Choctaw Nation and part Cherokee, Jeffrey Gibson spent time in Germany, England, and Korea in his youth. This mix of cultures informs much of his work, which combines elements from historical and contemporary Native arts and traditions, such as powwow regalia and the use of animal skins, with those from the artistic traditions of Modernism, Geometric Abstraction, and Minimalism. As a gay Native artist, Gibson explores in his work issues of oppression and civil rights in America, as well as universal ideas of love, community, strength, vulnerability, and survival. This magnificent volume focuses on nearly 60 works completed in the last decade, including culturally adorned punching bags, three-dimensional figurative works, text-based wall hangings, painted works on rawhide and canvas, and light and video works.

Here Now: Indigenous Arts of North America at the Denver Art Museum features 200 of the museum’s most notable Indigenous artworks. It reinterprets the collection and reveals new insights into the historic and contemporary work of Indigenous artists. Contributions by Indigenous authors reflect on the collection and current issues. The expansive volume is for both new and established audiences. The artworks – from ancient Puebloan and Ississippian ceramics to nineteenth-century beaded garments and carved masks to cutting-edge contemporary paintings, sculpture, photography and variable media art – are organized geographically, inviting readers to make connections to the peoples who historically inhabited a place. The collection illustrates the multi-faceted nature of Native experiences and represents the Indigenous arts of North America as a vibrant continuum.

Each/Other includes major pieces in diverse media by artists Marie Watt (Seneca and German-Scots) and Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota, and European) and their collaborators. The collection explores their engagement with community, materials, and the land. Watt draws primarily from history, biography, Iroquois proto-feminism, and Indigenous principles, often addressing the interaction of the arc of history with the intimacy of memory. Luger uses social collaboration in response to timely, site-specific topics, interweaving performance and political action to communicate stories about twenty-first-century Indigeneity. Although each artist's practice is rooted in collaboration, they have not worked or exhibited together before in a way that highlights the shared underpinnings and differences of their work, which relies variously on sculpture, photography, installation, and video. Each/Other explores the collective process of creating art and urges us to reconsider both how museums privilege certain stories and our own places within systems that subjugate and disenfranchise.