Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
VENICE, Italy — Scholars, artists, designers, and Pulitzer Prize-winning musicians gathered at the 2024 International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia for a symposium as part of artist Jeffrey Gibson’s exhibition, “the space in which to place me.”
Gibson, a citizen of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw and of Cherokee descent, is the first Indigenous artist to represent the U.S. with a solo show at the prestigious international exhibition.
Taking place at the U.S. Pavilion and various other Venice venues from Oct. 24-26, the convening was titled, “if I read you/ what I wrote bear/ in mind i wrote it,” to explore the relationship between Gibson’s art and in a broader sense Indigenous North American cultures, the arts, and global histories.
The title of Gibson’s exhibition came from Layli Long Soldier’s 2012 poem, “Ȟe Sápa,” and the title of the October event was also drawn from her work, taking inspiration from the 2017 poem, “Whereas.” The show closes Nov. 24.
Organized by Bard College’s Center for Indigenous Studies in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in collaboration with the Portland Art Museum and SITE Santa Fe, the three-day event included U.S. Pavilion commissioners and curators to elevate scholarship on Indigenous art and culture to a global stage. Gibson has been a faculty artist-in-residence in the Studio Arts Program at Bard College since 2012.
Fascinating panels explored a wide range of topics, while music and dance performances presented centuries-old traditions along with the most avant garde against the backdrop of the world’s greatest floating city, where canals, historic plazas and bridges inspire visual awe.
At the panel, “Future Making: Labor, Economies, Arts,” at The Home of the Human Safety Net multi-purpose space located in the historic Plaza San Marco, Harvard historian and author Philip Deloria, son of the late leading American Indian writer Vine Deloria, gave a head-spinning intellectual talk on the “complicated chain” of the intertwined history of indigenous and European colonizer cultures.
Gibson’s installation is in a 1930s neo-classical building at the Pavilion, and Deloria spoke of the challenges Gibson faced “decoding the building” for his exhibit, and how words and phrases in his art take on layers of meaning.
This was all the more complex within the context of Italy, as the name America derives from Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer. Indian Country may reject Columbus Day, but the name of the occupied country remains. Fittingly, the theme of the Venice Biennale this year is “Foreigners Everywhere.”
While Gibson kept some of the architectural details, the building has four galleries that are 6,000 square feet. The exterior adds thousands of square feet; he turned the courtyard into a space for performances, adding a large sculpture made of giant pedestals painted red.
“This idea of pulling together these classical pedestal forms and leaving them empty, it’s not to show them as empty,” said Portland Museum of Art curator Kathleen Ash Milby on a tour of the exhibit. “It’s to invite people to participate, to climb on them, to have their photograph taken, to be seen, and it’s central and equal within this exhibition, he is really wanting to be welcoming. It’s not just an exhibition for Native people, it’s not just an exhibition for people of color, it’s an exhibition for everyone.”
Gibson hung printed flags and painted the façade in vibrant shades that spelled out the political phrase, “We hold these truths to be self evident,” and the title of the show, “the space in which to place me.”
Deloria said the “space” of the title had been expanded as a place for the artist and for U.S. history. The neon pop colors add another layer.
“I know my colors make the whole room vibrate,” Gibson told ICT in June, “and sometimes I think I go too far with that, but then I never stop. I just keep going.”
From an entire building to a small handbag, another panel featured luxury brand LVMH’s training program director Alexandre Boquel of Dior who spoke about the collaboration with Gibson to produce decorated bags for the upscale brand.
Gibson took his cue from his exquisite, beaded punching bag series – there is one in the Venice show and four on display now at The Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, Florida. He used similar words, patterns, colored beads, and charms to produce the unexpected designs.
“It’s a responsibility of craft,” Gibson said. “I get meditation and healing when I bead.”
Another talk featured Oglala Lakota poet Layli Long Soldier, who uses her writing to create visual patterns in ways that the words and phrases can be combined to create different poems. She riffed on Gibson’s phrasing and how he uses the geometry of the letters for visual art.
At the final performance on Saturday, the skies cleared after a week of rain to allow the events to happen outside the pavilion on the pedestal sculptures as Gibson intended. Powwow fancy dancers from Oklahoma activated the space, dancing to a traditional hand drum.
Next up came the performance of the band White People Killed Them, made up of Marshall Trammell, Raven Chacon, and John Dieterich. It started with Trammell perched on the highest pedestal swinging a bullroarer — also called a rhombus, or turndun — a piece of wood or bone attached to string that produces a hypnotic, roaring vibration sound when swung in a circle.
He then slid down to assume his place behind the drums as Dieterich adjusted his guitar pedal boxes and Chacon, the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize for music, stood behind a bewildering array of synths and wired boxes. The music was a scorching blend of sonic riffs and propulsive drum work that skittered and soared in a continuous stream for nearly an hour. Chacon and Gibson have both won MacArthur Genius grants.
But in art as in life, expect the unexpected.
Trammell was pounding the kick drum so hard it began inching toward the edge of the pedestal, threatening to hurtle over the edge and derail the intense performance. A tech guy had to sit beneath it and literally hold it in place while another techie tried tying straps from the drum to Trammell’s stool to hold them together. By the end, Gibson found the new space to place himself and walked up to hold the drum still to raucous applause.
The art show must go on.
“This convening is a celebration of Indigenous artists, writers, and scholars that signals the close of my exhibition while inciting a new conversation about Indigenous art that will be carried forward,” said Gibson. “My priority has always been to uplift Indigenous voices and create spaces for learning within and beyond the setting of the Biennale Arte in Venice. I am so grateful to the Center for Indigenous Studies and all the individuals and collaborators who have come together to make this happen.”
Gibson was rapt at the performances and panels, sitting front row and taking in the head spinning adulation from so many art world and beyond figures. He grooved to the closing night dance party featuring DJ Miss Ginger, cicchetti – appetizers of fish and vegetables on sliced bread, and Italian Spritz cocktails.
The dressed-up crowd included designer Jason Baerg and artist designer Caroline Monnet, who both showed their designs at the inaugural Southwestern Association for Indian Arts’ Fashion Week, and Candice Hopkins of The Forge Project.
Gibson has several other exhibits around the world.
Gibson has a new mural in collaboration with The Rose Kennedy Greenway in Dewey Square in Boston, on view since Sept. 19, 2024. Called “your spirit whispering in my ear,” the hand-painted mural was unveiled with featured performances, drag, dance, spoken word, art-making workshops, and music.
Thompson Hotel Palm Springs has installed Gibson’s “The Land is Speaking… Are You Listening,” a reconfigured 70-foot glass mosaic mural in its upscale art-centric hotel.
And, “POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT,” is a newly commissioned immersive installation at the Massachusetts Museum of Cultural Art that opened Nov. 3. The installation features seven oversized garments adorned with beads and found materials organized in kaleidoscopic patterns suspended from the ceiling on teepee poles. Throughout the run of the exhibition, the project will host a series of performances by Indigenous creatives from across North America.
In September 2025, Gibson will become the sixth artist commissioned to create outdoor works for the facade of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, developed from the ancestral spirit figures he started assembling in 2015.
He will have a Paris exhibit with Hauser & Wirth Gallery in October 2025.
More info
For more information on the 2024 U.S. Pavilion, visit www.jeffreygibsonvenice2024.org.
