A selection of moccasins from the Brooklyn Museum's Collection is displayed in front.
For his current show at the Brooklyn Museum artist Jeffrey Gibson exhibits a selection of his recent multidisciplinary works alongside an array of Native American objects from the museum's collection. When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks features Gibson’s kaleidoscopic paintings and murals, sculptures, and garments juxtaposed with ceramics, headdresses, and beadwork created by Indigenous artists, as well as works depicting Native Americans made by non-Native artists.
Born in Colorado and based in Hudson, New York, Gibson is of Choctaw and Cherokee descent. He incorporates into his work traditional Native American materials and practices (e.g., beadwork, metal jingles, animal hides) to challenge perceptions of Native American artwork and to address the erasure of Indigenous art from Western history. He received a MacArthur Foundation genius grant in 2019.
Visitors entering the exhibit are met by Charles Cary Rumsey’s life-sized bronze, Dying Indian (circa 1904), set against a dizzying rainbow-colored mural by Gibson. According to the artist, the sculpture is a prime example of how many late 19th- and early 20th-century non-Native artists represented the “decline and eventual end of Native American civilizations.” In the wall text Gibson states that these artworks “have always saddened and perplexed me because I have never understood why some people celebrate these sculptures while I have found them offensive since I was a child.” Gibson collaborated with John Murie to create a pair of the latter's signature beaded moccasins to adorn the statue’s feet. Lyrics borrowed from the Roberta Flack song See You Then are meticulously beaded onto the footwear, reading, “I’m Gonna Run With Every Minute I Can Borrow.”
Two other sculptures by non-Native American artists—one of Chief Blackbird and another of an Indian Warrior—are displayed on either side of Gibson’s I Don’t Belong To You – You Don’t Belong To Me. “These sculptures present images of Native people that are idealized in the mind of the maker either for the objectification of their beauty or their demise,” the artist states.
An adjacent gallery exhibits Gibson’s dynamic paintings on hide or canvas, a beaded punching bag, and three garments inspired by Ghost Dance ceremonies wherein Paiute dancers wore “self-made ghost shirts” that they believed would deflect “white man’s bullets.” The gallery also displays various examples of Native American beadwork as well as two traditional headdresses. The feathered headdress represents the “romanticized Indian” in mainstream media, according to the artist. Young Native American men from the Plains section of the United States (the central expanse from Texas to the Dakotas) added feathers to their headpieces after demonstrating an act of courage or performing a good deed, taking years to accumulate the plumage to complete a full headdress.
The Tsimshian headdress, from the northwest coast, is worn by leaders during gift-giving celebrations to symbolize prestige and “showcase acts of generosity.” Gibson’s two interpretations of headdresses appear more like helmets, encasing the wearer's head in a protective shell. All of the headwear exhibited “symbolize strength” according to the museum, “but one represents strength in the form of protection while the other is in the form of the protector.”
Below, L-R: Jeffrey Gibson's Oceana, 2018 and Peace, 2018
The third gallery focuses on items from the Brooklyn Museum’s Archives including a tipi liner covered in illustrations by the Lakota member, Rain-In-The-Face, who documented his life on the swath of cotton. This gallery questions the museum’s Native American collection assembled by Stewart Culin, Curator of Ethnology for the institution from 1903 to 1929. Gibson and historian Dr. Christian Ayne Crouch, who collaborated on this exhibit, argue that while the objects showcase “Indigenous subjects and culture," they also suggest a vanishing culture, “the exclusion and erasure of indigenous histories and stories that had been fundamental to the narratives that institutions promote.” The tipi liner that documents Rain-In-The-Face's history is, according to Dr. Crouch, both an art object and archival piece that "invites us to bring a new approach to recover Native agency, presence, and voice in the Museum archive and in the collections."
The stained glass work's title is a modified Nas lyric from the 1994 song "The World is Yours"
“When fire is applied to a stone it cracks” is an Irish proverb, Gibson explains, adding that it reflects his desire for museum-goers to abandon their preconceived notions when looking at historical objects. “I read ‘fire’ in this quote to describe the innovative making, use of materials, transformative techniques, and the survivalist ethic of Indigenous people. Our use of new and different materials to make things that support ourselves and our communities in the ‘fire’ that continues to break open the static and antiquated ideas regarding who we are and what we are capable of.”
Through the exhibition and his artwork, Gibson demonstrates the “continuity and endurance of Indigenous communities and artists.” Don’t miss this fascinating exhibit that showcases overlooked Native American artwork while reviving it in meaningful and innovative ways.
Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks
Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view through January 10, 2021
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