Join us for a virtual tour of “When Fire is Applied to a Stone it Cracks,” an exhibition

Join us for a virtual tour of “When Fire is Applied to a Stone it Cracks,” an exhibition organized by artist Jeffrey Gibson which makes the case that Native American art, including his own, has always been modern, innovative and global – a living culture reflected in vibrant communities across the continent.Created by Eugenie Tsai, John and Barbara Vogelstein Senior Curator, Contemporary Art, and Erika Umali, Assistant Curator, Collections.For centuries, museums have collected art and recounted the stories of communities and cultures without their direct input. In a break with this practice, the Brooklyn Museum invited Gibson to tell his own story as an artist of Native American descent, through his work and investigation of the museum’s holdings.  In keeping with his multidisciplinary practice, Gibson selected works from the museum’s holdings of Native American Art, American art, and photography, as well as from the Brooklyn Museum Library Special Collections and Archives. In the entrance gallery, set against a vibrant wall mural of his own design, Gibson highlights Charles Cary Rumsey’s bronze sculpture “ Dying Indian,” (circa1904) alongside other representations of Native Americans by non-Native artists. The sculpture embodies a widely held view by Anglo-Americans in the early twentieth century that Native Americans were doomed to extinction as they were pushed ever west by settlers.Gibson counters this view, asserting the continued vitality of Native American culture by adding a pair of commissioned beaded moccasins to the sculpture. Made by John Murie, they’re decorated with the phrase “I’m gonna run with every minute I can borrow,” which is also spelled out in the colorful wall mural behind the sculpture. Taken from a song by Roberta Flack, the lyrics show how Gibson often includes language and references to pop culture into his work.  An arrangement of moccasins from the museum’s collection faces the sculpture, allowing us to imagine the absent bodies of the men, women, and children who once wore them.In the adjacent gallery, also with wall murals designed by the artist, Gibson’s paintings on hide and on canvas with beadwork frames, sculptures, garments, and headpieces mingle with parfleche bags, beaded whimsies, and patchwork dresses by other Native artists. Gibson often employs materials and techniques that have historically been used by Native American makers, including beadwork, jingles, and ribbons, which he sometimes combines with contemporary forms such as punching bags. One of his beaded punching bag sculptures hangs from the ceiling.Geometric letters spell out “WHEN FIRE IS APPLIED TO A STONE IT CRACKS,” an Irish proverb Gibson chose as the title of the exhibition. The image of fire applied to stone suggests transformation, whether this pertains to Indigenous makers using new materials and techniques or institutions rethinking the power dynamic in writing of historical narratives. This painting refers to many artistic traditions, including European oil painting on canvas, text-based conceptual art, psychedelia, and Native American beadwork.Gibson also paints on rawhide, a material used by Native Americans to make bags decorated with painted designs. This abstract work is composed of panels that fit together like a puzzle. Nearby are examples of beaded hats and bags from the collection. Many of these were made for the tourist market. Nearby is a selection of painted parfleche bags drawn from the collection.  Not so dissimilar from Gibson’s painted hide drums seen in the distance.The third gallery largely focuses on photographs and material from the Museum’s Library Special Collections and Archives. Gibson worked with curatorial advisor Dr. Christian Crouch to select photos, paintings, and drawings from the papers of Stuart Culin, the curator who formed the collection of Native American Art at the Brooklyn Museum in the early 1900s. Gibson and Crouch decided to highlight images of Native men, women, and children, showing spontaneous representations of daily life as a form of resistance to the colonial gaze.  Although they acknowledge Culin’s role in the foundations of the collection, the material on view centers Indigeneity, rejecting the exclusion and erasure of Indigenous histories that Museums have historically promoted.Many of the European explorers who journeyed to what we today call North America, recorded their travels and published them upon their return to Europe.  Many of the European explorers who journeyed to Engravers like Theodor de Bry were hired to illustrate these manuscripts based on second hand accounts. Since he could only imagine what they had seen, de Bry’s depictions were skewed to fit the Western world, creating some of the first inaccurate depictions of Indigenous Peoples–the reverberations of which are still felt today.This tipi liner by Húŋkpapȟa Lakota leader Rain-In-The-Face is a visual representation of his life’s deeds.  Made by his own hand, it is a first person account as well as a self portrait and a self representation in contrast to the photographic portraits of Native American people from the same period in this gallery.Visually striking and intellectually provocative,”When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks” is an original and innovative project: inviting a more expansive narrative that includes and integrates the histories of Indigenous people and challenging visitors to reconsider their assumptions of what Native American art can be.Shout out to Nancy Rosoff, Andrew W. Mellon Senior Curator, Molly Seegers, Museum Archivist, Margarita Karasoulis, Assistant Curator of American Art, and Drew Sawyer, Phillip Leonian and Edith Rosenbaum Leonian Curator of Photography for their incredible work on this exhibition as well. Thank you for joining us on our tour of Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks Join next Sunday for another virtual tour of our galleries!Installation view of Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks, February 14, 2020–January 10, 2021. (Photo: Jonathon Dorado)(Source: brooklynmuseum.org) -- source link

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