250 Years, Indigenous Futures @ Haines Gallery

Editor’s Pick

“Two hundred and fifty messy years of these United States haven’t quite landed us the happiness we’ve so doggedly pursued, but through all of it, and for millennia before,  Indigenous peoples have persisted. But 250 Years, Indigenous Futures is neither open wound nor kumbaya, with Sky Hopinka, Wendy Red Star, Brad Kahlhamer, Terran Last Gun, Victoria Grace Canby, Jordan Ann Craig, Keith Secola, and Jamie Okuma simply making some of the best art anywhere. Within sight of Alcatraz, occupied by Indians of All Tribes from 1969 to 1971 in a landmark assertion of Indigenous sovereignty, the point isn’t merely that Indigenous cultures have endured, but that they are still here, various, unruly, and very much at work.”

— Andrew Berardini

About the Exhibition

As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, Haines Gallery presents 250 Years, Indigenous Futures, a group exhibition centering the work of leading Native American artists, including Victoria Grace Canby, Jordan Ann Craig, Sky Hopinka, Brad Kahlhamer, Terran Last Gun, Jamie Okuma, Wendy Red Star, and Keith Secola. Working across painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and film, these artists engage contemporary culture, Nation-specific visual traditions, and personal histories in distinct and expansive ways.

While occasioned by this anniversary, 250 Years, Indigenous Futures does not commemorate it. Rather, the exhibition recognizes 1776 as only one moment within much longer histories of Indigenous presence, adaptation, and sovereignty. Creating space for artists to define their own terms of engagement, the exhibition aims to bring forward concerns central to their practices. The works on view draw inspiration from a vivid range of sources: boldly painted Piikani lodges; the precise geometry of Northern Cheyenne beadwork; the Indians of All Tribes’ occupation of Alcatraz; cars adorned with blankets and regalia for the annual Crow Fair; blood-soaked horror films; and archival photographs whose subjects meet the visitor’s gaze.