Winter/Spring R&D Season: INHERITANCE
Image: Jeffrey Gibson, Mx. Oops and Xavier, 2018. Digital photograph, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., Kavi Gupta, and Roberts Projects. Photo: Peter Mauney
Multimedia artist Jeffrey Gibson (b. 1972, Colorado Springs, CO) is the artist-in-residence for the Department of Education and Public Engagement’s Winter/Spring R&D Season: INHERITANCE. The title of his residency and exhibition, “The Anthropophagic Effect,” alludes to Oswald de Andrade’s legendary 1928 Manifesto Antropófago (Anthropophagic Manifesto), which argued that Indigenous communities could devour colonizers’ culture as a way of rejecting domination and radically transforming Western culture to their own ends. The season’s theme, INHERITANCE, points to Andrade’s powerful proposition while more broadly alluding to the transmission of knowledge, skills, and capital.
In the exhibition, Gibson explores the material histories and futures of many Indigenous handcraft techniques and aesthetics. He has produced a new series of garments and helmets employing techniques learned over the course of the residency, including Southeastern river cane basket weaving, Algonquian birch bark biting, and porcupine quillwork—crafts practiced by many tribes across this land long before European settlers arrived. These works will be activated over the course of the exhibition with performances and staged photo shoots in the Fifth Floor Gallery. Alongside this new body of work, Gibson has selected a group of Cherokee and Choctaw objects and garments from his family’s collection, situating his own works within a wider lineage.
The project is accompanied by a full slate of public programs featuring musicians, DJs, choreographers, artists, and conversations with scholars.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Performance: The Spirits Refuse Without a Body
Thursday, February 21, 7 PM
Activating the collection of garments artist Jeffrey Gibson produced for his residency and exhibition, “The Anthropophagic Effect,” this intimate event will feature a live set by DJ Kookum, as well as performances by musician Laura Ortman and choreographer Mx. Oops accompanied by Myles Miyake Mugler and Jason A. Rodriguez (Slim 007).
Glenn Adamson and Julia Bryan-Wilson in Conversation
Saturday, March 16, 3 PM
This conversation between curator and writer Glenn Adamson and art historian Julia Bryan-Wilson will situate the Indigenous craft techniques that Jeffrey Gibson employs in his residency and exhibition, “The Anthropophagic Effect,” alongside handcraft within a broader design history.
Gallery Talk: Kathleen Ash-Milby on “Jeffrey Gibson: The Anthropophagic Effect”
Thursday April 11, 3 PM
Curator Kathleen Ash-Milby will discuss the history of the American Indian Community House Gallery in New York City, where she served as curator and co-director from 2000–2005. The gallery presented many important exhibitions of Indigenous artists, including Jeffrey Gibson’s first solo exhibition in the city.
Valerie Steele and Jeffrey Gibson in Conversation
Thursday May 30, 7 PM
This conversation between legendary fashion historian Valerie Steele, Director and Chief Curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and artist Jeffrey Gibson will explore relationships between couture and Indigenous fashion design.
Performance: To Name An Other
Saturday June 8, 3 PM
In a special closing performance for Jeffrey Gibson’s residency and exhibition, fifty performers will be brought together for a drumming event to give names to our current political climate.
ABOUT R&D SEASONS
Organized by the New Museum’s Department of Education and Public Engagement, R&D (Research and Development) Seasons connect projects across multiple platforms around a new organizing theme each fall, spring, and summer. Seasonal themes are generated by the artists-in-residence and the department’s collaborations with artists lead to exhibitions, performances, conferences, screenings, publications, after-school programs for teens, Family Day activities, and archival research. Anchoring the Museum’s dedication to expanded forms of knowledge and cultural production, each theme is wide-ranging and limber rather than illustrative; participating artists, scholars, and curators raise topical questions and often test thematic limits.