Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-determination Since 1969 / Erika Verzutti: New Moons

The Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College will present two major exhibitions, to open on June 24:

Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination Since 1969 
June 24–November 26, 2023
Curated by Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation), Forge Project’s Executive Director and Fellow in Indigenous Art History and Curatorial Studies, CCS Bard.

Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination Since 1969 is the first large-scale exhibition of its kind to center performance and theater as an origin point for the development of contemporary art by Native American, First Nations, Inuit, and Alaska Native artists, beginning with the role that Native artists have played in the self-determination era, sparked by the Occupation of Alcatraz by the Indians of All Nations in 1969. Featuring over 100 works by artists representing a range of perspectives and practices, including Rebecca Belmore (Member of the Lac Seul First Nation (Anishinaabe)), Dana Claxton (Lakota), Theo Jean Cuthand (Plains Cree, Scottish, Irish), Jeneen Frei Njootli (Vuntut Gwitchin, Czech and Dutch), Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill (Métis), Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota), James Luna (Payómkawichum, Ipai, and Mexican), Lloyd Kiva New (Cherokee), Spiderwoman Theater, Dyani White Hawk (Sicangu Lakota), among many others, as well as performances and activations by Rebecca Belmore, Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂), Arielle Twist (two-spirit Nehiyaw (Cree)) with Jeffrey Gibson (The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians/Cherokee), Maria Hupfield (Anishnaabek, Wasauksing First Nation/Canada), Emily Johnson (Yup’ik)/Catalyst, Kite (Oglala Sioux Tribe), and Eric-Paul Riege (Diné).

Indian Theater will be accompanied by a major publication, Native Visual Sovereignty: A Reader on Art and Performance, edited by Candice Hopkins and co-produced with Forge Project and charting the evolution of Indigenous North American performance in contemporary art over the past 60 years. Available fall 2023, Native Visual Sovereignty gathers extensive scholarship on the development Native North American performance, art, and visual sovereignty, including newly commissioned essays, poetry, and oral history interviews, alongside reprints of critical texts by leading Indigenous scholars and artists.

A full list of artists is available online here.

Erika Verzutti: New Moons
June 24–October 15, 2023
Curated by Lauren Cornell, Director of the Graduate Program and Chief Curator, CCS Bard.

New Moons—the first survey exhibition of Erika Verzutti (b. 1971, São Paulo) in the United States—provides an expansive view of the Brazilian artist’s bold and influential practice, encompassing over 70 wall works and sculptures made over the past fifteen years. The artist integrates a multitude of references from art and architectural history alongside references to plant, human, and animal life as well as everyday and spiritual objects. The result is both singular new forms and chains of associations. Sometimes, her sculptures replicate through multiple versions, or what have been called “families.”

Verzutti’s genealogies intersect with motifs such as eggs and orbs, the outlines of body parts, and traces of the work’s making—evidenced in marks from tools and the artist’s own fingerprints. The pervasive presence of Verzutti’s hands and tools reminds viewers that the artist is not just taking—not just absorbing her references into her creations. Rather, she is emphasizing a relation of transference, projection, and personification.

Moons recur throughout Verzutti’s work as symbols of renewal and the multiple phases and cycles that one person or entity can take. They also form a frame for the exhibition. For the artist, moons are part of a cosmos, alongside stars and asteroids, that signal a planetary perspective. This pulled-back viewpoint blurs the tensions and divisions on Earth, forming the basis for an artistic practice that seeks—in its strangeness and discontinuity—to break down prevailing orders, hierarchies, and divisions of knowledge classification.

Visitor information
Exhibition summer hours are Wednesday through Monday, 12–6pm. All CCS Bard exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public - advance reservations are not required but can be made at ccs.bard.edu.

For a seat on the free roundtrip-chartered bus from New York City available for the opening on June 24 please call T +1 845 758 7593 or email alaracuente [​at​] bard.edu. Reservations are required for the bus.