Indigenous Identities: Here, Now & Always

Curated by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith.

In February, an unprecedented survey of contemporary Native American art curated by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation) opens at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University—New Brunswick. Indigenous Identities: Here, Now & Always marks the largest curatorial endeavor in the acclaimed artist’s 60-year career and emphasizes her pivotal role in bringing forth a living Native Art history. The exhibition is also the largest exhibition of contemporary Native American art at a museum to date. Comprising over 100 works across a range of media, from beadwork and jewelry to video and painting, Indigenous Identities foregrounds the significance of identity in artmaking through the diverse practices of 97 artists, representing more than 50 distinct Indigenous nations and tribes across the United States, and explores the multiplicities of indigeneity and asserts the inextricability of Native American Art from the contemporary canon.

Celebrating the breadth of groundbreaking contemporary art made by Native artists, Indigenous Identities surfaces a series of guiding concepts—land, social, tribal, and political—that unify the works on view and speak to the permeability of art in Native American life. Featuring jewelry, ceramics, beadwork, and basketry alongside painting, sculpture, and installation, the exhibition confronts the idea that traditional forms of making are artifacts of a past life and acknowledges these practices and their contemporary resonance.

In curating Indigenous Identities, Smith invited artists to help select the work that would represent them in the exhibition, a reciprocal curatorial practice that subverts the more typical institutional processes that are prescriptive and predetermined. The resulting exhibition is expansive in the range of works presented, and in the artists whose voices are included. Furthering a Native Art history that is non-linear and inclusive, Smith situates the work of elders, such as G. Peter Jemison, George Longfish, and Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, alongside works by younger generations including George Alexander and Tyrrell Tapaha; lesser-known artists join celebrated names such as Jeffrey Gibson, Raven Chacon, Wendy Red Star, and Julie Buffalohead.  

Exhibition highlights include:

Confronting historical erasure, Marie Watt’s Skywalker/Skyscraper (Twins) (2020), an example of her well-known work with reclaimed wool blankets, honors Haudenosaunee ironworkers who helped build the skyscrapers of New York City.

Nicholas Galanin’s photograph Never Forget (2021) references the iconic Hollywood sign to form a powerful reminder of Indigenous sovereignty and the ongoing Land Back movement.

G. Peter Jemison’s painting Red Power (1973) is a celebration of the multiplicities of Indigenous identities and modes of resistance.  

Engaging ceramic and metals, Rose B. Simpson’s X-Ray (2021) blends traditional Pueblo pottery techniques with steel to explore themes of cultural identity.

Jeffrey Gibson’s multimedia painting She Never Dances Alone (2021) honors the strength and persistence of Indigenous women and is an example of Gibson’s work to make visible the ongoing crisis of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women (MMIW).  

Recent photographic work by Cara Romero, including Arla Lucia (2019) and Starlight, Starbright (2023), breaks down monolithic stereotypes of Indigenous women.

Jackie Larson Bread’s Triangular Beaded Trinket Box, Chief Joseph (2007) showcases the artist’s distinctive style of pictorial beadwork that honors some of her Blackfeet ancestors.   

Cannupa Hanska-Luger’s Mirror Shield Project (2016) documents the Water Protectors’ fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and how art can be used as a tool against aggression.

The exhibition, publication, and correlating public programs are supported by National Endowment for the Arts, Nissan Foundation, the Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners through a grant award from the Middlesex County Cultural and Arts Trust Fund, and Rutgers University. Additional support is provided by donors to Zimmerli’s Major Exhibitions Fund: Kathrin and James Bergin and Sundaa and Randy Jones.

Generous support for bilingual text was provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program.