Conversations | Premiere Artist: Jeffrey Gibson

Conversations | Premiere Artist: Jeffrey Gibson
Art Basel Miami Beach 2021, December 1

Using song lyrics or punching bags, Jeffrey Gibson (b.1972, Colorado; based in Hudson, NY) recontextualizes the familiar to offer a succinct commentary on cultural hybridity and modernist strategies within contemporary art. Drawing influence from popular culture, critical theory as well as his own individual Cherokee and Choctaw heritage, his sculptures, beaded works and paintings seamlessly coalesce traditional Native American craft with contemporary cultural production. His work is a vibrant call for queer and Indigenous empowerment, envisioning a celebration of strength and joy within these communities.

‣ Jeffrey Gibson, Artist, Hudson, New York
‣ Moderator: Anne Ellegood, Good Works Executive Director, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA LA), Los Angeles

‣ Jeffrey Gibson (b.1972, Colorado) has exhibited widely including at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum Lincoln, Boston, MA (2021-22); CCA Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco (2020). Upcoming projects include: Toronto MoCA, SITE Santa Fe, Aspen Art Museum, San Francisco ICA, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Portland Art Museum (all 2022) and Mass MoCA (2023). His work is held at major institutions including: Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; Denver Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, Washington D.C.; National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR. Gibson is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2019); Joan Mitchell Foundation, Painters and Sculptors Award (2015); and Creative Capital Foundation Grant (2005).

‣ Anne Ellegood has been the Good Works Executive Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles since September 2019, where her exhibition Witch Hunt, co-curated with Connie Butler and a partnership with the Hammer Museum, is currently on view. She was Senior Curator at the Hammer from 2009-2019, where she organized Made in L.A. 2018, Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology (2014); and Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World, among numerous others. Ellegood received her MA in Curatorial Practice from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and was a 2020 Fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership.

The Art Basel Miami Beach 2021 Conversations program is curated by Art Basel and Edward Winkleman, author and private dealer.