Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me / USA at the Venice Art Biennale 2024

Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me / USA at the Venice Art Biennale 2024. April 19, 2024.

Official description: Jeffrey Gibson has forged an interdisciplinary practice and hybrid visual language that draws from American, Indigenous, and queer histories, with references to popular subcultures, literature, and global artistic traditions. A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, Gibson grew up in major urban centers in the United States, Germany, and Korea— experiences that inform his practice. In his work, intertribal aesthetics, beadwork, textiles, and found objects from the past two centuries commingle with the visual languages of global modernism. His use of pattern and abstract geometries confronts the chromophobia of contemporary art. His practice reflects the vibrant realities of Indigenous communities in the United States, a form of cultural critique that engages with complex histories rather than erasing them. With newly produced multimedia sculptures, mixed-media paintings, site-specific murals, a multichannel video installation, and an extensive exterior installation, the space in which to place me transforms the U.S. Pavilion into an embodiment of Gibson’s radically inclusive vision for the future: a space in which Indigenous art and a broad spectrum of cultural expressions and identities are central to the American experience.