Artist Talk: Jeffrey Gibson

Passes for Jeffrey Gibson’s artist talk have been claimed.

Take heart: Our walk-up line will open at 5:30 PM on Tuesday, June 4. We will do our best to welcome everyone safely and comfortably inside the Ring Auditorium. In the meantime, set a reminder to be alerted if and when more free passes become available. While you’re at it, sign up for our weekly e-newsletter to get the scoop on artist-led events, exhibitions, free programs, and performances (such as a screening of “Listen to the Universe”) at the Hirshhorn.

Questions? Email Hirshhornexperience@si.edu
Hirshhorn Insiders, email HMSGdevelopment@si.edu

 

Jeffrey Gibson has received worldwide praise for his vibrant and culturally meaningful installation for the US Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, the first solo presentation there by a Native American artist. Like the work that has come to exemplify his broader practice, the installation in Venice fuses his Choctaw-Cherokee heritage and multicultural experiences with references from history and pop culture to comment on the state of the world today. He is known for works that combine intricate Indigenous artisanal craft, such as beadwork and quilting, with language that speaks to the Indigenous struggle for freedom and equality, as seen in his 2020 work TO FEEL MYSELF BELOVED ON THE EARTH, an intricately beaded multicolored punching bag sculpture that recently entered the Hirshhorn collection.

Gibson will join Hirshhorn assistant curator Betsy Johnson in conversation to discuss defining elements of his practice and the inspiration behind his work, as well as what it means to represent the United States on a global stage.

This event is presented in partnership with the Meridian Center for Cultural Diplomacy on the occasion of the Meridian Cultural Diplomacy Awards and the Culturefix Initiative, the Center’s dynamic cultural diplomacy platform.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the National Museum of the American Indian will copresent the conversation in the Hirshhorn’s Ring Auditorium.

 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Jeffrey Gibson is an interdisciplinary artist. 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. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995 and a Master of Arts in painting at the Royal College of Art, London, in 1998. He was awarded honorary doctorates from the Claremont Graduate University (2016) and the Institute of American Indian Arts (2023). He is currently an artist-in-residence at Bard College. Gibson has received many distinguished awards, including a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant (2012) and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award (2019). Gibson also conceived and coedited the landmark volume An Indigenous Present (2023), which showcases diverse approaches to Indigenous concepts, forms, and media. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Portland Art Museum; Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian; and Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.

An Indigenous Present will be available for purchase in the Hirshhorn Museum Store before the program.

Betsy Johnson joined the Hirshhorn’s staff in January 2016 and was appointed assistant curator in March 2018, with responsibilities for overseeing the Museum’s photography collection. For the Hirshhorn, she has organized Tony Lewis: Anthology 2014–2016 (2018); The Evidence Room (2019); Feel the Sun in Your Mouth: Recent Acquisitions (2019–2020); Ai Weiwei: Trace (Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, 2021); Toyin Ojih Odutola: A Countervailing Theory (2021–2022); One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection (2022–2023); Rirkrit Tiravanija: (who’s afraid of red, yellow, and green) (Wrightwood 659, Chicago, 2022); A Window Suddenly Opens: Contemporary Photography in China (2022–2024); Jessica Diamond: Wheel Of Life (2023–2024); and, most recently, Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960 (2024–2025), which she co-curated with Marina Isgro. Her publications include Tony Lewis: Anthology 2014–2016 (Mousse Publishing, 2022) and A Window Suddenly Opens: Contemporary Photography in China (Yale University Press, 2023), as well as contributions to Marcel Duchamp: The Barbara and Aaron Levine Collection (DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2019) and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: The Collection (DelMonico Books, 2022). She holds a BA in integrative arts (1998) and an MA in art history (2004) from Pennsylvania State University and is ABD in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland.

 

ABOUT THE MERIDIAN CENTER FOR CULTURAL DIPLOMACY

The Meridian Center for Cultural Diplomacy is the leading center in the United States that employs the arts and culture as tools of diplomacy and cross-cultural understanding. The Center collaborates with embassies, governments, and the private sector to curate cultural diplomacy exhibitions, exchanges, and programs in Washington, DC, and worldwide.

Meridian views arts and culture as diplomacy tools to connect people worldwide and bridge divides. Meridian works in partnership with the US Department of State and American embassies abroad, as well as the diplomatic community in Washington, DC, to develop and curate exhibitions, exchanges, and programs that range from film screenings to mural arts programs to hip-hop diplomacy exchange programs.

On Wednesday, June 5, Meridian will present Culturefix, its signature cultural diplomacy celebration, to honor the power of the arts and culture to help fix global challenges faced by people, communities, and the planet. Find out more here.

If you have questions or a request for access services or accommodations that can make your experience more inclusive, please contact hirshhornexperience@si.edu. One to two weeks’ advance notice is recommended but not required.