Teresa Baker, Knife River, 2024. Yarn, buckskin, artificial sinew, willow on AstroTurf. 63 x 107 inches (160.2 x 271.8 cm). Courtesy the artist and Broadway Gallery. Teresa Baker
An Indigenous Present celebrates an increasingly visible and expanding field of Indigenous contemporary art. Co-curated by artist Jeffrey Gibson (member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent) and independent curator Jenelle Porter, this exhibition emerges from their 2023 landmark publication of the same name. Drawing upon the co-curators’ research and the book’s broad range of concepts and forms, the exhibition focuses on the development of abstraction among a group of artists who utilize its multivalent modes to consolidate Indigenous concepts, make experimental process- and materials-based objects, and innovate formal specificity alongside community and custom.