The Donna and Jim Barksdale Galleries for Changing Exhibitions
Jeffrey Gibson: Like A Hammer chronicles a pivotal moment in Gibson’s career when his contemporary artistic practice converged with his Native American heritage.
From its beginnings as a state, two hundred years ago, Mississippi has been a place where cultures meet and influence each other. Art created by indigenous people has been part of our cultural landscape long before statehood and continues today. The Mississippi Museum of Art is proud to host an exhibition of works by artist Jeffrey Gibson, who has emerged as an important 21st-century artist, and whose multifaceted approach to contemporary identity inspires new ways of seeing. In our bicentennial exhibition, Picturing Mississippi, our visitors were introduced to Gibson’s art through one of his punching bag sculptures, Sharecropper. He created this work in memory of his Choctaw grandparents who worked in Mississippi as sharecroppers.
Jeffrey Gibson: Like A Hammer will show how Gibson draws upon his heritage and remixes his older works to create a visual vocabulary that explores his multi-faceted identity and the history of modernism.
The exhibition is organized by the Denver Art Museum. The exhibition will feature 65 objects, comprising large and mid-sized figurative works, text-based wall hangings, a selection of his illustrious Everlast beaded punching bags, painted works on rawhide and canvas, as well as videos. Though he touches on his native roots, Gibson’s work incorporates a variety of global influences that create conversations around the complexities of our identities. This exhibition will showcase an important moment in Gibson’s career, when his contemporary artistic practice converged with his Native American heritage.
About the Artist
Jeffrey Gibson (b. 1972, Colorado Springs, Colorado; lives and works in New York State) grew up in major urban centers in the United States, Germany, Korea, and England. A mid-career multidisciplinary artist, he is a citizen of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and is half Cherokee. He incorporates this heritage into his work, which includes sculptures, paintings, prints, and video.
Gibson earned his MA in painting at the Royal College of Art, London, in 1998 and his BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995. Gibson has work in the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum; National Museum of the American Indian; National Gallery of Canada; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Mississippi Museum of Art; among others. He is a member of the faculty at Bard College, a past TED Foundation Fellow, and a Joan Mitchell Grant recipient.
Over the course of summer and fall of 2018, artist Jeffrey Gibson created a new video artwork as part of a Jackson, Mississippi-based national artist residency program supported by the Mississippi Museum of Art and CAPE. The artwork, Wonderlust, debuted at a mini-symposium entitled Wonderlust: Materiality & Movement in Mississippi held November 3, 2018.
CAPE National Residency
Jackson + The Nation
Once a year, from 2018-2020, CAPE and the Mississippi Museum of Art will invite a nationally-recognized artist to travel to Mississippi to engage deeply with communities in Metro Jackson, Mississippi. These residencies will explore legacies and issues that resonate both locally and nationally, and use art as a lens to inspire dialogue, empower personal experiences, and connect people across geographic boundaries. The resulting art installations, performances, and programs will be the products of collaboration between artists, makers, participants, and organizational partners.
