We loved looking back at this year, reflecting on all of the truly exciting exhibitions and art events that featured Indigenous arts. Native artist representation was apparent more than ever, from international art shows to the red carpet. And while we’d want to include everything, there were too many to name. These are some of the amazing events the FAAM team selected through anonymous voting. As always, we’d love to hear what your favorites for the year were in the comments.
1. Indigenous Inclusion at the Venice Biennale
MAHKU (Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin), an Indigenous art collective from Brazil, painted a monumental mural on the Central Pavilion in the Giardini of the 2024 Venice Biennale. The mural visually tells the story of “kapewë pukeni” (the alligator bridge), the origin story of the Huni Kuin people. Photo courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
The 60th Venice Biennale, whose central exhibition was titled Foreigners Everywhere, was curated by the artistic director of the São Paulo Museum of Art, Adriano Pedrosa. Pedrosa purposefully selected artists who are Indigenous, queer, and from the Global South to participate noting that “Indigenous artists are often treated like foreigners in their own countries.”
Here are just a few of the highlights from the 2024 event:
The facade of the central exhibition hall was painted by MAHKU (Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin), a collective from the Brazilian Amazon. The Brazil Pavilion was renamed the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion, a term that Brazil’s Indigenous people use to describe their land.
Bolivia’s looking to the futurepast, we are treading forward included artists such as Elvira Espejo Ayca (Aymara/Quechua), Oswaldo “Achu” De León Kantule (Guna) from Panama, and Duhigó Tukano (Tukano) from Brazil.
Inuuteq Storch was the first Greenlandic and Kalaaleq artist to represent Denmark at the Venice Biennale. Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee) was the first Native American artist to have a solo exhibition in the United States’s national pavilion, and Kathleen Ash-Milby (Navajo) was the first Native American curator for the U.S. pavilion.
Chile’s Cosmonación, curated by Andrea Pacheco González, featured textile artist Valeria Montti Colque (Aymara descent). Born in Sweden, Montti Colque was the first foreign-born Chilean artist to represent Chile at the biennial.
Emmi Whitehorse (Navajo), Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee Nation), Juana Marta Rodas (Guaraní, 1925–2013), and Julia Isídrez (Guaraní) participated in an Arsenale exhibition, Stranieri Ovunque: Foreigners Everywhere. Kaqchikel Maya artists from Guatemala, Andrés Curruchich Cúmez, Paula Nicho, and the late Rosa Elena Curruchich, and the Nonuya painters from Colombia, Abel Rodríquez and Aycoobo, exhibited in Nucleo Contemporaneo.
Numerous Indigenous artists from across the globe won Golden Lion awards at the Biennial including La Chola Poblete (Mestiza, Argentina), an interdisciplinary artist who received a special mention for her Vírgenes Chola series of large-scale watercolors.
More: labiennale.org
2. Final Rule for the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
Department of the Interior regulation in the United States
Kelly Church (Gun Lake Potawatomi/ Odawa/Ojibwe) “The Formal Business of Grave Digging and Bone Collecting,” 2024, black ash, sweet grass, copper, mixed media.Church says this piece “records a moment in history to see where we are in the future. Will our ancestors and sacred items be returned? Or will more laws need to be enacted and enforced to get those in charge to do what is right and should have been done by will and not by force?”
The final rule for implementing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) went into effect on January 12, 2024, in an effort to speed up the repatriation of ancestral Native American remains and cultural items to tribes. While Congress passed NAGPRA in 1990 to prevent grave looting and push museums to return human remains and other items taken from Native American gravesites to tribes, many institutions have exploited loopholes in the law to avoid complying. ProPublica reported in 2023 that the remains of more than 110,000 Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native ancestors are still held by 623 museums, universities, and federal agencies.
The updates to the law that require institutions to obtain consent from lineal descendants before human remains or cultural items can be exhibited, accessed, or researched, as well as the changes that prevent institutions from categorizing remains as “culturally unidentifiable” seemed particularly impactful. They caused an immediate public response by several institutions including Chicago’s Field Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the American Museum of Natural History that covered and removed objects and sometimes closed entire exhibition halls in response, creating many questions as to why they weren’t working with Native people to ensure these displays were appropriate in the first place.
More: “NAGPRA Updates Intended to Close Repatriation Loopholes” article
3. Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch
Traveling retrospective organized by the Art Gallery of Hamilton with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian
Shelley Niro, “500 Year Itch,” 1992, gelatin silver print heightened with applied color, mounted on Masonite, 186.3 × 125.3 × 5 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Gift of Victoria Henry, Ottawa, 2003. © Shelley Niro. Photo: NGC.
In this first major retrospective of work by multimedia artist Shelley Niro (Bay of Quinte Mohawk), four decades of the artist’s photography, film,
painting, installation, sculpture, and mixed media practice were featured spotlighting themes that Niro continually returns to: Matriarchy, Past is Present, Actors, and Family Relations. Curators assembled more than 70 works totaling 136 pieces from private and public collections across Canada and the United States to showcase her masterful use of parody, feminism, and spirituality to examine identity and imbue the personal with political power.
Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch was organized and circulated by the Art Gallery of Hamilton in Ontario and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), with curatorial support from the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), and traveled to four venues across Canada after kicking off at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center in New York in 2023. Exhibition co-curators were Melissa Bennett, Art Gallery of Hamilton’s senior curator of contemporary art; Greg Hill (Grand River Mohawk), independent curator, formerly Audain Senior Curator Indigenous Art, NGC; and David Penney, former associate director of museum scholarship, exhibitions, and public engagement at NMAI, who recently retired.
More: Shelley Niro at Art Gallery of Hamilton
4. Curve! Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast
Exhibition at the Audain Art Museum, Whistler, British Columbia
Freda Diesing (Haida, 1925–2002), “Old Woman with Labret,” 1973, alder, cedar bark, hair, abalone shell, and paint, Audain Art Museum Collection, Purchased with funds from the Audain Foundation.
Curve! Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast features 127 artworks including poles, panels, masks, bowls, and more – all created by women – to showcase Indigenous women’s unique contributions to the rich legacy of carving wood and argillite along the coast of British Columbia.
Co-curated by Dana Claxton (Hunkpapa Lakota) and Curtis Collins, the exhibition focuses on a selection of carvers active from the 1950s to the present day, highlighting the pivotal role of women artists within the larger practice of Indigenous carving along the coast of British Columbia. Artists include Ellen Neel (Kwakwaka’wakw), Freda Diesing (Haida), and Doreen Jensen (Gitxsan), three iconic Northwest Coast artists who helped pave the way for subsequent generations of carvers; Susan Point (Musqueam), Dale Marie Campbell (Tahltan), and Marianne Nicolson (Kwakwaka‘wakw) who represent highly accomplished senior artists; and Marika Echachis Swan (Tla-o-qui-aht), Morgan Asoyuf (Tsimshian), Cori Savard (Haida), Stephanie Anderson (Wet’suwet’en), Veronica Waechter (Gitxsan), Arlene Ness (Gitxsan), Cherish Alexander (Gitxsan/Tsimshian), and Melanie Russ (Haida) who were selected to represent mid-career artists who continue to push wood carving forward.
More: Curve! at the Audain Art Museum
5. Cultures and Histories of Indigenous Peoples in North America
Promotional flyer featuring printmaking by Fritz Scholder (Luiseño) for the “Cultures and Histories of Indigenous People in North America” exhibition in South Korea.
Traveling exhibition at the National Museum of Korea and Busan Museum of Art, co-organized by the Denver Art Museum
Cultures and Histories of Indigenous Peoples in North America is the first exhibition of its kind to be staged in South Korea, presenting 151 works, all on loan from the Denver Art Museum, by American Indian artists who represent some 43 tribes. The survey exhibition opened at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul and then traveled to the Busan Museum of Art in Busan where it will reside until February 16, 2025.
The objects included in the exhibition were selected to show viewers, in a very tangible way, the diversity of Native Americans and display stereotypes of a monolithic Indigenous culture. The exhibition showcases historical artworks, including a 19th-century painted tipi and Iñupiaq parka, juxtaposed with postmodern and contemporary art in the 21st century.
More: Cultures and Histories of Indigenous Peoples in North America at the National Museum of Korea
6. Future Imaginaries: Indigenous Art, Fashion, Technology
Survey exhibition at the Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles
Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke), “Stirs Up the Dust,” 2011, pigment print on fine art pearl, 29 x 32 inches, Gift of Loren G. Lipson, M.D., Autry Museum, Los Angeles; 2018.16.1. Courtesy Autry Museum of the American West. © Wendy Red Star.
Co-curated by Suzanne Newman Fricke, Amy Scott, Amber-Dawn Bear Robe (Siksika), and Kristen Dorsey (Chickasaw), Future Imaginaries explores “the rise of Futurism in contemporary Indigenous art as a means of enduring colonial trauma, creating alternative futures and advocating for Indigenous technologies in a more inclusive present and sustainable future. Over 50 artworks are on display, imagining or reimagining the future from a Native perspective and some creating unexpected encounters and dialogues between contemporary Indigenous creations and historic Autry works.”
Andy Everson (K’ómoks), Ryan Singer (Navajo), Neal Ambrose Smith (Salish/Cree/Shoshone direct descent), Wendy Red Star (Crow) and Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti) are among the artists mixing “science fiction, self-determination, and Indigenous technologies across a diverse array of Native cultures to envision sovereign futures while countering historical myths and the ongoing impact of colonization, including environmental degradation and toxic stereotypes,” as the exhibition’s webpage says.
More: Future Imaginaries at The Autry
7. George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts
A new study center at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
George Morrison. Courtesy of the University of Minnesota Libraries, University Archives, George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts.
The George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts, an interdepartmental study center to support the creation, presentation, and interpretation of Indigenous art in all its forms, was launched in 2024 by the University of Minnesota (UMN) department of American Indian studies and department of art. Named in honor of Grand Portage Ojibwe artist and UMN faculty member George Morrison (1919–2000), the center’s programming began in January 2024 with the group exhibition Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers, featuring the work of 29 modern and contemporary Indigenous American artists.
With initial funding for the center coming from the University of Minnesota’s College of Liberal Arts, the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts will act as an incubator for scholarship, advocacy, and engagement, working across disciplines and departments to develop a wide range of programming. One of the center’s founders, Professor Brenda J. Child (Red Lake Ojibwe), said: “The George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts is more of a research center and a concept than it is a space. The visual arts exhibit is just the beginning; we’re talking about a big new project about Indigenous art and climate change that will involve community collaboration around film, photography, and exhibits beginning as early as 2025. The center will take a broad definition of the arts and be informed by Indigenous knowledge and perspectives.”
More: George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts
Graphic from ᕿᓐᓂᕋᔮᑦᑐᖅ Qinnirajaattuq / Ripples: Making Waves in Inuit Art Symposium.
8. ᕿᓐᓂᕋᔮᑦᑐᖅ Qinnirajaattuq / Ripples: Making Waves
An Inuit Art Symposium in Montreal
Following in the footsteps of Inuit Modern Symposium in 2011, the ᕿᓐᓂᕋᔮᑦᑐᖅ Qinnirajaattuq / Ripples: Making Waves in Inuit Art symposium invited artists, curators, museum professionals, scholars, students, Elders, and others invested in Inuit art to come together to reflect on the past, assess the current state of Inuit arts, and plan for the future. Knowledge and innovative practices happening within Inuit regions, across Canada, and throughout the circumpolar world were discussed over three days with events hosted in Montreal by the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Avataq Cultural Institute, Concordia University, La Guilde, FOFA Gallery, and more. ᕿᓐᓂᕋᔮᑦᑐᖅ Qinnirajaattuq / Ripples: Making Waves in Inuit Art was organized by the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership: The Pilimmaksarniq / Pijariuqsarniq Project.
More: ᕿᓐᓂᕋᔮᑦᑐᖅ Qinnirajaattuq / Ripples: Making Waves
9. Lily Gladstone Bringing Indigenous Artists into the Spotlight
Artist Keri Ataumbi (Kiowa) helps actress Lily Gladstone (Blackfeet/Nez Perce direct descent) prepare for the Met Gala. Ataumbi hand-crafted hundreds of silver stars for Gladstone’s dress, arranging them into nine different constellations on the garment. Ataumbi also created a custom hairpiece, diamond ring set, and earrings to complete Gladstone’s ensemble. Photo: Razelle Benally (Oglala Lakota/Diné).
Lily Gladstone (Blackfeet/Nez Perce direct descent) shot to fame after starring in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, a movie based on the book of the same title, that brought the horrific, true history of the calculated murders of Osage people in the 1920s (after oil was discovered on Osage land) to a mainstream audience. In the movie, Gladstone played Mollie Kyle, an Osage woman who survived, and the actress took advantage of her new stardom to shine a light on creative Native people whenever she could.
Keri Ataumbi (Kiowa) collaborated with designer Gabriella Hearst to adorn Gladstone for the Met Gala in a custom dress covered in recycled silver stars all handcrafted by Ataumbi. When Gladstone won a Golden Globe she wore Lenise Omeasoo’s (Blackfeet/Cree) beaded picture frame parfleche earrings. At the Oscars, the actress wore a custom Gucci design that was made in collaboration with quill and beadwork artist Joe Big Mountain (Mohawk/Cree/Comanche). Vogue’s Christian Allaire (Nipissing Ojibway) reported:
“To hand-quill the gown’s velvet cape, Big Mountain assembled a team of Indigenous artists on the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin to execute 216 individual quilled petals. The artists tapped for the project include Kendrick Powless-Crouch, Jossalyn Metoxen, Seven Oshkabewisens, Dionne Jacobs, Paige Skenandore, and Aryien Stevens. ‘Being asked to do this collaboration with Gucci by Lily means so much to our family and our community as a whole,’ says Sunshine [Joe Big Mountain’s wife]. ‘Being an Indigenous artist, showing our people the lengths they can reach is tremendous; this opportunity gave us dreams we didn’t even know we had.’”
And these are just a few highlights. At every press junket, interview, and film festival on the circuit, Gladstone could be seen sporting a Native jeweler or designer to both adorn herself and uplift the Native community.
More: “Why Lily Gladstone’s Red Carpet Style Is Oscar-Worthy” article in Vogue
10. Beads in the Blood / mīgisak mīgohk: A Ruth Cuthand Retrospective
Solo exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan
Installation image of the exhibition “Beads in the Blood / mīgisak mīgohk: A Ruth Cuthand Retrospective.” Photo Don Hall. Courtesy MacKenzie Art Gallery.
MacKenzie Art Gallery curator Felicia Gay (Swampy Cree) focused on 41 years of artist Ruth Cuthand’s (Plains Cree) career when organizing Beads in the Blood / mīgisak mīgohk: A Ruth Cuthand Retrospective, including the artist’s video, mixed-media installation, and photography work. As the museum states: “For four decades, Saskatchewan-based artist Ruth Cuthand has influenced the contemporary art landscape in Canada with her narrative-driven artwork. Cuthand has been instrumental in the development of an experimental and expansive Indigenous art practice grounded in critically relevant subject matter. As a matriarch in Indigenous contemporary art practice, she has mentored generations of Indigenous artists and prompted shifts in how artists engage with community knowledge.”
Cuthand has expertly reworked familiar art media through the years to visualize the experience of being an Indigenous person living through settler colonialism. In Cuthand’s brightly colored beaded brain scans, for instance, the artist uses a simple but electric color palette with glow-in-the-dark beads to reveal cross sections of how various mental illnesses manifest in a brain when it is scanned. Her artworks help to tell the story of an ongoing mental health crisis, not only for Indigenous families but Canada’s larger population. The exhibition showcases how Cuthand’s work critiques the lasting harm of colonialism through biting humor and wit while simultaneously highlighting the enduring strength of Indigenous people.
Beads in the Blood remains on display at the MacKenzie Art Gallery until March 28, 2025.
More: Beads in the Blood at the MacKenzie Art Gallery
