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Jeffrey Gibson (born 1972) 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 master of arts in painting at the Royal College of Art, London, in 1998. He was awarded honorary doctorates from 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 and Sculptors Grant (2012), and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award (2019). Gibson also conceived and coedited the landmark volume 

 (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; Portland Art Museum; Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian; and Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.

if I read you
what I wrote bear
in mind I wrote it

Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me

The Center for Indigenous Studies at Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, New York) organized a convening in Venice on the relationship of Indigenous North American art and cultures to global histories. Diverse speakers, including practitioners, academics, artists, and theorists, addressed the interdisciplinary, transnational nature of Jeffrey Gibson's work in the U.S. Pavilion. 

Kathleen Ash-Milby is the Curator of Native American Art at the Portland Art Museum, appointed in 2019. Previously, she organized numerous solo exhibitions at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian with artists including Oscar Howe (2022), Kay WalkingStick (2015), Meryl McMaster (2015), C. Maxx Stevens (2012), and Julie Buffalohead (2012). Her critically acclaimed thematic group exhibitions of Native art across a range of media include 

Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound

Off the Map: Landscape in the Native Imagination

 (2007). From 2001 to 2005, she was curator and co-director of the American Indian Community House Gallery in New York City, a foundational community-based nonprofit gallery. Ash-Milby has published widely, including contributions to books, exhibition catalogues, and publications such as 

. In 2015, she was a fellow in the Center for Curatorial Leadership Program in New York. A member of the Navajo Nation, she earned her master of arts in Native American art history from the University of New Mexico.

Kathleen Ash-Milby

Louis Grachos is the Phillips Executive Director of SITE Santa Fe (SITE), appointed in 2021. With a thirty-year career in arts leadership, Grachos is recognized for his artist-centric vision and extensive relationships with artists and community collaborators. He helped launch SITE's Biennial, the first international art biennial in the United States, in his previous role as SITE's director from 1996 to 2003. At the 47th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 1997, Grachos oversaw the groundbreaking presentation of works by Robert Colescott, the first Black artist to represent the United States in a single-artist exhibition at the Biennale. Grachos served for two years as the CEO and JoAnn McGrath Executive Director of the Palm Springs Art Museum. From 2003 to 2012, he was the Ernest and Sarah Butler Executive Director and CEO of The Contemporary Austin in Texas and the executive director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in New York, now renamed the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. He received a bachelor of arts from the University of Toronto and a certification in museum studies from John F. Kennedy University.

Louis Grachos

Abigail Winograd is an independent curator and writer. She was previously curator-at-large and MacArthur Fellows Program Fortieth Anniversary Exhibition Curator at the University of Chicago's Gray Center for the Arts and Inquiry, a role she originated at the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago. She is currently co-director and chief curator of Pueblo Unido Gallery, a community-generated art space situated within Centro Romero, a social service organization serving and advocating for the immigrant community on Chicago's North Side. Winograd's scholarly work focuses on postwar abstraction in South America and institutional approaches to expanding canonical histories. She has held positions at the Frans Hals Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Blanton Museum of Art, and Art Institute of Chicago and has curated exhibitions around the world. She has contributed to books and museum catalogues, published academic articles, and written for publications such as 

. She received a doctorate in art history from the University of Texas at Austin and has additional degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Abigail Winograd

Jeffrey Gibson's selection to represent the United States at the 60th Venice Biennale marks the first solo presentation of an Indigenous artist for the U.S. Pavilion. 

 is commissioned by Kathleen Ash-Milby (Curator of Native American Art, Portland Art Museum), Louis Grachos (Phillips Executive Director, SITE Santa Fe), and Abigail Winograd (Independent Curator) and is presented jointly by the Portland Art Museum and SITE Santa Fe.

Gibson has forged an interdisciplinary practice and hybrid visual language characterized by a bold use of color, pattern, and text that combines American, Indigenous, and Queer histories with references to popular subcultures, literature, and global aesthetic and artistic traditions. A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, Gibson deploys these myriad influences as a form of resistance. His practice deconstructs the ways in which notions of taste, authenticity, and persistent stereotypes of Indigenous people are used to delegitimize cultural expressions that exist outside the mainstream.

Portland Art Museum

Among the oldest museums in the United States, the Portland Art Museum (PAM) is internationally recognized for its permanent collection and ambitious special exhibitions. Based in Portland, Oregon, PAM is distinguished for its long-standing commitment to showcasing the broad spectrum of Native American art, and its holdings also include renowned collections of Asian and graphic arts. With a diverse program that includes PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow, which expands the reach of cinema as an art form, the museum is dedicated to creating opportunities for artists and access to art for the enrichment of our many audiences and diverse communities. The museum strives to be an inclusive, accessible institution that facilitates respectful dialogue and the free exchange of ideas through art within its campus of landmark buildings—a cornerstone of Portland's cultural district—and through its forthcoming expansion and renovation project that includes the construction of the Mark Rothko Pavilion (slated to open in mid-2025).

SITE Santa Fe

Guided by artists and rooted in New Mexico, SITE Santa Fe (SITE) celebrates contemporary creative expression. SITE aspires to be an internationally recognized destination for art and artists and a community resource for creativity and learning. Founded in 1995 to establish the first international contemporary art biennial in the United States, SITE is a noncollecting art institution committed to supporting new developments in contemporary art, encouraging artistic exploration, and expanding traditional museum experiences. Since its launch, SITE has presented eleven international biennials, more than one hundred contemporary art exhibitions, and works by hundreds of emerging and established artists from around the world and in New Mexico. SITE also presents a wide range of public and educational programs that include conversations with artists and curators, performances, film screenings, concerts, hands-on workshops, and collaborations with dozens of local schools and community organizations.