Join us in the Hunter Center with artist Jeffrey Gibson and Albert McLeod in conversation regarding Gibson’s new commission POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT.

About the Speakers:

Albert McLeod is a Status Indian with ancestry from Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation and the Metis community of Norway House in northern Manitoba. He has over thirty years of experience as a human rights activist and is one of the directors of the Two-Spirited People of Manitoba. McLeod began his Two-Spirit advocacy in Winnipeg in 1986 and became an HIV/AIDS activist in 1987. He was the director of the Manitoba Aboriginal AIDS Task Force from 1991 to 2001. In 2018, McLeod received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Winnipeg.

Jeffrey Gibson (b. 1972, Colorado Springs, CO; lives and works in New York) grew up in major urban centers in the United States, Germany, Korea, and the U.K. A mid-career multidisciplinary artist, he is a citizen of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and half Cherokee, whose practice includes sculpture, painting, printmaking, video, and performance. Gibson earned his Master of Arts in painting at the Royal College of Art, London in 1998 and his Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995. His work is in the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian; National Gallery of Canada; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; the Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Gibson is a past TED Foundation Fellow and a Joan Mitchell Grant recipient. He is also a recipient of the 2019 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. He is currently an artist-in-residence at Bard College and lives and works near Hudson, New York. This year, Gibson will represent the United States at the 60th edition of La Biennale di Venezia. He is the first Indigenous artist to represent the United States with a solo presentation in the national pavilion.

About the Exhibition:

Jeffrey Gibson’s new commission POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT is an immersive installation that will fill MASS MoCA’s signature, football field-sized Building 5 gallery space. Gibson is known for creating installations, performances, paintings, and sculptures that elevate and make visible queer and Indigenous communities, among others whose cultural narratives have been historically marginalized. The installation will be a kaleidoscopic celebration and will feature patterned glass stages, garments, wall and window treatments, a new five-channel video installation, and a resource room highlighting the over 30 Indigenous collaborators on the project.