May is giving jasmine scents and conversation pits. Here are 11 L.A. happenings in art, fashion and fragrance
In 'Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me,' the Broad presents more than 30 works highlighting the artist's signature use of geometry and heavily saturated rainbow hues. Gibson ponders Indigeneity, belonging, modern music and a more equitable future across the exhibit's paintings, sculptures, flags and video installation. May 10–Sept. 28. 221 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. thebroad.org
The fourth biennial Scent Fair L.A. will celebrate everything olfactory in the heart of the museum district at Craft Contemporary. Learn from scent experts like P.F. Candle Co. founder Kristen Pumphrey, who will lead workshops on making your own candles and hand-rolled incense cones, as well as artist Maki Ueda, who will teach participants about the connection between scents and personalities while discussing 'The Tale of Genji.' Attendees can also explore vendors from across the globe who are on the cutting edge of fragrance-making. May 30–June 1. 5814 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. artandolfaction.com
The influential fashion designer's Daisy Marc Jacobs collection is blossoming this season with the addition of Daisy Wild Eau So Intense, packaged in a sweet bottle topped with a bouquet of wildflowers in bloom. Givaudan perfumers Sonia Constant and Adriana Medina crafted the perfect scent for summer adventures, blending banana blossom, amber and jasmine. marcjacobs.com
Golden warmth and thoughtful minimalism mark Jacquemus' newest boutique is West Hollywood, reminiscent of the south of France and the brand's Paris headquarters. Decor designed by artists such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Pierre-Auguste Renoir complements bright yellow linens for an intimate, gallery-like shopping experience. 8804 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood. jacquemus.com
Over 50 years later, David Zwirner's Los Angeles gallery will revisit the 1972 Diane Arbus retrospective that debuted at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. 'Cataclysm' will feature 113 of Arbus' genre-defying photographs, ranging from 'Tattooed man at a carnival' to 'A very young baby,' as well as meditate on the popularity and critical uproar of the original exhibition. April 24–June 21. 606 N Western Ave., Los Angeles. davidzwirner.com
Metal, leather and rhinestones adorn Aslan World's first showroom in the Arts District, reflecting the brand's slogan: Utilitarian maximalism designed for a new world. Look out for the 'Ascending…' capsule collection, available exclusively at the showroom, or lounge in the platformed conversation pit to contemplate reality. Philosophers and trendsetters alike can book appointments online to visit. aslan.world
Inspired by Patti Smith and the iconic singer-songwriter's 2010 memoir, 'Just Kids,' Ann Demeulemeester's latest creative project is an ode to Los Angeles as a city filled with imagination and heart. Creative director Stefano Gallici curated a visual diary of energetic, fleeting moments featuring up-and-coming artists such as Sophie Thatcher of A24's 'Heretic' (2024), film archivist Bella Scaffidi, and musician and model Nico Geyer. anndemeulemeester.com
Christian Dior Parfums' newest boutique is open at South Coast Plaza, inspired by Dior's birthplace at the legendary 30 Ave. Montaigne in Paris. The space blends high-end design with a full range of Dior products, including fragrances and accessories from La Collection Privée. Peruse Dior's exclusive, numbered collector's items, such as Miss Dior by Eva Jospin, packaged in an enchanted garden-themed trunk, as well as L'Or de Vie by Aristide Najean, a winged, bubbly, sculpted glass bottle designed by Najean himself. 3333 Bristol St., Costa Mesa. dior.com
To celebrate its newest fruity and floral fragrance, Chance Eau Splendide, Chanel is setting up shop at the Grove. Customers can try the perfume, which was composed by Olivier Polge, strike a pose in the photo booth and travel through a maze activity. At another station, listen to 'A Little More' by Belgian singer-songwriter Angèle, who is the face of the campaign. April 30–May 18. 189 The Grove Drive, Los Angeles. chanel.com
The Crenshaw Skate Club, created by South Central skater Tobias McIntosh, pays tribute to his community with CSC's latest T-shirt collection. Choose from the Legends Tee, which honors Black pioneers of skateboarding with six black-and-white, high-contrast action shots, or the Wheels Tee, an homage to skateboarders' determination and grit. Wear the graphic tees as a badge of honor, or like the shirt says — 'till the wheels fall off.' crenshawskateclub.com
The inside of fashion label Tory Burch's latest flagship store delightfully mixes vintage furniture pieces with eclectic design, whether you're admiring the olive-hued textiles or 1930s Paolo Buffa daybed. In the alcove of the first floor, guests can shop for the Pierced Handbag or Balloon Bag, or head up to the third floor's sunlit atrium to find jewelry and ready-to-wear clothing. 366 N. Rodeo Dr., Beverly Hills. toryburch.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
9 hours ago
- Forbes
Jeffrey Gibson At The Broad: The Mix That Is His Art And His Life
Installation view of entrance to Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me, at The Broad Museum, Los Angeles, May 10 to September 28, 2025. Photo by Joshua White/ courtesy of The Broad Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place at me at The Broad Museum through September 28, 2025. is the culmination of many firsts: In 2024, Gibson was the first indigenous American to represent the U.S. as a solo artist at the Venice Biennale. The Broad exhibition, which brings the Venice exhibition to Los Angeles, reconfiguring and adding to it, is also Gibson's first solo Southern California museum exhibition. Gibson's work offers up a joyous explosion of color mixed in masterful patterns that incorporate indigenous craftwork and traditions as well as text and titles resonant of US history and American pop culture. More specifically, Gibson's wild mix of colors in bold repeating geometric patterns recalls Vasarely-like OpArt, while the distinctive text in his works appear like the font from 1960s psychedelic rock posters. The works appear in a multiplicity of forms: From large paintings, which have hand sewn elements and elaborate beaded frames, to beaded multi-media busts and full length figures, as well as beaded multicolored birds. An existing sculpture by another artist has been recontextualized for this exhibition. There is even a multi-media video and music installation that brings the club to the museum and is sure to make you want to dance. Installation view of Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me at The Broad, Los Angeles, May 10 to September 28, 2025. Photo by Joshua White/ courtesy of The Broad Gibson takes his titles from resonant pop cultural phrases, such as the lyric, 'Birds Flying High You Know How I Feel,' from the Newman/Bricusse song Feeling Good, made famous by Nina Simone. Some of the titles have a resonance with American history, from the iconic 'We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident,' to Congressman' Emmanuel's Celler's invocation to his colleagues about the Civil Rights Act, 'Action Now. Action Is Eloquence,' and a quote from a letter: 'The Returned Male Student Far Too Frequently Goes Back To The Reservation and Falls Into The Old Custom of Letting His Hair Grow Long,' regarding those schools to which Indigenous children were sent to erase their culture, and assimilate in ways that, 'Kill the Indian to Save the Man.' Jeffrey Gibson Image by Brian Barlow Courtesy of Jeffrey Gibson Studio Gibson sees himself primarily as 'a collage artist,' which, while not doing justice to the power of his paintings, sculptures and installations, is a fair way of describing Gibson's life and the mix that is his art. Gibson was born in Colorado Springs, of parents of Cherokee and Choctaw heritage who themselves were separated from their families and sent to the boarding schools that sought to 'normalize' indigenous children. His father was a civil engineer for the US Department of Defense, and the family lived for periods in West Germany, South Korea, as well as in North Carolina and New Jersey. Gibson reflected that he was raised 'in a very racially mixed culture.' It was in Germany on school field trips that he first visited Dachau and learned about the Holocaust. And then moved to New Jersey where he lived in primarily an Italian and Jewish neighborhood. Gibson felt that he understood that 'my story, my family and myself, wasn't actually as different from these other stories as we might learn them in school.' In the 1990s, Gibson attended the School of Art Institute of Chicago, from which he received his BFA in 1995. Gibson was interested in studying the work and legacies of Indigenous American Artists, but his teachers did not have many such artists to recommend to him. Gibson admits that he 'felt very unsatisfied' by his art education. Installation view of Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me at The Broad, Los Angeles, May 10 to September 28, 2025. Photo by Joshua White/ courtesy of The Broad Gibson met artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and worked at the Field Museum on the very beginnings of The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which introduced Gibson to an expansive way of looking at objects that included spirituality, history, ancestry, and even ideas of what was animate versus inanimate. 'That made it difficult to go back and just make art in the way that we might know it,' Gibson said. In 1998, he received his Master of Fine Arts from the Royal College of Art in London. For many years early in his career, Gibson struggled to find his voice and mode of expression. The turning point was when Gibson learned about the Museum of Modern Art's 1941 exhibition, Indian Art of the United States, curated by Frederic Huntington Douglas of the Denver Art Museum and Rene d 'Harnoncourt, director of the Indian Crafts Board. Gibson researched the exhibition in the archives of the Denver Art Museum and MoMA. To Gibson, that exhibition became a challenge 'to pick up that unfinished thread and try to continue making something from it.' At the press preview, Gibson said, 'I realized, wow, I get to be the steward to make people aware of the diversity of Native America. And that became a responsibility to do it with a degree of ethics, but also in, in conversation with native communities. But, really, we still have yet to scratch the surface of how diverse Native American [Art] really is. ' Other artists have found the burden of representation crushing or limiting but Gibson saw it as artistic real estate that wasn't being used, and that was his to claim. Gibson's work is a vibrant expression whose subject matter is less about how the Native American population was murdered and their culture disappeared, but more a celebration of how they lived, their knowledge, their traditions, their crafts. In this way, Indigenous knowledge remains a living thing. 'I think what I do attempts to be more reflective of the world we live in' Gibson said. 'I'm continually surprised why that's even a challenge for people to understand.' However, Gibson very much believes that in depicting the specific, one arrives at the universal. 'I'm telling my story, which is kind of a collaged hybrid narrative of how I became who I'm today. But I truly believe that [everyone] has their own version of that…What I know best is my story, but I also have to trust that my story is reflective of some version of everyone else's story.' In her opening comments at the press preview, Joanne Heyler, founding director and president of the Broad, said, 'The works in the show resist the erasure and marginalization of indigenous and many other communities by being irresistibly joyous [in ways that] I would argue induce endorphins.' Some critics have rejected Gibson's work as too colorful or his mix of colors as being too garish. I can only analogize this wrongheaded critique to calling any individual Gay person too flamboyant. It misses the point (and is besides the point). The colors are Gibson's alphabet, his language, his culture (as a gay, indigenous, American artist), and his mix requires mastery to work. Gibson shared with me that he has learned so much about color over his decades of experience that in his studio, he has to create a system of painted pieces of paper to catalogue the colors for which there is no name. Installation view of "The Dying Indian," at Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me at the Broad Museum, Los Angeles, May 10 to September 28, 2025. Photo by Joshua White/ courtesy of The Broad Beyond the paintings and beaded busts and birds, I want to single out two works. The first, which was not part of the Venice installation, is a monumental bronze sculpture made at the turn of the 20th century by Charles Carey Ramsey, titled The Dying Indian, which belongs to a tradition of works that seemed to speak to a level of nobility among the vanquished Native Americans. With the emphasis of vanquished, or as the title indicates, dying. Gibson's simple yet moving intervention was to commission beaded moccasins by the Nee Cree artist, John Little Sun, which bear the words of Roberta Flack's lyric, 'I'm Gonna Run with Every Minute I Can Borrow' which when placed on Indigenous warrior's of the sculptures feet, add a whole new dimension of compassion and caring to the work. To that point, at the opening press preview Joan Hyler commented: 'Jeffrey's work tells us how beauty and cultural traditions comprise some of the strongest survival tools for combating oppression.' Installation view of Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me at The Broad, Los Angeles, May 10 to September 28, 2025. Photo by Joshua White/ courtesy of The Broad The other work that stands very much as a statement of Gibson's world view is his work, We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident, in which Gibson has transformed a punching bag that hangs from the ceiling, whose top half has beaded color patterns and the famous words from the Declaration of Independence while the bottom half has s series of skirts that go the floor and splay out in a circle. This works speaks very much to Gibson's worldview that while we may live through difficult times (and be a punching bag during them), we absorb those blows, and continue living our lives in all their collaged beauty. Or as Gibson told me, 'Times of war, times of extreme violence and inequity have happened throughout history. Even before there were non-North American indigenous people on this land, there was violence on this continent. In many ways it's a part of human nature and it is painful.' 'The more I ponder those moments in history and the moments that we're currently in,' Gibson said, 'What I think about is our fear and how we handle fear and looking at the circumstances that cause that fear. Even before this moment, we have manufactured a culture that produces anxiety… [and] a sense of instability. And in moments like this, that instability can be amplified through the media in a very easy way. ' Let me give the last word to Gibson, who told me, 'If we forget how phenomenal we are as living, engaged, imperfect beings, — that's what really marries me to craft in the way that we make things in the studio. '
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Yahoo
Challenges Plague the 2026 Venice Biennale, as Time to Mount an Exhibition Dwindles
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." The application grant portal for the 2026 Venice Biennale, known as the Olympics of the art world, has opened to artists—months later than usual, and with new criteria written in language that looks like the now-familiar work of the current administration. With less time, the sudden passing of Koyo Kouoh, the curator of the 2026 Biennale, and a new definition of who the representative artist should be, will contenders be able to prepare an exhibit for the US pavilion? And, who should that artist be? Being chosen to represent the US is an unparalleled career-advancing opportunity. The 130-year-old Venice Biennale, which takes place every two years, pits participating countries' national pavilions against one another to win the prestigious Golden Lion award. Since it began in 1895, the US has taken part in every Biennale except for a few surrounding World War II. But the cost, even at the best of times, is high. When artist Jeffrey Gibson was chosen to represent the US at the 2024 Biennale, he and his team had to raise $5 million. While winning artists are granted $375,000 by the US State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), $125,000 goes to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in order 'to provide the staffing, maintenance, and operations of the U.S. Pavilion during exhibit installation, display, and removal (approximately 7 months),' according to this year's application documents. This means most of that $5 million had to be raised (the amount ranges year to year). Typically, funds are sourced from private donors and institutions. In total, it's a long and complicated process: Usually, an application is made by a trinity of artist, museum, and curator. The window to apply is months long; the ECA creates a Federal Advisory Committee in accord with the US Department of State to review applications, and a couple months later, a winner is announced. Which is why it caused alarm when Nate Freeman reported for Vanity Fair that the portal for the 2026 Biennale didn't go live until Wednesday, April 30th, condensing the more typical 18-month window down to a tight 12 months. (The reason for the delay is not clear, and the State Department has not responded to a request for comment.) Will a hopeful still be able to apply and pull together an exhibit in time for the 2026 Biennale? Most of the curators and gallerists we spoke with said yes, without a doubt. The timeline is not ideal, but anyone intending to apply is likely prepared. Long before the portal opened, institutions, artists and curators were no-doubt making moves to position themselves to win. The question then becomes, who wants to represent American art on an international stage, right as arts funding is cut or redirected by the current administration. Earlier this month, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) pulled grants from hundreds of arts groups, according to NPR, after President Trump proposed cutting the NEA entirely. More recently, employees including senior leaders left the NEA en masse after being given the option to leave or retire early, through the Deferred Resignation Program, according to The Washington Post. Meanwhile, the assistant secretary role at the ECA role is vacant, and acting leadership is Darren Beattie, President Trump's former speechwriter. According to Freeman's reporting, this year's Annual Program Statement by the ECA looks different than past years'. Of the notable changes is an assertion that the program's intent is to advance an 'international understanding of American values by exposing foreign audiences to innovative and compelling works of art that reflect U.S. foreign policy and foster international dialogue on shared global challenges.' Also, a 'site visit, at least once during the lifetime of an award, may be conducted by Department of State personnel. The site visit is conducted to gather additional information on the recipient's ability to properly implement the project.' 'Within these conditions, should one go ahead and propose an artist?' says Cecilia Alemani, director and chief curator of High Line Art. 'The intervention of the government with the content of the artist's presentation is there where it hasn't been in the past.' On top of this is the recent and sudden death of Koyo Kouoh, just before she was supposed to announce the theme and title for the 2026 Biennale. Beyond the loss of an important figure in the art world—who would have also been the first African woman to curate the Venice Biennale—the implications of her passing for the next Biennale are unclear, and no statement has yet been made, according to the New York Times. And yet imagining a Venice Biennale without a US representative at the national pavilion seems unimaginable. So is the idea that an artist wouldn't want the chance to comment on art in America, given the platform at the Biennale. You Might Also Like From the Archive: Tour Sarah Jessica Parker's Relaxed Hamptons Retreat 75 Small (But Mighty) Kitchens to Steal Inspiration from Right This Instant
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Yahoo
From a job at Ikea to a show at the Broad museum: Jeffrey Gibson's long path to art stardom
In 2019, Jeffrey Gibson received a MacArthur Fellowship, the $625,000 award commonly called 'the genius grant' that buys recipients the freedom to follow their dreams. Gibson used the money to purchase art materials and hire studio assistants. He took a two-year hiatus from teaching and spent more time reading. Best of all, he could afford to focus on the exquisitely crafted and increasingly ambitious art — supercharged with bold patterns, bright colors, poetic messages and mesmerizing textures — coming out of his studio in upstate New York, near the town of Hudson, where he lives with his husband, artist Rune Olsen, and their children, 9-year-old Gigi and 5-year-old Phoenix. A sequence of critically acclaimed — and wildly popular — exhibitions followed: 'When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks' at the Brooklyn Museum in 2020, 'The Body Electric' at SITE Santa Fe in New Mexico in 2022, 'The Spirits Are Laughing' at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado that same year, 'They Teach Love' at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Washington State University in 2023 and 'Power Full Because We're Different' at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in 2024. The pace of Gibson's exhibitions was relentless. He gained energy and momentum from reaching larger audiences, and he became a passionate advocate for issues dear to his heart, speaking particularly in terms of power and beauty, and the ways those forces have played out — and continue to play out — in the democratic experiment that is the United States of America. All of that culminated in 2023, when the State Department selected Gibson to represent the United States with a solo exhibition at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024. There are few higher honors for an American artist, and Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians who also is of Cherokee descent, was the first Indigenous artist selected to fill that role. Other Indigenous artists, often unnamed, had represented the U.S. only once before — mostly with pottery, jewelry and textiles — as part of a group exhibition. That was in 1932, when Pueblo artists Ma Pe Wi and Tonita Peña and Hopi artist Fred Kabotie also exhibited their paintings. 'Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me' transformed the exterior and the interior of the neoclassical U.S. Pavilion in Venice into a vibrant stage that invited people from all walks of life to interact with the cornucopia of works. Visitors couldn't help but discover something wonderful, whether it be a giant, stylized bird, festooned with thousands of glistening beads; a laser-sharp painting, composed of up to 290 supersaturated colors; an array of lavishly patterned flags, from places no one has ever visited; or an evocative phrase, lifted from a novel, a pop song, a poem or a document, such as the U.S. Constitution. A pair of 9-foot-tall figures looked like they had just stepped off a spaceship — or out of a psychedelic fever dream. And a trio of murals, measuring up to 18-by-40 feet, provided an intergalactic backdrop, welcoming aliens of all stripes. That historic, well-received exhibition in Italy — 'Identity politics has never looked this joyful,' read the review from the Times of London — has come to Los Angeles. Gibson's first solo show in a Southern California museum opens May 10 in the lobby and first-floor galleries of the Broad. All of the works that filled the pavilion in Venice will be at the Broad, installed to let visitors circulate freely through a layered labyrinth of figures and forms — some familiar, others disconcerting. A pair of sculptures, displayed five years ago in Gibson's Brooklyn Museum exhibition, has been added. The larger of the two is a monumental bronze figure on horseback, cast by Beaux-Arts sculptor Charles Cary Rumsey in the first decade of the 20th century and titled 'The Dying Indian.' It depicts a generic Native American man astride an emaciated horse. Shoulders slouched, head bowed and wearing nothing but a pair of moccasins, the dying Indian is an emblem of extinction — or extermination. To counteract that narrative, Gibson commissioned Pawnee-Cree artist John Little Sun Murie to create a pair of beaded moccasins emblazoned with a line from a Roberta Flack song: 'I'm gonna run with every minute I can borrow.' While giving symbolic comfort to the bronze figure, the buckskin moccasins tell a story of grassroots resistance and DIY defiance, in which beauty and comfort and love have a toehold, even in a world otherwise defined by injustice and suffering. 'The space in which to place me' comes at a fraught moment for artists and their art, and Gibson is acutely aware of where his work stands in the current political climate. 'To me it's almost whiplash going from Venice to what's going on at the Smithsonian now,' Gibson says, referring to the public-private institution that includes the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Under pressure from the Trump administration, the Smithsonian closed its Office of Diversity and is targeted by the president for 'race-centered ideology' that he deems 'improper' under an executive order titled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.' 'I don't want to say it's actually hard to reckon, because I'm not sure that it is that hard to reckon,' Gibson says. 'I think that, in this moment, we have no distance. We have no objective distance from what we're experiencing right now. And so there's no way for me to be able to understand all of the circumstances that led to where we're at.' When Gibson looks at the present, he sees it as part of history, reaching back further than the divisiveness that has defined American politics for the last couple of decades. 'When we look at other moments in history, you see so clearly how events and attitudes and interests aligned for those moments to happen.' Gibson is convinced that, in the future, when we can see the present in retrospect, we will see that the current turmoil is actually business as usual. Sarah Loyer, curator and exhibitions manager of the Broad, puts it this way: 'The show takes a long view of history. It's not reactive. It's not about the past 10, 20, or however many years. It's really looking all the way back. 'In this moment, that is refreshing. It is also necessary for us to ground ourselves in this longer view, this longer arc, and really think about the role of history, and how that affects the present and the future.' Jeffrey Gibson was born in 1972 in Colorado Springs, Colo., and he grew up in West Germany and South Korea, where his father worked for the U.S. Department of Defense, supplying goods to military bases. In 1995, Gibson earned his bachelor's degree from the Art Institute of Chicago. As an undergrad, he had worked at the Field Museum, on the staff established by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which returned sacred objects and human remains to their respective tribes. After receiving his master of fine arts degree from the Royal College of Art in London in 1998 — funded in part by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians — Gibson moved to New York City, where he, like many young artists, struggled to find his voice, struggled to find an audience for his art and struggled to find time to make art between day jobs at Macy's and Ikea. By 2011, Gibson was frustrated by all of the struggles and considered abandoning art. But a 2012 two-gallery exhibition in New York, titled 'one becomes the other' and presented at Participant Inc. and American Contemporary, redeemed his commitment to art-making. For the first time Gibson collaborated with other Indigenous artists, who specialized in beading, drum-making and silver engraving. It was also the first time he felt that people understood what he was up to as an artist. Interest in his work spread swiftly. Solo exhibitions at public venues around the country followed: 'Love Song' at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, in 2013, 'Speak to Me' at the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center in 2017, 'Like a Hammer' at the Denver Art Museum in 2018 and 'I Was Here' at the Des Moines Art Center in 2019. He was 48 when he got the MacArthur. For Venice, Gibson dreamed big. Rather than proposing what he thought was practical, or acceptable, or typical, he proposed what he wanted to see — in his most freewheeling imaginings, with no compromises or constraints. From June 2023, when he found out that his exhibition proposal had been selected, to April 2024, when his exhibition opened, he says, 'I was prepared the entire time for people to call me and say, about every element of the installation, 'We just can't do that,' or 'It's just not possible.' And I have to say, that didn't happen.' That's a testament to the team Gibson had assembled, which ultimately consisted of 180 people. Chief among them were Kathleen Ash-Milby, curator of Native American Art at the Portland Art Museum, and Abigail Winograd, an independent curator, as well as Louis Grachos, executive director of SITE Santa Fe. Gibson's exhibition was co-commissioned by SITE Santa Fe and the Portland museum. 'What's so amazing about Jeffrey is that he draws on so many different realms for his work, from Indigenous histories to American queer culture, all the while exploring identities and diversity,' Grachos says, 'He is an exceptionally sophisticated colorist, a great communicator and an effective educator. In the end, Jeffrey is the absolute, consummate humanist.' Looking back at the year leading up to the Venice opening and the year that followed, Gibson has a deep appreciation of the value of time — and how long it takes to make sense of things. And that worries him deeply about the world we live in. 'We have created a culture that is overwhelming for a human being,' Gibson says. 'And that overwhelming causes anxiety. It causes fear. It causes a real, not just a perceived, sense of instability. And when we feel completely unstable, the first thing we want to do is revert to something that we think we understand. We've taken away the ability to feel that we have the space for comprehension, the space to process and to understand.' When face-to-face understanding gives way to stereotypes developed from a distance, Gibson says, the battle is lost. 'We are again conjuring fear. And that fear ultimately sits in the soul as resentment. That resentment is going to show up. So when I look at the world right now, I think what I really see is fear.' Gibson's art is all about making a place in the world where fear — the feeling of being overwhelmed by the speed and volume of modern life, the seemingly intractable political divide, the malignant racism that plagues the nation — has no toehold, much less a leg to stand on. Read more: From the Archives: Jeffrey Gibson, an artist's life outside labels Gibson's exhibition is a remedy for those who sometimes feel powerless and pointless. His exuberant, color-saturated installation serves up an abundance of beauty, awe, astonishment and fun. It stimulates the senses and inspires the mind. Most of all, it uplifts. The experience is the opposite of what one feels by the image glut and sound bites of modern life, the psychologically destabilizing ether of digital distractions that can oppress the soul. 'I think that analog-world engagement is crucial,' Gibson says. 'I make work that's very much about being a living being in this world, which I see as phenomenal. And I wish for people that they could understand how phenomenal the world around us is.' Until recently, Gibson had not realized how important working with textiles and making garments would be to him. 'When displayed,' he says, 'the garments become a kind of banner, a kind of flag.' They evoke the regalia worn by ghost dancers, papal robes and the outfits created by such performance artists as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Hermann Nitsch and Hélio Oiticica. They also recall the homemade clothes of punks and skaters. 'The garment is really a mechanism for transformation,' Gibson says. 'You become someone other in the garment. It's a way of extracting yourself from mass consumer culture. And all of those things just really fascinated me to want to think about an alternative, progressive, very inclusive army.' The repetitive nature of weaving and beading and hands-on craftsmanship are important to Gibson. 'The routine is healing,' he says. During an earlier visit to Venice, Gibson was struck by gorgeous, fully beaded dresses made centuries ago. 'They were made under some periods of tremendous distress,' he says. 'I wondered why anybody, under those conditions, decided to make a beautiful, beaded dress. Why was beauty so important? And that question — Why beauty? — is still with me. The only answer I can come up with is that, in a weird way, beauty is a manifestation of hope.' Gibson also notes that the handing down of a treasured object to a family member or community member 'is really a way of manifesting a future. It may be a small gesture, but it's powerful.' That's how he looks at his life as an artist: 'It all starts at a much smaller scale. It starts in childhood. It starts with socialization. It starts with people having examples of equity and fairness to mimic. If you have those examples, you really lessen the degree of violence that we see in society today. 'I know that's not a sexy story. But I think that those things are within my control. I'm not a religious person per se, but more and more I feel that faith, in its broadest definition, is crucial. Right now. I just think that once you lose faith, hope, love — I mean, I don't know what's left.' Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
