Featured artists include Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Virgil Ortiz, Cara Romero, Wendy Red Star, Sarah Sense, Hayden Haynes, Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds and more—many making their Corning debut. Bolstered by special loans from Art Bridges by Jeffrey Gibson, Raven Halfmoon, and Cannupa Hanska Luger, Native Now brings together some of the most compelling artists working today.
Native Now features 47 works by 35 artists, representing 29 Indigenous nations, with works of art ranging from painting and photography to sculpture and installation. Over the last 25 years, Indigenous artists throughout what is now known as the United States have been creating vital, compelling work that explores the environment, everyday life, and hope for the future. Working in a myriad of styles, Native American artists create visual stories that emphasize their connection to nature and their own cultures, centering an Indigenous view of the world.
Contemporary Native American art counters the historic erasure of a group of people and reasserts their creative voices through works of art that speak to everyone. Dynamic, surprising, and rich in meaning, these paintings, works on paper, and sculpture acquired by The Rockwell Museum since 2000 reflect the wide-ranging vision of artists working today.
Celebrating the Indigenous past, present, and future, the artworks on view represent connections between communities, the land, and our responsibilities to each other. Through discussions of landscape, modern life, and Indigenous Futurism, Native American artists are mining their own histories to tell new, compelling stories.
The exhibition is organized by The Rockwell Museum and co-curated by Amanda Lett, PhD, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions and Randee Spruce (Seneca Nation, Heron Clan), independent curator. The Museum is located on the ancestral, unceded land of the Seneca, one of the six Nations that comprise the Hodínöhšö:ni:h (Iroquois) Confederacy. We recognize the many legacies of displacement, migration, and settlement that bring us together here.
Don’t miss this major milestone exhibition at The Rockwell Museum—a powerful and celebratory look at what it means to be Native now.
