In celebration of Native American Heritage Day, we honor the creativity of Native American artists and the resilience of Native communities. The artist Jeffrey Gibson commissioned a pair of beaded moccasins from Pawnee-Cree artist John Little Sun Murie to adorn this early twentieth-century bronze sculpture, which portrays a stereotyped “dying” Native warrior. By placing moccasins on the warrior’s feet, Gibson and Murie interrupt the myth that Native Americans were doomed to extinction. Gibson and Murie’s intervention honors the Native subject rendered anonymous by the original artist, reclaiming his story as one of dignity, strength, and survival.
You can see this intervention on view in The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience, and Resistance in the Art of Our Time through April 10.
Initiated by Jeffrey Gibson (Choctaw-Cherokee, born Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1972) with John Little Sun Murie (Pawnee/Cree, born 1975), I’M GONNA RUN WITH EVERY MINUTE I CAN BORROW, 2019. Glass beads, brass studs, brass sequins, cotton fabric, buckskin. Mary Smith Dorward Fund, 2020.17a-b. on Charles Cary Rumsey's The Dying Indian (circa 1904).