Jennifer Scanlan, the Curatorial and Exhibitions Director for Oklahoma Contemporary, takes Uncovering Oklahoma on an exclusive one-on-one tour of Jeffrey Gibson’s Speak to Me.
Speak to Me, Gibson’s first solo show in Oklahoma, features recent artworks that draw upon his Native American heritage (Choctaw and Cherokee) and intertribal aesthetics and traditions. He incorporates other wide-ranging influences including house music, modernist art, gospel, and ’80’s fashion to create objects with many stories to tell.
Gibson’s practice includes painting, sculpture, fiber, ceramics, video and performance, and Speak to Me features recent works that draw upon, among other things, his Native American heritage (Choctaw and Cherokee). Many of the pieces also incorporate texts with personal resonance for Gibson: Lyrics from pop, house music and rap and some of Gibson’s own words are beaded into the art.
In addition to the two dozen pieces in the exhibition, Jennifer shows off the Learning Gallery where visitors can interact with Speak to Me. It includes touch tiles, so that guests can explore how the materials Gibson uses in his works feel and sound, and a threading station for families to create their own art, as well as a pop-up library in collaboration with the Metropolitan Library System.
For this curator tour, I’ve upped my production values compared to my last tour video by having Jennifer on a wireless mic and the camera on my new handheld gimbal stabilizer.
Jeffrey Gibson’s Speak to Me is on display at the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center from February 9 to June 11, 2017.