Gibson—born in 1972 in Colorado Springs, in the US, and based today in Germantown, New York—has created a visual language which fuses text, high colour and rich pattern, and a diverse materiality to evoke joy and exuberance as well as critique and resistance. A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, Jeffrey brings together Indigenous languages and histories, queer aesthetics, an abiding concern with broader ancient, historic, Modern and contemporary visual culture, and a profound engagement with popular music and literature.
Installation view of the space in which to place me (Jeffrey Gibson’s exhibition for the United States Pavilion, 60th International Art Exhibition–La Biennale di Venezia), April 20–November 24, 2024. From left to right: IF NOT NOW THEN WHEN (2024); The Enforcer (2024); WE WANT TO BE FREE (2024); Mural: WE ARE MADE BY HISTORY (2024)
Photo:Timothy Schenck
His works range from painting, in which he trained, to myriad sculptural forms, performances and installations and video. With this interdisciplinary practice, he deliberately confronts orthodoxies in the art world and art history, questioning biases regarding taste, value and legitimacy, confronting and subverting stereotypes of Indigenous people and culture, and proposing a radical interaction with the objects and spaces he creates.
SPIRIT AND MATTER, 2023
Jeffrey Gibson Studio and Sikkema Jenkins & Co
He reflects on his work’s overarching collage aesthetic, the deliberate confrontation in his work with decorative and craft traditions, and the role of colour in his work generally and in his new works for an exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in Paris. He discusses the early impact of Henri Matisse, his love of Magdalena Abakanowicz’s textile sculptures, the importance to him of Frank Bowling and David Hammons.
Installation view of Jeffrey Gibson: POWER FULL BECAUSE WE'RE DIFFERENT, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (November 3, 2024 – May 2025) Courtesy of the artist, made with MASS MoCA. Photo: Tony Luong
He talks about his connection with the poet Layli Long Soldier, whose poem inspired the title for his US pavilion presentation at the Venice Biennale in 2024, and recalls a remarkable and formative encounter with the writer and critic Hélène Cixous. He also discusses the experience of encountering the music of Goldie and drum and bass in London in the 1990s and how it is reflected in his work today. Plus, he gives insight into his studio life and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate, what is art for?
- Jeffrey Gibson: THIS IS DEDICATED TO THE ONE I LOVE, Hauser & Wirth, Paris, 20 October-20 December; The Genesis Facade Commission
- Jeffrey Gibson: The Animal That Therefore I Am, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
12 September–May 2026 - Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me, The Broad, Los Angeles, until 28 September
- Jeffrey Gibson: POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT, MASS MoCA, North Adams, US, until September 2026
- Jeffrey Gibson: boshullichi / inlʋchi / we will continue to change, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland, until December 2026
- An Indigenous Present, co-curated by Jeffrey Gibson, ICA Boston, 9 October-8 March 2026; Frist Art Museum, Nashville, 26 June-27 September 2026, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, 7 November 2026-14 February 2027
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture platform.
Bloomberg Connects offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single click, with new guides being added regularly. They include a number of institutions in the US are showing Jeffrey Gibson’s work in 2025, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he will take on the Genesis Facade Commission from September, MASS MoCA, where he has an ongoing exhibition, POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT, the ICA Boston, where this autumn he will co-curate the show An Indigenous Present from October, and The Broad in Los Angeles, where his Venice Biennale project, the space in which to place me, is on view until 28 September. In The Broad guide, you can hear the co-curators and commissioners of the project, Abigail Winograd and Kathleen Ash-Milby, describe in detail some of the key works in the exhibition, from Bird Sculptures made from beads, quartz, sequins and felt, among other materials, to mixed-media works based on Gibson’s paintings and the grand Ancestral Spirit Figures at the heart of the show.
