Jeffrey Gibson’s (b. 1972, Colorado Springs, CO) approach to art-making is defined by its hybrid and cosmopolitan nature, largely informed by his international upbringing in the U.S., Korea, and Germany. During his itinerant childhood as the son of a retired civil engineer of the U.S. Army, he found solace and friendship in the world of music, at various times exploring the sounds and social traditions of the punk and rave music of his generation, and in the powwow traditions of his intertribal Native heritage. A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent who currently lives and works near Hudson, Gibson’s practice resists static, preconceived notions of what people believe Native American and Indigenous art looks like. He combines Native art traditions with the visual languages of modernism to explore the confluence of personal identity, culture, history, and international social narratives.

Celebrated for an artistic practice that combines American, Indigenous, and Queer histories with influences from music and pop culture, Gibson creates a dynamic visual language that reflects the inherent diversity and hybridity of American culture. Using abundant color, complex pattern, and text, he invites deep reflection on identity, inspires empathy, and advocates for a widening of access to democracy and freedom for all. Gibson has been recognized with numerous awards, including a 2019 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and he is currently an artist-in-residence at Bard College. Gibson received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995 and his Master of Arts in painting from the Royal College of Art, London, in 1998.

Recent solo exhibitions include This Burning World: Jeffrey Gibson (ICA San Francisco, 2022), Jeffrey Gibson: The Body Electric (SITE SANTA FE, 2022), Jeffrey Gibson: They Come From Fire (Portland Art Museum, 2022), Jeffrey Gibson: INFINITE INDIGENOUS QUEER LOVE (deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, 2022), and Jeffrey Gibson: Like A Hammer (Denver Art Museum, 2018). His work is included in many permanent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, National Gallery of Canada, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Gibson also conceived of and edited the landmark volume An Indigenous Present (2023), which showcased diverse approaches to Indigenous concepts, forms, and mediums. He collaborated with Pavilion co-curator Abigail Winograd on their co-edited monograph Jeffrey Gibson: Beyond the Horizon (2022), which accompanied the exhibition, Beyond the Horizon (2021-2022).

COMMISSIONER

Louis Grachos became the Phillips Executive Director of SITE SANTA FE in 2021, having previously served as Director from 1996 to 2003. During that time, Grachos oversaw the 1997 ground-breaking presentation of Robert Colescott as the first Black artist to represent the United States in a single-artist exhibition at the 47th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Miriam Roberts. With a 30-year career as a seasoned arts leader, Grachos is recognized for his artist-centric vision, fundraising experience, and extensive relationships with artists and community collaborators. Prior to rejoining SITE SANTA FE, he served for two years as the CEO and JoAnn McGrath Executive Director of the Palm Springs Art Museum. From 2013 to 2019, he was the Ernest and Sarah Butler Executive Director and CEO of The Contemporary Austin, where he expanded the museum’s curatorial and public programs, presenting the work of emerging and established artists such as Ai Weiwei, Janine Antoni, Carol Bove, Tom Friedman, Wangechi Mutu, Do Ho Suh, and SUPERFLEX, among many others. He also led several critical construction projects and capital campaigns, launched an international program of contemporary outdoor sculpture at the Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park, and established the Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize for contemporary artists. From 2003 to 2012, Grachos served as the Executive Director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, now renamed the Buffalo AKG Art Museum; in that capacity, he stewarded one of the most prestigious museum collections of 20th century and contemporary art in the United States.

CURATOR AN CO-COMMISSIONER

Kathleen Ash-Milby is Curator of Native American Art at the Portland Art Museum, where since 2019 she has expanded the Museum’s engagement with Indigenous artists locally, regionally, and nationally. Ash Milby also organized exhibitions featuring the work of artists including Oscar Howe (Yanktonai Dakota, 1915-1983) and Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent) as well as emerging and early career Indigenous artists in the exhibition MESH (2021). Prior to joining PAM, Ash Milby spent 19 years at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York, during which time she organized numerous solo and thematic group exhibitions of Native art in diverse media, including Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe (2022); Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound (2021); Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist (2015); Meryl McMaster: Second Self (2015); and C. Maxx Stevens: House of Memory (2012). Ash-Milby has also curated international projects including SITElines Biennial: much wider than a line, at SITE Santa Fe (2017); Stop (the) Gap: International Indigenous Art in Motion, Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide, Australia (2011); and Edgar Heap of Birds: Most Serene Republics, Collateral Event of the 52nd International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2007). Ash Milby has contributed essays to various publications, most recently The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Art Histories in the United States and Canada (2023), Jeffrey Gibson: Beyond the Horizon (2022), and Joseph Yoakum: What I Saw (2021). She has also written for publications including Art in America and Art Journal. Ash-Milby is a recipient of two Secretary of the Smithsonian’s Excellence in Research awards and was a fellow in the Center for Curatorial Leadership Program in New York. A member of the Navajo Nation, she earned her Master of Arts from the University of New Mexico in Native American art history.

CURATOR AN CO-COMMISSIONER

Abigail Winograd is an independent curator and writer. Until April 2023 she was Curator-at-Large and MacArthur Fellows Program Fortieth Anniversary Exhibition Curator at the Gray Center for the Arts and Inquiry, a role she originated at the Smart Museum of Art. In that role, she curated Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows at 40, a city-wide, multi-venue exhibition of 29 artists, including Gibson (2021-2022). She also recently collaborated with Gibson on their co-edited monograph Jeffrey Gibson: Beyond the Horizon (2022) which examined his complex relationship to the depiction of Indigenous people, the history of Native American portraiture, and the institutions that frequently house such depictions. Her scholarly work has focused on the emergence of aberrant abstractions and institutional approaches to expanding canonical histories. She has held positions at the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Blanton Museum of Art; and Art Institute of Chicago. Winograd has contributed to books and museum catalogs, published academic articles, and written for publications such as Bomb, Mousse Magazine, Frieze, and Artforum. She received a Master's and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin and has additional degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Established in 1895, La Biennale di Venezia is acknowledged today as one of the most prestigious cultural institutions. The International Art Exhibition is considered the most prestigious contemporary art exhibition, introducing hundreds of thousands of visitors to exciting new art every two years. The 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (April 20 – November 24, 2024) will be curated by Adriano Pedrosa.

The United States Pavilion at the Giardini della Biennale, a building in the neoclassical style, opened on May 4, 1930. Since 1986, The U.S. Pavilion has been owned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and managed by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, which works closely with the Department of State and exhibition curators to install and maintain all official U.S. exhibitions presented in the Pavilion. Every two years, museum curators from across the U.S. detail their visions for the U.S. Pavilion in proposals that are reviewed by the NEA Federal Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions (FACIE), a group comprising curators, museum directors, and artists who then submit their recommendations to the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The United States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs supports and manages official U.S. participation at the International Architecture Exhibitions of La Biennale di Venezia. The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) builds relations between the people of the United States and the people of other countries through academic, cultural, sports, professional, and private exchanges, as well as public-private partnerships and mentoring programs. These exchange programs improve foreign relations and strengthen the national security of the United States, support U.S. international leadership, and provide a broad range of domestic benefits by helping break down barriers that often divide us, like religion, politics, language and ethnicity, and geography. ECA programs build connections that engage and empower people and motivate them to become leaders and thinkers, to develop new skills, and to find connections that will create positive change in their communities.