Through abstract, prismatic acrylic paintings to garment-like sculptures and textile collages, Jeffrey Gibson explores questions of identity, lineage, and cultural translation. Working across media, the artist intricately beads monumental works and incorporates a wide range of fabrics and materials.
Jeffrey Gibson: A Real Love Thing at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center delves into the cross-disciplinary breadth of the artist’s practice throughout the past decade. Fifteen works amplify his interest in pattern, queer iconography, and his Indigenous Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee heritage. Drawing on the early and continuing influence of music, the artist often integrates song lyrics into tapestry-like wall hangings and three-dimensional works.
Music also inspired the title of the exhibition, which Gibson drew from a 1971 interview with soul artist Marvin Gaye, who described his seminal album What’s Going On by saying, “I think I’ve got a real love thing going. I love people, I love life, and I love nature, and I can’t see why other people can’t be like that.”
Reflecting this sentiment, Gibson’s approach is a luminous celebration of Indigenous symbolism and traditional materials, such as jingle cones used in ceremonial garments, tipi poles, and glass beads that have coated bags, moccasins, and other apparel hand-crafted by Native Americans throughout the centuries. The artist also posits a future full of hope, joy, acceptance, and, like Gaye, a love-above-all ethos.
A Real Love Thing continues through March 13 at the Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., where Gibson will present a talk as part of the esteemed Sam Gilliam Lecture series on November 12. And if you’re near Eugene, Oregon, the artist’s traveling solo exhibition They Teach Love is also on view through through March 7 at the University of Oregon.
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