Diné artist Eric-Paul Riege presents ojo|-|ólǫ́ at the Bell Gallery at Brown University, a major institutional exhibition that brings together Riege’s textile, sculpture, collage, video, and performance practices. Drawing from customary Diné practices of silversmithing, beading, and weaving, Riege (born 1994, Na’nízhoozhí [Gallup, New Mexico]) produces monumental mixed-media works that reference Diné mythology, the history of settler trading posts in the Navajo Nation, and “authenticity” as a value marker of Indigenous art and craft.
For ojo|-|ólǫ́ , Riege has produced a new body of sculptures in conversation with Navajo blankets, silver jewelry, and dolls from two anthropological collections: Brown’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, and the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Comprised of many varied works, from large-scale jewelry and tools to weavings made from unexpected materials, this exhibition embraces infidelity to colonial archives while celebrating ancestral traditions of labor contained within Indigenous-made objects. Live performances throughout the exhibition invite caring yet critical interrogations of the ways Indigeneity is represented in museums and universities. Unfolding within and across university museums, ojo|-|ólǫ́ aims to illuminate the histories of power and knowledge production embedded in these institutions.
The show will be on view at The Bell in Providence, Rhode Island, through December 7 before travelling to the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington from March 15 through August 30, 2026.
To learn more, visit bell.brown.edu
The exhibition is co-organized by The David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University (The Bell) and Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, and is curated by Thea Quiray Tagle, Ph.D., Associate Curator at The Bell, and Nina Bozicnik, Senior Curator at the Henry Art Gallery. A major publication for the exhibition, designed by Luminosity Lab, is forthcoming.
