For Native American Heritage Month, which recognizes and celebrates the significant contributions the first Americans made to the establishment and growth of the U.S., we’re sharing highlights from LACMA's exhibitions and collections on Unframed throughout November.
I still remember the first time I saw and was enthralled by No Simple Word for Time (2014) by Jeffrey Gibson (Choctaw, born 1972), evoking as it did so many cultural references. The figure—approximately half life-size—is inspired by Native American katsinas, clay storyteller figures, effigy dolls, and the elaborate ensembles worn by pow wow dancers, along with numerous other referents including ancient Chinese terracotta warriors and the cloth figures of Louise Bourgeois. Gibson titled his sculpture after searching for the Choctaw word for "time" and discovering that there is no singular word for it. Instead, there are only descriptions of time, such as night time, day time, morning time, before, and after.
Informed not only by his Indigenous heritage (he is not only Choctaw but also of Cherokee descent) but also by popular music, fashion, literature, and cultural and critical theory, as well as his queer identity, Gibson in his work recontextualizes the familiar to offer commentary on cultural hybridity. Born in Colorado Springs, Gibson grew up in the U.S., Germany, South Korea, and England, and currently lives and works in upstate New York. He draws on his unique combination of cultural perspectives to create works that address the complexities of his identity.
In the series of works including No Simple Word for Time, Gibson invented his own patterns and designs as contemporary abstraction but also as a continuation of the Iindigenous tradition of using geometric abstraction to describe identity. While Gibson’s elaborate figures are made with the same materials that are used in the construction and adornment of garments worn by pow wow dancers, they are neither costumes nor replicas of Native American designs, yet No Simple Word for Time clearly and beautifully pays homage to Gibson’s Indigenous heritage.
No Simple Word for Time is a recent gift to LACMA. Visitors can see other work by Gibson in Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, on view through January 21, 2024, which includes his The Anthropophagic Effect, Garment No. 4 (2019). In 2024, Gibson will be the first Indigenous artist to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale.