National | Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith: “Memory Map” at the Whitney Museum of American Art

See below to register for either the 4:00 PM or the 5:00 PM tour group.

Join Laura Phipps, Assistant Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with Caitlin Chaisson, Curatorial Project Assistant, for a tour of the first New York retrospective of groundbreaking artist, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (b. 1940, citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation). Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map brings together nearly five decades of Smith’s drawings, prints, paintings, and sculptures in the largest and most comprehensive showing of her career to date.

Smith’s work engages with contemporary modes of making, from her idiosyncratic adoption of abstraction to her reflections on American Pop art and neo-expressionism. These artistic traditions are incorporated and reimagined with concepts rooted in Smith’s own cultural practice, reflecting her belief that her “life’s work involves examining contemporary life in America and interpreting it through Native ideology.” Employing satire and humor, Smith’s art tells stories that flip commonly held conceptions of historical narratives and illuminate absurdities in the formation of dominant culture. Smith’s approach importantly blurs categories and questions why certain visual languages attain recognition, historical privilege, and value.  Across decades and mediums, Smith has deployed and reappropriated ideas of mapping, history, and environmentalism while incorporating personal and collective memories. The retrospective will offer new frameworks in which to consider contemporary Native American art and show how Smith has led and initiated some of the most pressing dialogues around land, racism, and cultural preservation—issues at the forefront of contemporary life and art today.

See the Whitney’s website for full exhibition support acknowledgments.

This program is open to ArtTable members and guests.

Not a member? Join today!

Admission
$25 ArtTable Members
$35 ArtTable Member Guests

*Please note that we have waiting lists for BOTH tours: click on the register buttons to add your name!*

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This program is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Please note that all income from program fees goes toward ArtTable’s internal costs for organizing programs.

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About the Curators

She has served on the grant selection committee of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, as a visiting critic for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace and Smackmellon Studio Program, and as a guest curator at the Kentler Drawing Center, Brooklyn. Prior to the Whitney, Phipps worked in the curatorial department and director’s office of the Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth. She received her MA, Art History at Hunter College, CUNY and BFA, Studio Art and BS, Psychology from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.

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Caitlin Chaisson is curator and critic based in New York, and holds an MA in Curatorial Studies from Bard College. She currently works at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

From 2016–2019, she served as the Director and Curator of Far Afield, an initiative that supports regionally-connected artistic and curatorial practices. She has also held positions and contracts at The Drawing Center (New York City), e-flux (New York City), Emily Carr University of Art and Design (Vancouver), AKA Artist-Run Centre (Saskatoon), and the Anvil Centre (New Westminster). Her writing has appeared in Canadian Art, C Magazine, and Frieze, among others.

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Image: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, The Vanishing American, 1994. Acrylic, newspaper, paper, cotton, printing ink, chalk, and graphite pencil on canvas, 60 1/8 × 50 1/8 in. (152.7 × 127.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Dorothee Peiper-Riegraf and Hinrich Peiper in memory of Arlene LewAllen 2007.88. © Jaune Quick-to-See Smith