LED firebox with transmounted chromogenic transparency
These backlit portraits present three Indigenous women, Connie, Dee, and Shadae, adorned with colorful beadwork and tribal regalia. They confront the viewer directly, with their eyes—“a place of spirit,” the artist says—shielded from view. The densely layered ornaments have been drawn from each woman’s personal collection, which includes her own creations as well as objects inherited from or gifted by family, friends, and teachers. Claxton represents her sitters, enfolded in these belongings, as inseparable from networks of kinship and exchange, while announcing each one to be an active force in the continuation of Indigenous cultural traditions.
2025
Research in progress; information about this work may be incomplete.
MoMA Learning from 2026
Fire is alive. Fire is ancestral. By calling these works fireboxes, Dana Claxton invites viewers to consider their living, elemental stories. At the same time, she invites reflection on the history of Indigenous representation, aesthetics, and the visibility of traditional adornment. The subject, Dee, wears beadwork from diverse communities, covering her face and creating a composite headdress. These portraits make connections between contemporary Indigenous art and ancestral traditions. They embody community knowledge and showcase individual style, while also insisting on the fire within each of us.
2026
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Gallery 212. . the reality of the human condition,” Lotus L. Kang has said.” Kang and the other artists on view in this gallery describe forms of selfhood, both human and nonhuman, that are entangled with past and place.
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