Each/Other: Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger
Saturday, September 25, 2021 - Sunday, December 12, 2021
Today, we place value on the noun, “art,” and not the verb, “to create.” Yet for much of history, art was an act of shared creation. For Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger, art is a social project where participants become invested and forge relationships. This experience facilitates learning, supports mental health, and develops new skills and ways of seeing. Their art comes from—and aims to produce—activism and social engagement.
As you walk through the exhibition, look beyond the idea of art as a noun. Search for signs of different hands that created the artworks. Think about the people who sewed or formed beads or shared stories. Think about how animals or the land collaborated to form materials. Ask yourself, when encountering each piece, “How am I part of this story?” The works are tangible, but more importantly, they are memories of collaborations that show us how to come together and take part in something greater than ourselves.
Based in Portland, Oregon, Marie Watt (b. 1967) is a citizen of the Seneca Nation whose practice explores multiple materials and the collaborative act of artmaking. Her artworks are held in collections across the United States and Canada, including the Denver Art Museum, the Portland Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery of Canada. Watt has received public art commissions from the Tacoma Art Museum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Denver Art Museum, and the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, through the U.S. State Department’s Art in Embassies program. Watt exhibits internationally and is represented in Portland by PDX Contemporary Art, in Seattle by Greg Kucera Gallery, and in New York by Marc Straus Gallery.
Born on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, Cannupa Hanska Luger (b. 1979), a New Mexico-based interdisciplinary artist, is a citizen of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara), of the Fort Berthold Reservation. His artworks address environmental justice and gender violence. From 2018 to 2020, Luger received fellowships and awards from such organizations as the Smithsonian Institution, the Center for Crafts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Museum of Arts and Design. Luger has exhibited at Princeton University Art Museum, Art Mûr, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Orenda Gallery, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, among others. Luger holds a BFA in studio arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts and is represented by Garth Greenan Gallery in New York.
Each/Other: Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger is organized by the Denver Art Museum and presented with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, The Robert Lehman Foundation, Stelo, and Native Arts and Culture Foundation. In Atlanta, this exhibition has been made possible with generous support from the Charles S. Ackerman Fund, the Carlos Museum’s National Leadership Board, Lauren Giles, Gail and Clark Goodwin, the Grace W. Blanton Lecture Fund, the LUBO Fund, and Sarah Hill.
Emory University acknowledges the Muscogee (Creek) people who lived, worked, produced knowledge on, and nurtured the land where Emory’s Oxford and Atlanta campuses are now located. In 1821, fifteen years before Emory’s founding, the Muscogee were forced to relinquish this land. We recognize the sustained oppression, land dispossession, and involuntary removals of the Muscogee and Cherokee peoples from Georgia and the Southeast. Emory seeks to honor the Muscogee Nation and other Indigenous caretakers of this land by humbly seeking knowledge of their histories and committing to respectful stewardship of the land.
View an artist talk by Marie Watt HERE .
View a pre-screening conversation between curator Megan O'Neil and the creators of Sweet Land the winner of the 2021 Music Critics Association of North America's Best Opera award, Raven Chacon (composer), Yuval Sharon (director), and Cannupa Hanska Luger (director and costume designer) HERE.
For more information, view the exhibition's website HERE.
As you walk through the exhibition, look beyond the idea of art as a noun. Search for signs of different hands that created the artworks. Think about the people who sewed or formed beads or shared stories. Think about how animals or the land collaborated to form materials. Ask yourself, when encountering each piece, “How am I part of this story?” The works are tangible, but more importantly, they are memories of collaborations that show us how to come together and take part in something greater than ourselves.
Based in Portland, Oregon, Marie Watt (b. 1967) is a citizen of the Seneca Nation whose practice explores multiple materials and the collaborative act of artmaking. Her artworks are held in collections across the United States and Canada, including the Denver Art Museum, the Portland Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery of Canada. Watt has received public art commissions from the Tacoma Art Museum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Denver Art Museum, and the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, through the U.S. State Department’s Art in Embassies program. Watt exhibits internationally and is represented in Portland by PDX Contemporary Art, in Seattle by Greg Kucera Gallery, and in New York by Marc Straus Gallery.
Born on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, Cannupa Hanska Luger (b. 1979), a New Mexico-based interdisciplinary artist, is a citizen of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara), of the Fort Berthold Reservation. His artworks address environmental justice and gender violence. From 2018 to 2020, Luger received fellowships and awards from such organizations as the Smithsonian Institution, the Center for Crafts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Museum of Arts and Design. Luger has exhibited at Princeton University Art Museum, Art Mûr, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Orenda Gallery, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, among others. Luger holds a BFA in studio arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts and is represented by Garth Greenan Gallery in New York.
Each/Other: Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger is organized by the Denver Art Museum and presented with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, The Robert Lehman Foundation, Stelo, and Native Arts and Culture Foundation. In Atlanta, this exhibition has been made possible with generous support from the Charles S. Ackerman Fund, the Carlos Museum’s National Leadership Board, Lauren Giles, Gail and Clark Goodwin, the Grace W. Blanton Lecture Fund, the LUBO Fund, and Sarah Hill.
Emory University acknowledges the Muscogee (Creek) people who lived, worked, produced knowledge on, and nurtured the land where Emory’s Oxford and Atlanta campuses are now located. In 1821, fifteen years before Emory’s founding, the Muscogee were forced to relinquish this land. We recognize the sustained oppression, land dispossession, and involuntary removals of the Muscogee and Cherokee peoples from Georgia and the Southeast. Emory seeks to honor the Muscogee Nation and other Indigenous caretakers of this land by humbly seeking knowledge of their histories and committing to respectful stewardship of the land.
View an artist talk by Marie Watt HERE .
View a pre-screening conversation between curator Megan O'Neil and the creators of Sweet Land the winner of the 2021 Music Critics Association of North America's Best Opera award, Raven Chacon (composer), Yuval Sharon (director), and Cannupa Hanska Luger (director and costume designer) HERE.
For more information, view the exhibition's website HERE.
