The bucolic greenery and pumpkin patches of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York aren’t quite where you picture finding Jeffrey Gibson. The sought-after artist coolly combines Powwow regalia with 1990s punk and rave culture. His selection as the first Indigenous artist to represent the US with a solo show at the Venice Biennale in 2024, the recent unveiling of his 2025 Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Genesis Facade Commission, and a debut show with international gallery Hauser & Wirth to coincide with Art Basel Paris next week, place Gibson at the white-hot centre of the art world.
Yet since 2016, he’s made artwork — from his bedazzled Everlast punching-bags and modernist paintings on rawhide, to ceramics, flags and hanging cloaks embellished with sequins and song lyrics — far from the madding crowd, transforming a 14,000 sq ft, turn-of-the-century, brick schoolhouse into a one-of-a-kind atelier. Upon arrival, the rooms are pulsing with assistants, as 22 pieces await shipment to France. The former gym, its walls and floor flecked with years of paint, contains a new series of psychedelic, candy-coloured canvases, their custom wood frames inlaid with intricate glass beading — a recurrent Gibson motif inspired by Native American craftsmanship.
