Joe Harjo
Joe Harjo (b.1973 Oklahoma City, OK) is a multidisciplinary artist from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma and is currently working and teaching in San Antonio, TX. He holds a BFA in Visual Arts from the University of Central Oklahoma and an MFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio.
His work uncovers the lack of visibility of Native culture, lived experience and identity in America, due to both the absence of proper representation in mainstream culture and the undermining of Native belief systems. He confronts the misrepresentation and appropriation of Native culture and identity, initiating a call for change.
Recent exhibitions include: Indian Removal Act II: And She Was, The Contemporary at Blue Star, San Antonio, TX; FotoFest Biennial 2024: Critical Geography, Silver Street Studios, Houston, TX; Death Rights, Curated by Marian Casey, APEX Art NYC, San Antonio, TX; Indian Removal Act I: American Progress, Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, TX; Look Now What I’ve Become, Artpace Mainspace, San Antonio TX; Mutable Land, Nars Foundation Satellite Exhibition, Governor’s Island, New York, NY; High Visibility: On Location in Rural America and Indian Country, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND; The Only Certain Way, Sala Diaz, San Antonio, TX; Texas, We’re Listening, Brownsville Museum of Art, Brownsville, TX; We’re Still Here: Native American Artists Then and Now, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly, Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX; Reimagining the Third Space, KCAI Crossroads Gallery: Center for Contemporary Practice, Kansas City, Missouri; re/thinking photography: Conceptual Photography from Texas, FotoFest, Houston, Texas.
Harjo has been selected for a Summer 2024 residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, and he is a 2022 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Resident Alumni, a 2020-2021 Harpo Foundation Native American Residency Fellow, and a 2023 Contemporary at Blue Star Berlin Resident Alumni hosted by Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Germany. His work has recently been acquired by the San Antonio Museum of Art and Texas A&M University at San Antonio.
When the Roses Bloom Again, 2024, 16 Custom Memorial Flag Cases, 16 Ceremoniously Folded Pendelton Beach Towels, 78 x 78 x 4 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Mourning the Motherland (Praying), 2024, Photograph, Digital Archival Print, 44 x 54 x 4 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist.
and she was, 2024, Performance Print, Paper, Acrylic Ink, 42 x 120 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Here Comes the Son, 2024, 28 Custom Memorial Flag Cases, 28 Ceremoniously Folded Pendelton Beach Towels, 78 x 104 x 4 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist.
A Heretical Act of Resistance: Making Breath, 2024, Video Installation (video still), 3:00 minutes. Photo courtesy of the artist.
The Artist-in-Residence Program is sponsored, in part, by:
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