Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers

About George Morrison

To Grand Portage Ojibwe artist George Morrison (1919-2000), the horizon of Lake Superior was "like the edge of the world." After an art career at the center of the Abstract Expressionist movement in New York City, and a faculty appointment at the Rhode Island School of Design, he came home to Gichigaaming in 1970. He took up a dual appointment at the University of Minnesota in the Department of American Indian Studies and the Department of Art for one year and continued his career with the Department of Art until 1983. Morrison witnessed the early founding of both the Department of American Indian Studies and the American Indian Movement. Focused on making monumental collages, his 94 feet wide Turning the Feather Around (1974) was made for the exterior of the new American Indian Center on Franklin Avenue, Red Totem I (1977) went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the wood collage of the Mississippi landscape The River (1983) was commissioned by the University's Law School. At Grand Portage and until the end of his life, Morrison produced hundreds of paintings, including many with his personal symbol of the horizon line of Gichigaaming in every season.

About the Exhibition

Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers features the work of 29 Indigenous artists, including three major figures in American art from the Minnesota region: Patrick DesJarlait, Oscar Howe, and George Morrison, who were part of an exhibition of contemporary Indian painting in Washington, DC. in 1968. More than a half-century later, this inaugural exhibition of the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts reflects on the history and future of American Indian painting. This exhibition would not be possible if not for the mid-century artists who found new ways of expressing themselves, who struggled to show Indigenous people as part of the making of the modern world.

The exhibition includes artworks by Frank Big Bear, David Bradley, Awanigiizhik Bruce, Andrea Carlson, Avis Charley, Fern Cloud, Michelle Defoe, Jim Denomie, Patrick DesJarlait, Sam English, Carl Gawboy, Joe Geshick, Sylvia Houle, Oscar Howe, Waŋblí Mayášleča (Francis J. Yellow, Jr.), George Morrison, Steven Premo, Rabbett Before Horses Strickland, Cole Redhorse Taylor, Roy Thomas, Jonathan Thunder, Thomasina TopBear, Moira Villiard, Kathleen Wall, Star WallowingBull, Dyani White Hawk, Bobby Dues Wilson, Leah H. Yellowbird and Holly Young.

George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts

Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers  is the inaugural exhibition of the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts at the University of Minnesota. This new study center in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota supports the creation, presentation, and interpretation of Indigenous art in all its forms and makes no distinction between the fine arts and Indigenous traditional arts. Future plans for the Center include the Morrison Center Distinguished Visiting Artists program, related graduate seminars and undergraduate courses on the development of museum exhibitions on American Indian topics and artists, and student internships in conjunction with the Minnesota Museum of American Art, which will allow students to develop expertise working with works by George Morrison and other American Indian artists held in that collection.

Exhibition Dates, Location, Hours, Access, Parking

The exhibition is open to the public January 16 - March 16, 2024 and can be seen in the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, located in the Regis Center for Art, East Building, 405 21st Avenue So., Minneapolis, MN, 55455. Open: Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 am - 5:00 pm. Closed March 5-9 for Spring Break. The Regis Center for Art is locked to the public on Saturdays, with University-card access only. On Saturdays, visitors can call 612-624-7530 upon arrival to gain entrance into the galleries and should plan to enter the building's main entrance, located on 21st Avenue South directly across from the parking garage. Check the Department of Art website or call the gallery for the most current Covid access information: 612-624-7530. There is metered parking nearby on the street, and paid parking available at the 21st Ave. parking garage and the 5th Street surface lot. There are bus and light rail stops nearby.

Related Events

Saturday, February 3, 2024
4:00 pm
Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers with Louise Erdrich and Diane Wilson

This event marks the opening of the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts with Kate Beane (Flandreau Santee Sioux Dakota and Muscogee Creek), Executive Director, Minnesota Museum of American Art; Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa), author; Diane Wilson (Dakota), author; and Christopher Pexa (Bdewákaŋtuŋwaŋ Dakota, Spirit Lake Nation), Associate Professor of English, Harvard University. The panelists will discuss artworks in the exhibition. Hosted by Brenda J. Child, (Red Lake Ojibwe), Northrop Professor of American Studies, University of Minnesota.

6:00 pm

Gallery Reception

Thursday, February 15, 2024

12:00 pm

Patricia Marroquin Norby

Painting Medicine: George Morrison’s Big Water Magic

Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purépecha) is the inaugural Associate Curator of Native American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She will read her essay on the exhibition artist George Morrison from the exhibition catalog.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

12:00 pm

Fern Cloud, Akipawin

The Spirit of My People: Traditional Dakota Hide Painting

Fern Cloud (Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota) is a practitioner of traditional Dakota hide painting. Her work is included in the exhibition Dreaming Our Futures.

Related Exhibition

Little Earth Native Youth Arts Collective Exhibition

Quarter Gallery, Regis Center for Art

January 16 - February 10, 2024

This group exhibition features artworks made by Native youth and young adults residing in the Little Earth and East Phillips neighborhoods in Minneapolis. Curated by Latisha Franks.

Traveling Exhibition Tour

Katherine E. Nash Gallery

University of MInnesota, Minneapolis

January 16 - March 16, 2024

Rochester Art Center

Rochester, Minnesota

April 24 - July 21, 2024

Tweed Museum of Art

University of MInnesota, Duluth

September 3 - December 27, 2024

Exhibition Catalog

Published by the Katherine E. Nash Gallery and distributed worldwide by the University of Minnesota Press, the exhibition catalog includes images by the exhibition artists, their statements and biographies, and essays by Brenda J. Child, Patricia Marroquin Norby, Christopher Pexa, Mona Susan Power, and Diane Willson

Sponsorship

Dreaming Our Futures is curated by Brenda J. Child, Northrop Professor of American Studies and Howard Oransky, Director of the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, with Christopher Pexa, Associate Professor of English, Harvard University. Dreaming Our Futures is co-sponsored by the Departments of American Studies, American Indian Studies, Art, and Art History; the Office for Public Engagement; the Dean, Associate Dean for Arts and Humanities, and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the College of Liberal Arts; and the Senior Advisor to the President for Native American Affairs at the University of Minnesota. The organizers gratefully acknowledge the generous support provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, the Harlan Boss Foundation for the Arts, and Kate and Stuart Nielsen.

Image: (Detail) Joe Geshick, The Welcoming, 2004, Oil on canvas, 72 × 84 in. (182.9 × 213.4 cm) Collection of The Acreage at Osceola, WI. On loan from Kiran Stordalen Trust.