Sweet Bitter Love: An Initiative of Toward Common Cause presented Jeffrey Gibson’s reflections on representations of Indigenous people in cultural institutions. Responding to a series of 19th-century portraits by Eldridge Ayer Burbank, Gibson (a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent) refuted the stereotypical imagery that, for centuries, has helped create and reinforce pernicious myths about Indigenous people.

As they entered into critical dialogue with the collections of the Newberry Library and the Field Museum, Gibson’s works deconstructed these narratives while attesting to Native resilience.

The exhibition was a collaboration between the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago and the Newberry Library. It was an initiative of Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40, which was organized by the Smart Museum of Art in collaboration with exhibition, programmatic, and research partners across Chicago. Toward Common Cause was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and curated by Abigail Winograd, MacArthur Fellows Program Fortieth Anniversary Exhibition Curator, Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago.

Digital Resources

• Reclaiming Indigenous Material Culture - This event was part of programming for Sweet Bitter Love. Here you can watch the recording of the conversation between curator Jeffrey Gibson and anthropologist Sven Haakanson.