For The Armory Show 2023, Bruce Silverstein Gallery will present photographic and mixed media works with a predominant focus on the Native diaspora, featuring works by Dakota Mace and Sarah Sense, two artists whose work is held in numerous permanent collections but have yet to be exhibited at an art fair. Showing Mace and Sense together will provide comprehensive insight and education into the long-overlooked Diné (Navajo), Chitimacha, and Choctaw history, beliefs, and creative practices.
Dakota Mace reinterprets the symbols of creation stories, cosmologies, and social structures, using traditional and non-traditional materials that are connected to the places they reside, the memories they hold, and the complexities they share with the Diné lineage. Mace utilizes design elements from her heritage, most often incorporating the motif of Na’ashjéii Asdzáá, Spider-Woman, who is one of the most important deities to the Diné. Spider-Woman played an integral part in preserving the lives of the Diné by guiding the earliest weavers so they could provide for themselves while teaching ways of balance within the mind, body, and soul. Sarah Sense employs traditional weaving techniques from her Chitimacha and Choctaw family, combining photography and craft rich with historical significance and personal meaning. The visually layered imagery incorporates themes explored over her career, including her two personas, the Cowgirl and the Indian Princess, landscape photography, representations of American historical figures relevant to Native histories, stereotypical depictions of Natives in Hollywood, and maps from world-renowned archives. Mace and Sense’s work tells the story of Indigenous communities’ historical marginalization and assimilation, including the destruction and loss of land through colonization and the disappearance of culture and traditions through forced assimilation. However, they also provide an uplifting testament to Native resistance and resilience.
The gallery will also highlight works from gallery artists, including Adger Cowans, Louis Draper, and Shawn Walker, all founding members of The Kamoinge Workshop. In addition, the gallery will also exhibit a vintage print of Constantin Brancusi’s Yellow Bird from 1923, in honor of Brancusi’s introduction to America during the 1913 Armory.
