Thursday, February 14, 2019
An abstracted mixed-media buffalo with elongated legs, pierced with arrows, dripping blood, it’s hide emblazoned with a combination of letters and numbers stands in the center of the Lux Center for the Arts west gallery.
It is titled “Tribal I.D. Number” by South Dakota-based Oglala Sioux artist Micheal Two Bulls.
By its size and positioning, it is the centerpiece of “Dementia Americana,” a collaborative exhibition by three Native artists who use media from ceramics to silkscreens to examine, in the words of the show’s statement, “the chronic disorder of memory, personality changes and impaired reasoning of American culture and its interpretation of history.”
Unpacked a bit, that means the exhibition is about the clash between the contemporary and ancient, between stereotype and historical reality, between popular culture and the traditional — all of which can be seen in single pieces or multiples.
Read the full Lincoln Journal Star article here.