A beaded panel reading ANGEL OF MY SOUL DON’T LET ME GO is shown in a detail view. The piece, built from jeffrey gibson glass beads, is one of fifteen works that trace a decade of Jeffrey Gibson’s practice in Washington, D.C.
Jeffrey Gibson: A Real Love Thing at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center covers the breadth of the artist‘s work. Gibson moves between abstract acrylic paintings, garment-like sculptures, and textile collages. His subjects include pattern, queer iconography, and his Indigenous Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee heritage. Music runs through much of the work, and Gibson often sets song lyrics into tapestry-like wall hangings and three-dimensional forms.
Gibson’s sculptures often take fibers and found materials into new forms, a thread that continues in Woo Jin Joo’s found-object sculptures built from vibrant fibers in London, which show a similar sensitivity to texture.
A line from Marvin Gaye
The exhibition takes its title from a 1971 interview with soul musician Marvin Gaye. He described his album What’s Going On this way: “I think I’ve got a real love thing going. I love people, I love life, and I love nature, and I can’t see why other people can’t be like that.”
How the beadwork carries the message
Gibson builds on that sentiment with Indigenous symbols and traditional materials. Jingle cones used in ceremonial garments are among the traditional materials Gibson draws on. The work “Don’t Make Me Over” is installed on pine tipi poles. In this beaded sculpture, the surface is covered with a material Native American makers have used for centuries on bags, moccasins, and other clothing. The works look forward as much as they look back. They propose a future built on hope, joy, acceptance, and the same love-above-all ethos Gaye described.
Dates and programs
A Real Love Thing remains on view through March 13 at the Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. Gibson gives a talk on November 12 as part of the Sam Gilliam Lecture series.
For readers drawn to Gibson’s Indigenous roots and public sculpture, an iconic basketball tree sculpture in Toronto’s Biidaasige Park offers another example of art shaping how people gather and interact.
Readers near Eugene, Oregon, can see a second survey of jeffrey gibson art. The traveling solo exhibition They Teach Love runs through March 7 at the University of Oregon. Together, the two shows let visitors follow the artist’s experiments with beadwork from one city to the next.
Source: thisiscolossal.com
Frequently asked questions
Where can I see Jeffrey Gibson’s A Real Love Thing exhibition?
A Real Love Thing is on view at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., through March 13. The show covers the breadth of Gibson’s work over a decade of practice in the city.
Where does the title A Real Love Thing come from?
The title comes from a 1971 interview with soul musician Marvin Gaye, who described his album What’s Going On. In it, he said he loves people, life, and nature, and couldn’t see why others couldn’t feel the same.
What Indigenous heritage is reflected in Jeffrey Gibson’s artwork?
Gibson’s work draws on his Indigenous Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee heritage. He builds on this with Indigenous symbols and traditional materials, such as jingle cones used in ceremonial garments.
When is Jeffrey Gibson’s Sam Gilliam Lecture talk?
Gibson gives a talk on November 12 as part of the Sam Gilliam Lecture series. The article does not list any other details about the talk.
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