‘ArtNow 2023’
Joy Harjo inspires fellow Oklahomans in OKC exhibit
For those interested in exploring the current state of art in the Sooner State, Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center has provided a map created by more than a dozen different artists and inspired by an Oklahoma Cultural Treasure. • On view through Jan. 15, 2024, “ArtNow: The Soul Is a Wanderer” is the 2023 edition of Oklahoma Contemporary’s biennial exhibition. First introduced in 2012 and now organized every two years by the nonprofit Oklahoma City arts center, “ArtNow” gives people a snapshot of — and in this case, a sort of map to — the state’s current cultural landscape.
Organized by Tulsa-based guest curator Lindsay Aveilhé, “ArtNow: The Soul Is a Wanderer” features works created by 13 crossgenerational artists in response to the 2000 poem “A Map to the Next World” by Tulsa-based Muscogee writer, musician and performer Joy Harjo, who served three terms as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2022 and was designated an Oklahoma Cultural Treasure in 2021.
The 10th edition of Oklahoma Contemporary’s signature exhibit, “ArtNow 2023” also honors and spotlights the work of another Tulsabased Muscogee creative: Sterlin Harjo, the co-creator and showrunner of the acclaimed Oklahoma-made streaming series “Reservation Dogs,” which debuted its third and final season earlier this year.
The Holdenville native, who is also Seminole, has been named the recipient of the “ArtNow 2023” Focus Award, which he will accept at a newly announced January 2024 event at Oklahoma Contemporary.
Sterlin Harjo be honored by Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center in 2024
Also known for his independent films “Four Sheets to the Wind,” “Barking Water” and “Love and Fury,” Sterlin Harjo is just the second Oklahoma artist to be honored with Oklahoma Contemporary’s “ArtNow” Focus Award. Internationally known Warr Acres painter, printmaker and sculptor Bert Seabourn received the inaugural Focus Award in conjunction with “ArtNow 2021.”
Since Seabourn died in 2022 at age 91, his daughter and fellow artist Connie Seabourn will present the “Reservation Dogs” mastermind with the honor at the “ArtNow 2023” Focus Awards at 6 p.m. Jan. 11 at Oklahoma Contemporary.
The ceremony also will include a reception and artist talk with Sterlin Harjo, moderated by Aveilhé, the “ArtNow” 2023 guest curator. The event is open to the public, but reservations are encouraged.
Tickets are free for Oklahoma Contemporary members and $15 for nonmembers.
“We are overjoyed to be giving the ‘ArtNow 2023’ Focus Award to Sterlin Harjo for his commitment and contribution to the arts in Oklahoma and beyond,” said Aveilhé in an email. “As a film director, screenwriter, showrunner, and artist, Harjo has pushed the boundaries of representational storytelling, moving the dial for generations of artists to come.”
‘ArtNow 2023’ artists use a Joy Harjo poem as inspiration for their new works
Along with the Focus Award honoree, Sterlin Harjo also is one of the participating artists in “ArtNow: The Soul Is a Wanderer.” Made specifically for “ArtNow 2023,” his video installation “A Map to the Next World” features Joy Harjo reading her poem of the same name on her land.
“It’s what this iteration of ‘ArtNow’ really revolves around: The poem is kind of a guidepost for the artists to respond to,” Carina Evangelista, Oklahoma Contemporary’s senior director of curatorial affairs, told The Oklahoman. “So, almost all the works were created specifically for this exhibition.”
The title “ArtNow: The Soul Is a Wanderer” is taken from a line in Joy Harjo’s poem, which also includes the lyrical wisdom, “Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end / You must make your own map.”
Five must-see highlights of Oklahoma Contemporary’s ‘ArtNow 2023’
“ArtNow 2023” showcases works by 13 cross-generational artists working in different parts of the state. Along with Sterlin Harjo, four of the other participating artists are Indigenous.
“Drawing inspiration from the poem’s call to remember the past as we journey beyond the present, the artists invite us to unearth complex histories and imagine alternate routes toward emancipatory futures of our making,” Aveilhé writes in her exhibit introduction.
“Together, the works in ‘The Soul Is a Wanderer’ evoke the landscape of Oklahoma — its topography and our shared reality — as a site for questioning, dreaming, and action.”
Beyond Sterlin Harjo’s must-see short film, here are five indelible highlights of Oklahoma Contemporary’s “ArtNow 2023”:
Indigenous artist emulates Ed Ruscha’s style to hit Route 66
Oklahoma-born and bred painter Yatika Starr Fields, who is Osage, Muscogee and Cherokee, emulates the famous word paintings of iconic OKC artist Ed Ruscha with his eye-grabbing “Whose Kicks?” The painting is a reference to the famous song “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.”
While Ruscha’s art, especially his landmark 1963 art book “Twentysix Gasoline Stations” pay homage to U.S. 66, Fields encourages viewers to consider the darker legacy of the “Mother Road,” particularly land theft, colonization and environmental damage.
“He’s incorporated in this, where you might see some texture, crushed Mankiller pearl shell, which is that purple mussel shell that’s found in, I believe, the northeastern and northern lakes of Oklahoma. And it’s named after the first female chief of the Cherokee people, Wilma Mankiller,” Evangelista said.
“That fact that it’s embedded, it’s, in a way, like what’s been trampled over when U.S. 66 was built.”
OSU professor opens portals into the cosmos
A native Texan and interdisciplinary artist, Molly Kaderka’s work is inspired by her interest in natural phenomena and in human and Earth history. An assistant professor at Oklahoma State University, her dramatic large-scale installation “Ferrous Form/Unform” draws people into the exhibition, calling to mind a pair of compelling portals into the wider cosmos.
“She and her assistants marbled paper the size of two football fields in order to have enough material to choose the particular blotches and swirls to recreate some kind of cosmic vortex happening here,” Evangelista said. “This is also created specifically for the space … and it was a very labor-intensive piece to install.”
OKC artist builds a bed of stone
Born and raised OKC, Isaac Diaz creates works influenced by nature, history and his Salvadoran roots, including his “ArtNow 2023” installation “Projection///Placement.” It consists of a bed of stone, adorned with a single beeswax candle, sitting on a patch of jagged rocks, “an expression of building a space or one’s self when all one is given are fragments and rubble.”
“He’s channeling pre-Columbian imagery and symbolism. He’s looking to these symbols, trying to find his own way of figuring out where he’s from, where are his people from, and also trying to create these emblems of spirituality that are sometimes lost,” Evangelista said.
African potter goes on a quest for wisdom in ceramics
Contemporary African potter Yusuf Etudaiye was born in Nigeria but has been working in clay in the United States, primarily in Oklahoma, for three decades. “ArtNow 2023” features an evocative grouping of his ceramic pieces that together contemplate the Ghanaian notion of “Sankofa.”
A concept from Ghana’s Akan people, “Sankofa” is literally translated as “it’s not taboo to fetch which is at risk of being left behind,” alluding to taking a quest for wisdom that involves learning from the past to create a strong future.
Osage painter shares tribe’s origin story in dazzling landscape
Osage Nation history and culture have been spotlighted in 2023 thanks to Martin Scorsese’s Oklahoma-made movie “Killers of the Flower Moon.” In her dazzling landscape painting “Ma^zha^ tseka Ma^thi^ (Moving to a New Country),” Osage artist and Pawhuska native Moira RedCorn shares her tribe’s creation story and pays homage to her people’s resilience.
Norman artist digs into Oklahoma’s famed red dirt for installation
OKC native Ruth Borum-Loveland’s “Soil Studies” installation digs into Oklahoma’s famed red dirt – and features earth of other hues as well.
During her walks near her Norman home, she started collecting soil and rock samples, building a library of color studies. Expanding her dirt collecting to other parts of the state, too, she used a wide array of samples to create her “ArtNow” painting “Soil Weaving.”
“It’s 368 lines and 23 soils, and the variation is so beautiful. It’s almost like the warp and the weft of a loosely woven shawl,” Evangelista said.