The subject of a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in 2023, artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith uses art to address issues around social justice, environmental exploitation and cultural identity. In addition to being an artist she is also an educator, curator and activist
Read MoreIn her mixed-media canvases, Smith draws imagery from art history, commercial signage and personal archives, juxtaposing symbols of Americana with Native culture. Smith is an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, Montana.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith was born in 1940 at St. Ignatius Indian Mission on the Flathead Reservation in Montana. The name 'Quick-to-See' was bestowed by her grandmother due to Smith's early observational skills. As a child, Smith toiled for long hours in fields and found escape through art, making sculptures from mud, leaves, sticks and rocks.
However, when she reached college age, Smith was discouraged from studying art for reasons twofold—first, her being Native and second, a woman. Nevertheless, she defied her cynics and received an Associate of Arts Degree at Olympic College in Bremerton, Washington in 1960, a BA in Art Education from Framingham State College, Massachusetts in 1976, and an MA in Visual Arts from the University of New Mexico in 1980. In the late 1970s, she met gallerist Jill Kornblee and joined New York's Korblee Gallery, where her first solo show was staged the following year.
Smith often employs techniques such as collage and the use of found text, pictographs, graphic colours and repurposed imagery. For several decades, she has used maps as a readymade symbol to critique Eurocentric worldviews, corporate greed and the commodification of Indigenous culture.
Notable works—such as The Census Map and There Is No Proof (both 2021)—see her turning a map of the United States on its side and layering it with text and swashes of thick, impasto paint—a nod to, as the New York Times described in 2021, the 'disorienting effect of being handed a map of your home by the person who has stolen it from you.'
Solo exhibitions of Smith's work include: In the Footsteps of My Ancestors, High Desert Museum, Oregon (2019); Land Views, The Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Georgia (2013); Made in America, The Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, Montana (2006); New Work, Missoula Museum of the Arts, Montana (1983).
Her career retrospective Memory Map at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2023), includes almost fifty years of drawings, prints, paintings, and sculptures.
Smith's work has also been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. In 1993, Smith was one of the first Indigenous American artists to be included in the Venice Biennale.
Smith's work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Quito, Ecuador; the Museum of Mankind, Vienna, Austria; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
In addition to her prolific career as an artist, Smith has also made significant contributions as a curator, organising exhibitions and projects that champion Indigenous art and challenge its institutional misrepresentation and marginalization.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is represented by Garth Greenan Gallery in New York. She lives and works near Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Elliat Albrecht | Ocula | 2023
