Woven Being: Art for Zhegagoynak/Chicagoland
The Block Museum of Art | Evanston, IL
January 25–July 13, 2025
Featuring Courtney M. Leonard
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Through the perspectives of four collaborating artists with connections to Zhegagoynak—Andrea Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe/European descent), Kelly Church (Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Tribe of Pottawatomi/Ottawa), Nora Moore Lloyd (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe), and Jason Wesaw (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi) —Woven Being explores confluences that are continuing to shape Indigenous creative practices in the region and beyond.
The Chicagoland region is a longstanding cultural and economic hub for Indigenous peoples, including the Council of Three Fires— the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa—as well as the Menominee, Miami, Ho-Chunk, Sac, Fox, Kickapoo, and Illinois nations. People from many Indigenous nations call the region home today, and the city of Chicago has the third-largest urban Indigenous population in the United States.
Despite this rich history, Indigenous voices have often been excluded from Chicago’s art histories. This silence is harmful. Guided by Indigenous collaborations, priorities, and voices, the exhibition foregrounds the perspectives of Indigenous artists currently based in the city and those from nations forcibly displaced from the area in the nineteenth century.
Collaborating artists have partnered with The Block to create “constellations” of their own artwork and historical and contemporary artworks, primarily by Indigenous artists of the region. Overall Woven Being will present more than 80 works by 33 artists that speak to the diversity of Indigenous art, materials, and time, including several new and commissioned works and installations. Selections highlight themes we have identified in dialogue with diverse project advisors: kinship between materials, relations across regional landways and waterways, and the weaving together of past, present, and future.
Seen together, the exhibition works form intimate and interwoven stories that resist monolithic storytelling. Instead of a comprehensive overview of regional art, Woven Being integrates four Indigenous perspectives of Chicagoland’s layered art histories. Such perspectives are central not only to understanding Chicago and its region, but also to understanding the widely interconnected Indigenous stories that have been, and continue to be, woven across the entirety of Turtle Island (North America).
ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION
• Josef Albers (American, born Germany)
• Rick Bartow (Mad River Band of Wiyot Indians)
• Frank Big Bear (White Earth Ojibwe)
• Roy Boney (Cherokee Nation)
• Andrea Carlson(Grand Portage Ojibwe/European descent)
• Avis Charley (Spirit Lake Dakota/Diné)
• Kelly Church (Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi/Ottawa)
• Woodrow Wilson Crumbo (Citizen Potawatomi)
• Nancy Fisher Cyrette (Grand Portage Ojibwe)
• Jim Denomie (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe)
• Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians/Cherokee)
• Teri Greeves (Kiowa)
• Denise Lajimodiere (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe)
• Mark LaRoque (White Earth Ojibwe)
• Courtney M. Leonard (Shinnecock Nation)
• Nora Moore Lloyd (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe)
• Agnes Martin (American, born Canada)
• Wanesia Misquadace (Minnesota Lake Superior Chippewa Tribe Fond du Lac Band)
• George Morrison (Grand Portage Ojibwe)
• Barnett Newman (American)
• Daphne Odjig (Odawa/Potawatomi)
• Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo)
• Chris Pappan (Kaw [Kanza]/Osage/Lakota)
• Cherish Parrish (Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi/Ottawa)
• John Pigeon (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi)
• Jason Quigno (Saginaw Chippewa)
• Monica Rickert-Bolter (Prairie Band Potawatomi/Black)
• Sharon Skolnick (Fort Sill Apache/Lakota)
• Rhiannon Skye Tafoya (Eastern Band Cherokee/Santa Clara Pueblo)
• Lisa Telford (Haida)
• Jason Wesaw (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi)
• Joe Yazzie (Navajo)
• Debra Yepa-Pappan (Jemez Pueblo/Korean)
EXHIBITION PUBLICATION
A 160-page multi-authored publication centers Indigenous voices and explores the exhibition’s expansive themes and questions. This book will be available midway through the exhibition run to document the installation and represent the constellations of artwork and thoughtful juxtapositions
Following an introduction by the exhibition’s co-curators, contributors Blaire Morseau (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi), Denise Lajimodiere (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe), John Low (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi), and Anne Terry Straus and Jacqueline Lopez expand on the collaborating artists’ contributions from their own disciplinary and personal vantage points, These chapters are interspersed with poetry and prose, including by Heid Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe), Mark LaRoque (White Earth Ojibwe), and Mark Turcotte (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe), a resource guide focusing on Chicago’s Indigenous-led arts organizations, and installation views of the exhibition.
The Woven Being book is published by The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, produced by Marquand Books, Seattle , designed by OTAMI, Montreal, and distributed by the University of Washington Press (Forthcoming in Spring 2025.)
ORDER HERE
ABOUT COURTNEY M. LEONARD
Courtney Leonard Artist Portrait
Courtney M. Leonard is an artist and filmmaker, who has contributed to the Offshore Art movement. Leonard’s current work embodies the multiple definitions of “breach”, an exploration and documentation of historical ties to water, whale and material sustainability.
In collaboration with national and international museums, cultural institutions, and indigenous communities in North America, New Zealand, Nova Scotia, and the United States Embassies, Leonard’s practice investigates narratives of cultural viability as a reflection of environmental record.
