Gift of Mary and Bob Merskyexpand_more 2022.98.7
The embellished punching bag could represent the body of a dancer. Artist Jeffrey Gibson, who is part Choctaw and part Cherokee, may have had this effect in mind when he clothed the bag in the beadwork, jingles, and nylon ribbons typical of powwow regalia. As a child, Gibson thought of powwows as conduits of tradition. Now, he sees them as a modern invention: “I define modernism as innovation or an invention responding to drastic changes in circumstances and environment, and powwow is one of those things; it evolved as a way to bring people back together.”
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