“Birds flying high, you know how I feel …” The opening line of the song “Feeling Good,” popularized in the mid-1960s by Nina Simone as an anthem of Black joy and resilience in the wake of the signing of the Civil Rights Act, is the fitting title of one of multiple murals by Jeffrey Gibson for the United States Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale.
Gibson, the first Native artist to represent the US in a solo capacity at the international contemporary art exhibition, likewise brings resounding echoes of resistance amid an enduring struggle for Indigenous autonomy across the American continents.