Art Exhibition Krista Belle Stewart: Truth to Material

Krista Belle Stewart: "Truth to Material" © "Truth to Material", Nanaimo Art Gallery. Bild: Sean Fenzl

Fri, 12/10/2021 -
Mon, 02/28/2022

Goethe Pop Up Seattle

Goethe Pop Up Seattle is excited to offer a new exhibition by Berlin-based artist Krista Belle Stewart, a member of the Syilx Nation. This solo show, her first in Seattle, will bring components of the artist’s Truth to Material body of work back to Cascadia in a new presentation.

In this work, the artist addresses the Indianer subculture in Germany—a dwindling group of hobbyists who, inspired by uninformed depictions of North American Indigenous peoples in the works of the 19th century German “Western” author Karl May, engage in dress up and role play. Stewart has been researching these Indianer since 2006 and has built personal relationships with participants. Through her artistic “reverse anthropology,” she brings light to the ways in which German popular and hobbyist culture have marginalized and exoticized Indigenous ways of life.

Through a vinyl installation of photos of the Indianer on the gallery floor, sculptural elements, the reddening of the gallery space, and video work—all in the context of a showing in the Pacific Northwest—Stewart’s work in this exhibition radically reformulates questions of authenticity, objectivity, and ethnography.

This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Viewing appointments are recommended. Up-to-date opening hours can be found below.
Registration
About the artist:

Krista Belle Stewart © Krista Belle Stewart Krista Belle Stewart
is a Berlin-based artist and member of the Syilx Nation. Stewart works with video, land, performance, photography, textiles, and sound, using personal and political narratives inherent in archival materials while questioning their articulation in institutional histories. Stewart holds an MFA from the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College, NY. She was recently an artist-in-residence at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien through the Sobey Art Award Residency Program. Stewart was the recipient of The Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation VIVA for the Visual Arts Award (2019). She is currently a PhD in Practice candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Stewart’s work has been exhibited as part of Kunstverein in Hamburg; 39th EVA International Ireland Biennial, Limerick; CTM Festival, Berlin; Hessel Museum, CCS Bard, Annandale-On-Hudson; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Nanaimo Art Gallery; Artspace, Peterborough; SFU Teck Gallery, Vancouver; Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal; Musee d’Art Contemporain, Montreal; Independent Studio and Curatorial Program, New York; Plug In ICA, Winnipeg; and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.
 

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