Showing up and supporting Native-led spaces is fundamental to broadening understandings of American Art. On a gloomy Saturday, September 16, 2023, in the Marquette Building (56 W. Adams St., Chicago) there was cheerful energy to be found at Center for Native Futures (CfNF), a dynamic contemporary art space dedicated to Native artists in the city of Zhegagoynak (Chicago). CfNF serves as Zhegagoynak’s only all-Native artist-operated fine arts organization. A crowd gathered to celebrate the opening of the Center’s inaugural exhibition Native Futures, which is presented as part of Art Design Chicago, supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Featured at the opening reception was a musical performance by award-winning Sicangu Lakota rapper Frank Waln and catering by Menominee Indian Tribe member Chef Jessica Walks First of Ketapanen Kitchen. The gallery is showing more than a dozen established and emerging Native artists of the Great Lakes region through May 17, 2024, in Native Futures. The exhibition asks artists to envision a different future, and the responding contemporary artists include CfNF co-founders and artists Debra Yepa-Pappan, Monica Rickert-Bolter, and Chris Pappan, as well as artists Noelle Garcia, Kelly Church, Jason Wesaw, Tom Jones, Holly Wilson, John Hitchcock, Camille Billie, June Carpenter, Codak Smith, Le’Ana Asher, Dakota Mace, Ji Hae Yepa-Pappan, Chelsea Big Horn, Lydia Cheshewalla, Hattie Lee, Paige Pettibon, X and TIES poets.
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