Jeffrey Gibson’s “Power Full Because We’re Different” is a celebration of an interdimensional field of experiences. A Choctaw and Cherokee, the exhibition first and foremost reflects a celebratory feast of color, sound and movement dedicated to the Native American Two-Spirit community.
Leigh Bowery, the London-based performance artist in the 1980s, generated a challenge of what the “norm” appears as. Although Gibson never crossed paths with Bowery — who died of AIDS-related illnesses in 1994 — he was propelled towards an explosion of unleashed visual and experiential, living art. The term “Two-Spirit” was first revealed by Dr. Myra Laramee, a First Nations Cree, at the third Annual Gathering of Native American Gays and Lesbians in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, after a dream. Many think the phrase is an ancient one, but it is more accurately a newer one for an ancient state of being.
The artist throws a wide net, with colleagues acting as a collective,with collaborations in video, sound and documentary from over 20 DJs, drag performers, artists and scholars. These documentaries are layered in between stunning and arresting garments hovering over dance floors of geometric color and intensity. A soundtrack by Patrick “Reachout” Coll speaks in rhythm — not in the background, but as an integral part of the installation. Music becomes an art object, entwining with the visual.
The first room resembles a club scenario; however, the immediate experience is one of eschewing whatever intrusion was blocking one’s well-being and awareness upon entering the room. Like a former life, it all dissipates and floats into nothingness in one towering spiritual nervous system alignment sensation. There are crescendos and pauses, a heartbeat surrounding a heartbeat, interconnected and vast. In the dimmed light of this area, the neon colors of stages on the floor fill the eyes. The linear shapes reflecting Native visual elements transporting them into the purely sacred realm of geometry.