One thing Georgia O’Keeffe fans enjoy about her work are the beautiful New Mexico landscapes – wide open vistas, close-ups of eroding cliffs, colorful and moody skies, all devoid of people. Looking out from her big picture window in her studio at Abiquiu, she sometimes said she felt the landscape was “hers.” But Tewa artist Jason Garcia (Okuu Pín) has long wondered – didn’t she forget something? Did she forget that her neighbors – Indigenous people from the half-dozen Tewa pueblos – still live there and have lived there from time immemorial?
Santa Fe’s Georgia O’Keeffe Museum invited Garcia to co-curate an exhibition to answer that question.
2025 Welcome to Tewa Country by Jason Garcia/Okuu Pín (Kha’p’o Owingeh/Santa Clara Pueblo) made with traditional ceramic techniques and natural paint – a comment on deep ancestral roots with Northern New Mexico land – not a 20th century “discovery” by a New York painter. Courtesy: the artist.
The result is a loving, provocative, look at the land, legacy, and people in one of the largest special exhibitions ever mounted by the GOK Museum – Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country, on view through November 1, 2026.
2025 Tewa Country map showing the four sacred mountains, modern pueblos, and ancestral pueblos; created by the exhibition collaborators and museum graphic designer Kristian Breeze.
Take a look through some of the beautiful, throught-provoking, and spiritual work in our Flickr album.
Here’s a map to Tewa Country, home to just one group of Pueblo people who share the Tewa language, culture, and spiritual practices and symbols. Note that one of the four sacred Tewa mountains (indicating north, south, east, and west geographic markers for Tewa communities) is the single peak that Georgia painted over and over. She and others called it Cerro Pedernal; Tewa people call the sacred mountain Tsi’ Pin.
Stepping inside the expansive show, visitors are surrounded by spectacular O’Keeffe paintings, punctuated by contemporary works by twelve artists from six Tewa pueblos whose ancestors inhabited the Four Corners for millennia and migrated centuries ago toward the Rio Grande to build communities near Abiquiu, the historic village that Georgia called home.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1962-1963 painting Above the Clouds I surrounded by stone, ceramic, and earth pigment works by contemporary Tewa artists – Arlo Nahaminga (Ohkay Owingeh, Hopi), Eliza Naranjo Morse (Kha’p’o Owingeh/Santa Clara Pueblo), Marita Swazo Hinds (Tesuque Pueblo), and Martha Romero (Nambé Pueblo).
The bright space is filled with landscapes, contemporary installations, and sculptures – most utilizing clay from the very earth that both Georgia and contemporary artists trod and respected.
The museum inviteed the Tewa artists to look through Georgia’s collections and tour her Abiquiu home, and left them to create works for the show. Santa Clara’s John Garcia Sr. honors Georgia’s love of the land and sky. Randolph Silva read in Georgia’s letters her love of attending dances at the nearby pueblos, and it made him think about his own family’s travels across the Southwest performing dances at tourist locations. He discovered tourist postcards featuring his own family and decided to paint huge “postcard” paintings of dances that Georgia might have seen in the 1930s.
2025 mixed-media on board Nana’eaa Dance in Abiquiu Plaza by Randolph Silva (Kha’p’o Owingeh / Santa Clara Pueblo) – one of a postcard-style series of six Tewa Pueblo dances that O’Keeffe would have witnessed in the 1930. Courtesy: the artist.
Two 2025 acrylic paintings by John Garcia Sr. (Kha’p’o Owingeh / Santa Clara Pueblo): One Last Door and The Sentinels Have Always Been Watching, referencing the deity Morning Star, Tsi Pin (Pedernal), and other mountains. Courtesy: the artist.
After touring Georgia’s home, Tesuque’s Marita Swazo Hinds took a more personal approach, creating pieces that wonder about Georgia’s contemplative daily routines and creative processes.
2025 ceramic installation Did Georgia Pray? by Marita Swazo Hinds (Tesuque Pueblo), reflecting on the extent Georgia honored the land in her creative process as Puebloans do; pot shards, red clay pot with cornmeal, broken pieces, and Ghost Ranch rocks and earth. Courtesy: the artist.Georgia O’Keeffe’s white porcelain Urbino Teapot with 2025 Let’s Have Tea, Tea Time with Georgia by Marita Swazo Hinds (Tesuque Pueblo) – a tea set made of hand-gathered clay, and teas that the artist imagines Georgia would enjoy. Courtesy: the artist.
Several Tewa pueblos are on the Parajito Plateau, where the US government appropriated land in the 20th century to build top-secret nuclear warheads in the Manhattan Project. Michael Nahaminga’s powerful work and several others reference the threats that began when Georgia lived there in the 1940s and the legacy of environmental contamination that persists today.
2025 Disaster #8 by Michael Namingha (Ohkay Owingeh, Hopi) – an image of a pyrocumulus cloud that results from an intense fire, volcanic eruption, or nuclear explosion; silkscreened and enamel on canvas using the high-alarm color from the Air Quality Index. Courtesy: the artist.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1945 oil painting Pelvis Series, Red with Yellow – a replacement of her favorite blue sky with a sky color associated with the Trinity Site nuclear test. Courtesy: private collection.
Meet the artists and hear them talk about their participation in this remarkable collaboration with the GOK Museum:
Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1940 oil painting Untitled (Red and Yellow Cliffs).
It’s 1680 and the Revolt has begun. Heavily armored Spanish forces guide their horses and armored attack dogs through a maze of Southwestern mesas in driving rain and a blinding storm to thwart the unexpected uprising of the Pueblo nations. The leader of the Revolt, Po’pay invokes the spirits and calls up his warriors and archers to meet the challenge of the assault. In the epic, 9-minute video installation Blindfall, there’s another twist – Pueblo warriors and starship pilots from the 2180 future use their superpowers to ensure a win.
The exiting epic is part of the exhibition Continuum: Blindfall, First Strike on the second floor of Vladem Contemporary in Santa Fe through October 18, 2026. See the highlights in our Flickr album
The Revolt is planned: Blindfall installation features 2024 glazed raku sculpture Sika, Than (Sun) by Virgil Ortiz with cinematic depiction of 1680 Revolt leader Po’pay. Courtesy: the artist.
Acclaimed ceramic artist Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo), who has developed this time-travel Pueblo superhero history/sci-fi adventure over the last twenty years, partnered with artist Eric F. Garcia to bring the Spanish story to life and provide visitors with a glimpse into the deep histories and belief systems of the clashing cultures.
The three-part exhibition space initially feels like a contemplation of traditional and contemporary ceramic artistry, but unfolds. Through the doors, it’s a fast-paced, other worldly presentation on the process of creating 19 tribes of superheroes (representing the 19 current Pueblos of New Mexico) and surrounding sculptures. Turn the corner, and you experience a no-holds-barred immersion into an action-packed past/future futuristic cinema experience.
Ortiz calls this exhibition a “three-dimensional storyboard” for the full-length epic he plans to make. The first section begins with a small case with traditional and contemporary Cochiti pottery. Ortiz showcases the ancient practices that he’s mastered in his contemporary work – and believes will be continued by future generations of Cochiti artists.
Mother and son Cochiti Pueblo ceramic legacy: 1985 owl figure by Serafina Ortiz and 2026 Blind Strike by Virgil Ortiz; both created in Cochiti red clay with black wild spinach plant paint. Courtesy: the artist.
Two enormous ceramic raku-fired heads dominate the main hall of the gallery. Both depict warriors from the future – Po’pay, the brave leader of the Revolt, and the leader of his female archer corps, Tahu the Blind Archer (“you are not blind if you can see through your fear”). Ortiz created these at the Cuernavaca studio of Juan de Dios Sánchez – an experience with a large-scale ceramic master that Ortiz says felt “like working with Prince and Madonna.”
Pueblo leader: 2026 glazed raku ceramic scultpure Po’pay 2180: Leader of the Pueblo Revolt by Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo). Courtesy: the artist.
Pueblo warrior: 2025 glazed raku scultpure Storm Sentinel: Tahu, Leader of the Blind Archers by Virgil Ortiz – the leader of a female warrior corps guided by instinct to move through the chaos of the strike. Courtesy: the artist.
These are flanked by his work with Garcia and his other ceramics collaborator, Tommy Lomeli. Garcia contributes two busts of the controversial La Malinche, the Indigenous Nahua woman who translated at Cortez’s side as he negotiated with neighboring city-states to vanquish Montezuma in 1520 and bore him a son. There’s no better symbol of New World cultural collision and legacy.
Eric F. Garcia’s 2026 Doña – a portrait of La Malinche, who symbolizes shifting identity, language, and empire. Courtesy: the artist.
Eric F. Garcia’s 2026 Shadow Guide – a portrait of La Malinche, the Nahua woman who served as intermediary for Cortez in his 1520 conquest. Courtesy: the artist.
Lomeli’s collaboration bedazzles Virgil’s ceramic busts of his twin aeronaut pilots with gorgeous layers of automotive paint, giving the 2180 characters some low-rider flash.
2180 pilots: Sculpture collaboration by Virgil Ortiz and Tommy Lomeli: 2026 Dya, Aeronaut and Muus, Aeronaut – twin pilots of the Survorship Armada, who steer the fleet through the deluge surrounding the Revolt, saving people, culture, and language and taking it into the future. Courtesy: the artists.
The second exhibition space features mannequins of the warriors themselves, bedecked in custom fabric, leather, and fierce masks and headgear. Several are superhero Recon Watchmen from 2180, who are seen in the back video advancing through the forbidding Bisti Badlands, preparing for an attack on the unsuspecting Spaniards. There are also video clips of the artists at work creating clay, costumes, and large-scale sculpture, interspersed with stylish clips showing his transformation of friends into superheroes.
Protectors from 2180: Ortiz’s 2026 The Last Sovereigns video and time-traveling Recon Watchman wearing fashion as armor –Talon and Matriarch Mitz with a ceramic Cochiti mask. Courtesy: the artist.
The third dark gallery is where fury is unleashed on a wrap-around screen. At the sides, ominous black profiles of Po’pay and his Spanish opponent loom. Garcia contributes large stand-alone sculptures of a charging Spanish conquistador and his vicious war dogs. Ortiz counters with a Recon Watchman and a gentle Sika Cochiti creature, who protects children but turns deadly when unleashed in battle.
The clash begins: ceramic protector sculptures by Virgil Ortiz – 2024 Sika, Than (Sun) and 2023 Kuu’ame (South) Recon Watchman –in front of Blindfall action sequence featuring charging Spanish dogs of war. Courtesy: the artist.
Blindfall, First Strike is an unforgettable experience – an assault of images, past and future, colliding, changing, morphing into unknown beings, worlds, and forces – a message about the blind whirlwind of war and strength required to ensure that culture will endure.
Listen in as Ortiz explains his process, Cochiti tradition, and collaboration with his community of multicultural artists:
And thanks to Ortiz, Garcia, their team for the reminder of the legacies and promise that guides them going forward.
Legacy: 2026 mixed-media collaboration by Eric F. Garcia and Virgil Ortiz – Castilian Christ signifying colonial devotion and dominance, and Po’pay, Face Off showing Puebloan defiant resolution. Courtesy: the artists.
Filling the entire museum, the exhibition uses painting, sculptures, and performance sculptures to chronicle how radical performances by Native Americans shifted conversations, illuminated forgotten populations and treaties, asked difficult questions, and thoroughly influenced the trajectory of the contemporary Native American art movement.
2019 lightbox portrait Headdress – Jeneen by Dana Claxton (Lakota); the sitter bedecked in beads and embroidered gifts. Courtesy: the artist and Forge Project Collection.
Take a walk through the show (and a few performances) in our Flickr album.
In the entry, a provocative neon sign by Demian DinéYazhi (Diné) beckons, but visitors are immediately pulled into the large space surrounded by a graphic history of the historic Alcatraz occupation (1969-1971, one-of-a-kind mask wall pieces by Lloyd Kiva New (leader of brand-new The Institute of American Indian Arts 1967-1978), IAIA’s 1969 manifesto on Indian Theater, and a 1972 video of a NYC production by the Native American Theater Ensemble (running on an ancient Sony Trinitron). It’s all surrounded by a wall textile designed by Linda Lomahaftawa (Hopi/Choctaw) when she was an IAIA student in the Sixties. A provocative sculpture by Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill (Métis) adds the contemporary drama.
Exhibition entry: 2021 mixed media Counterblaste by Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill (Métis); tobacco-stuffed pantyhose rabbit-human figure; surrounded by 1969 Alcatraz occuption documentation and paintings by Lloyd Kiva New. Courtesy: Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Art; Art Bridges.
This sets the stage for curator Candace Hopkins’ thesis – in the 1960s, Native American performance went hand-in-hand with greater activism, self-determination by tribes, and contemporary art in all its forms. Listen to her explain:
Two performance spaces lie just beyond this gallery. First Nicholas Galanin’s gallery where his performance The White Carver happens weekly (surrounded by photos of previous performances since it was first staged in 2012). The White Carver tackles the subject of appropriation and Native cultural misunderstanding head on.
Behind the velvet rope: set for 2012-ongoing White Carver performance by Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax) in which a Caucasian woodcarver replicates an object made by a Galinin – a commentary about appropriation and commercialization of Indigenous culture by non-Native communities. Courtesy: Gochman Family Collection.
Next, you enter a room hung with giant earring sculptures from Eric-Paul Riege (Diné), who activated them in a ritualistic performance at SITE in August. Riege’s installation allows everyone a simultaneous experience of the contemporary and cultural deep time. Kite’s floor installation, right nearby, does this, too. (Check out our previous post about Kite’s innovative IAIA show here.)
Museum goers watch Eric-Paul Riege (Diné) interact with his mixed-fiber scultptures 2020-2022 jaatloh4Ye’iitsoh (“earrings for the big god”) (August 15, 2026); oversized jewelry suggesting knowledge by listening, harmony of natural fibers, and totems of memory. Courtesy: Forge Project Collection, traditional lands of the Moh-He-Con-Nuck; Art Bridges.
Two-dimensional art on display also evokes a mix of ancient and “now.” Action painting mixed with cultural symbols. Bugle beads or painted blankets echoing color-field painting.
2014 acrylic and graphite Crow Dance by Rick Bartow (Wiyot). Courtesy: Denver Art Museum.
2022 acrylic and glass bugle bead Wopila/Lineage II by Dyani White Hawk (Sicangu Lakota) – a reference to the long tradition of Lakota abstraction. Courtesy: Gochman Family Collection.
Mash-ups of pop culture, cartoony cheesecake, ancient craft, culture, and social commentary – all the work on display incorporate aspects of performance.
1990 sculpture War Dance Technology by performance artist James Luna (Payomkowicham, Ipai, and Mexican). Courtesy: Gochman Family Collection.
2014-2022 graphite and colored pencil drawing Killer Smile by Rachel Martin (Tlingit/Tsaagweidei, Killer Whale Clan of the Yellow Cedar House Eagle Moiety). Courtesy: the artist.
The back gallery takes us back into time to consider the irony of early ethnomusic recording in the Pacific Northwest during a period when potlatches were banned and ceremonies forbidden. The exhibition has a beautiful installation of Native American LPs from the 1960s and 1970s beneath a stunning installation by Sonny Asu of copper recordings that cannot be played.
1960s-1970s LP recordings of Native American tribal songs by Indian Records; at rear, 2012 copper record installation “Ellipsis” by Sonny Asu (Ligwilda’xw Kwakwaka’wakw from the Wei Wai Kum Nation) – 138 records not intended for play. Courtesy: Forge Project Collection, traditional lands of the Moh-He-Con-Nuck.
1991 High Performance art magazine cover featuring James Luna during his AA Meeting/Art History performance.
In every room, videos display performances on stages (Jeffrey Gibson or Spiderwoman Theater) or in nature (asinnajaq (Inuk). One room is devoted to a set, props, and documentation of work by the influential performance artist James Luna, whose art did not shy away from the ever-present issue of alcoholism in Native communities.
The exhibition also includes an immersive, highly theatrical, multi-gallery installation by the New Red Order. Here’s the manifesto by NRO’s Adam and Zach Kahalil (Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians) and Jackson Polys (Tlingit).
2023 performance documentation video of Don’t Make Me Over by Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Band of Choctaw and Cherokee) featuring performer Ariel Twist (Nehiyaw). Courtesy: the artist.
NRO uses satiric videos, props, murals, documents and timelines, merchandise, and graffiti style to illuminate collisions of history, pop culture, and consciousness surrounding urban Native communities today – a totally head-spinning (and brain-spinning) experience.
Video of the 2020-ongoing Progenerator installation by the New Red Order, a mixed-media installation by artists Adam and Zach Kahalil (Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians) and Jackson Polys (Tlingit) that probes societal stereotypes alongside non-Natives’ fascination with Native culture. Courtesy: the artists.
And thanks to the recreation by Erica Lord, SITE Santa Fe visitors were able to experience Artifact Revisited. Erica recreated an acclaimed 1987 performance by James Luna – a still Native body on display within a museum, encased in glass. In Erica’s recreation, her “cabinet” was surrounded by museum signage purporting to explain “Indians” and provide context for the “exhibit.” In the age of NAGPRA, the experience was unforgettable. Watch the performance heare, and listen to Erica explains how she came to perform this historic piece and how it felt.
For more background on the connections between Native American theater, politics, and art, here’s a link to the recently published book about this never-before-told story.
The Sixties and Seventies were a time of rebellion and change in the world at large and in the New York art world. As you enter Lucy R. Lippard: Notes from the Radical Whirlwind at the Vladem Contemporary in Santa Fe through August 9, 2026, the white gallery space appears quiet, but the art that confronts you is done by artists living, creating, and collaborating in a tumultuous, exciting time.
Post-war eclecticism, minimalism, conceptualism, feminism, environmentalism, and activism – these were the movements swirling in downtown Manhattan. Writer, curator, rabble-rouser, and activist Lucy R. Lippard seemed always to be near the center it all.
Minimal and conceptual art: Sol Lewitt’s 1979 Steel Grid 3 x 3 x 3; at rear, conceptualist Douglas Huebler’s 1971 typed 44/Variable Piece #7: 1971 (In Process) Global, and Eleanor Antin’s 1971-1973 postcard piece 100 Boots Marching.
The two-floor exhibition is just a fraction of the paintings, prints, sculptures, photographs, and art books that artists gifted to Lucy across four decades. To walk through it chronicles every important trend in American (and global) art and a “who’s who” of contemporary art in the latter half of the 20th century.
Gallery featuring minimal and conceptual artists; foreground, 1971 5 Steel Track Meander by Carl Andre.
At the center of the first gallery are pieces by minimal-conceptualists Carl Andre (a twisted piece of chanelling lying on the floor that could have jumped out of a dumpster) and Sol Lewitt (a pristine grid sculpture). Nearby are super-minimalists Larry Poons and Ad Rhinehart, where you can see the hidden black-on-black squares if you peer through the glass just right.
But as the exhibition points out, Lucy didn’t just have the typical artist-curator relationship with the people whose work is on the wall. Her mentor Ad Rhinehardt asked her to pen his monograph for his ground-breaking 1966 retrospective at the Jewish Museum where is black-on-black canvases begged the question, “Is painting at an end?”
Minimalists: 1960 silkscreen by Larry Poons and 1964 screenprint Untitled (Black Square) by Ad Reinhardt.
Lucy and Carl Andre worked side-by-side in 1969 to organize the historic Art Workers’ Coalition to advocate for artists’ rights inside the art establishment. She and Sol Lewitt met at entry-level jobs at MoMA, but when Sol published his influential 1967 essay on Conceptualism in Artforum magazine, Lucy built upon his foundation with other essays and produced her acclaimed Numbers exhibitions across the country (1996 – 1972) to show conceptual and minimalist art to new audiences.
Lucy and Sol Lewitt championed the work of post-minimalist, Eva Hesse. Lucy included Eva’s work in her 1966 exhibition Eccentric Abstractionism at Fischbach Gallery, and both worked tirelessly to keep Eva’s work front and center after her untimely passing in 1970 at age 34.
The exhibition underscores the tight relationships among artists during a period of rampant experimentation, happenings, pop art, anti-war protests, and organizations protesting discrimination and advocating for justice. All forms of expression were welcomed – from performance pieces to typewritten instructions to mail art.
Post-minimalism: Eva Hesse’s 1967 ink and graphite drawing on an invisible grid.
Concepual art: Douglas Huebler’s 1971 typewritten project declaration – 44/Variable Piece #7: 1971 (In Process) Global.
Details of On Kawara’s 1968-1973 I Got Up – commercial travel postcards stamped with reductive messages and mailed to friends.
The array of feminist and political/social protest art in the exhibition reinforces the activist theme that runs through Lucy’s life. Works by Louise Bourgeois, Harmony Hammond,Ana Mendieta, Faith Ringgold, Mary Beth Edelson, and many more are shown – including the founders of A.I.R., New York’s first women-operated cooperative gallery, and the Heresies Collective, who published the first feminist art journal. Over time, their collective pressure worked, as museums and galleries finally opened up to exhibiting works by women and people of color.
Feminist power: Mary Beth Edelson’s 1972 satirical poster Some Living American Women Artists a spoof of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper with O’Keeffe and Nevelson at center stage.Performance art documentation: Ana Mendieta’s 1976 photo Silueta de Cohetes from her Siluetas eries – showing a body-shaped fireworks display agains the night sky.
The last section downstairs contains works on the Vietnam War, civil rights, Indigenous rights, the Cold War, and the risks from nuclear power. Lucy and her fellow artist were extremely active in response to injustice. In 1965-1967, they created the Angry Arts Festival through their collective, Artists and Writers Protest the Vietnam War to mobilize cultural leaders against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In 1975, Artists Meeting for Cultural Change successfully lobbied for disenfranchised artist’s inclusion in the Whitney Biennial. In 1979, Artists Against Nuclear Madness mobilized.
Artist power: selections from the 1986 mixed-media portfolio La linea quebrada = The Broken Line – a project to promote exhibition opportunities and cultural exchange in communities across the US-Mexico border; created by Guillermo Gomez-Pena, D.Emily Hicks, Harry Polkinhorn, and Cesar Espinoza.
In 1984, Lucy and other colleagues led Artists Call Against US Intervention in Central America. Over1,100 artists and activists mobilized to create over 200 events in 27 cities. (Click here to read our 2022 post about the University of New Mexico Art Museum’s exhibition on this mobilization.)
Lucy’s philosophy: “Artists alone cannot change the world. Neither can anyone else alone. But we can choose to be part of the world that is changing.”
The second-floor gallery is dedicated to artists books – a movement that started around the same time that everything else was happening. Many artists felt the high-end art market on the East Coast was too elitist. Many artists wanted to bypass the whole thing and create affordable art.
Lucy Lippard, Sol Lewitt and others decided to open a storefront in 1976 where anyone could buy inexpensive books created by artists…books that were themselves affordable art! Although it moved from Tribeca, to Soho, and Chelsea, it’s still selling artist’s books fifty years later!
The upstairs gallery is a tribute to the decades of “affordable art” perseverance.
Environmental awareness: Kiki Smith’s 1997 accordion book The Fourth Day: The Destruction of Birds.
You can wander through imagining you are in the Printed Matter bookshop in the late 1970s, browsing through all the different projects, statements, picture books, and manifestoes flowing out of the Downtown New York art scene!
Social commentary: 1984 book Tense by Jerry Kearns and Lucy Lippard. Publisher: Kunstverein Amsterdam.
Feminist book: Avis Lang’s 1981 book Pork Roasts: 250 Feminist Cartoons. Publisher: UBC Fine Arts.
The gallery also contains some of the artist books that started it all by Ed Rucha.
Two infamous artist books: Ed Ruscha’s 1964 Various Small Fires and Bruce Naumann’s 1968 Burning Small Fires that documents his performance-art destruction of Ruscha’s earlier book. Publishers: Fluxus editions; Seth Siegelaub, The Louis Kellner Foundation.
But maybe some of the best books are those found in the back reading room – some of the 30 influential treatises written by Lucy herself, publications that document art, life, and society in our times.
Lucy Lippard’s celebrated publications on display in the second-floor reading room.
The massive exhibition is a blockbuster of abstraction – giant canvases, bold strokes, and enough dots and concentric circles to satisfy the most avid Kusama fan. But these visions don’t emanate from the 20th century’s Western modernist tradition. They’re the work of visionary artists from the Outback, whose abstractions use traditional icons as meditations on stories and landscapes that indigenous Australian people have relayed for thousands of generations.
The Stars We Do Not See is a journey like no other through the Denver Art Museum through July 26, 2026.
Detail of 2011 Gan’yu (Stars) by Gulumbu Yunupinju (Gumatj), referencing ancestral stories of the creation of stars and universe. Courtesy: National Gallery of Victoria, Canada
The winding path reveals principles of cyclical time, how the spirits of the land influence specific Indigenous cultures, and how icons of sacred landscapes and water sources are translated onto horizonless painted canvases.
Enjoy some of our favorites – full-size works and close-ups of paint details – in our Flickr album.
1980 painting Spirit Dreaming Through Napperby Country by Tim Leura and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (Anmatyerre) – a recollection of ancestral homelands taken by cattle ranchers in the early 1900s. Courtesy: National Gallery of Victoria
At every turn, there are gigantic room-size works (some realized as large-group colleborations) and arrays of towering carved and painted memorial poles. Abstract symbols denote spirit beings, water, river systems, nature or animal traces. Everything is drawn from the massive collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Canada.
Epic 1995 abstraction Anwerlarr Anganenty (Big Yam Dreaming) by Emily Kam Kngwarry (Anmatyerre), depicting a network of sacred underground roots. Courtesy: National Gallery of Victoria
The curators start and end the show with arresting contemporary works by urban Indiginous artists – a neon installation, video, a painted skateboard, and representational works referencing forced relocation and unjust assimilation policies.
2020 neon “OA Warrior I (Blue) (Azul)” and “OA Warrior I (Pink) (Rosa)” by Reko Rennie (Kamilarol) – a mix of ancestral and urban culture. Courtesy: National Gallery of Victoria2022 History Repeats by Tony Albert (Girramay/Yidinji/Kuku Yalanji)– a work made of recycled vintage commercial knicknacks featuring appropriated Aboriginal iconography. Courtesy: National Gallery of Victoria
But the majority of the show shows how traditional artists using earth pigments on eucalyptus bark prior to the 1970s gave way to community artist who used new synthetic pigments to paint first on posterboard and then on canvas.
1972 Snake and Water Dreaming by Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurray (Pintupi) from the first Indiginous art community in Papuna, Northern Territory to establish a contemporary art center; design from ritual body painting and cave art. Courtesy: National Gallery of Victoria
Conceptual Maps: 2006 conceptual abstraction Kalaya Wati (Emu Man) by Alkawari Dawson (Pitjantjatjara). Courtesy: National Gallery of Victoria
For more about the artists and how/why they create, take a look at the exhibition guide here.
Experience the majesty, scale, and experience of this exhibition through this walk-through produced by the Denver Museum of Art. Listen for the explanation of how the exhibit received its title, too!
Don’t worry if you missed this in Denver. The Stars We Do Not See will be on view at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon from September 5, 2026 through January 3, 2027, and at the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts from February 27, 2027 through June 13, 2027.
First gallery with display of eucalyptus memorial poles carved by Northern Aboriginal artists and painted with ritual designs
As a young woman, O’Keeffe learned to play the violin and piano. But she was also a talented visual artist, which made her wonder which path she would take in her education – music or art? We know which career path she chose – a modernist painter of nature, New York cityscapes, and New Mexico landscapes.
But deep in her artistic upbringing, she figured out a way to have the best of both – using music as a conduit to make abstractions that express emotion, hidden feelings, and channel pure beauty. It’s a hidden, personal dimension to O’Keeffe’s creativity that is on display at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s capsure exhibition, A Circle that Nothing Can Break, on view in Santa Fe through June 7, 2026.
O’Keeffe’s 1970s watercolor Untitled (Abstraction Blue Wave and Three Red Circles). Painted after she lost her central vision with help from Belarmino López.
The title of the exhibition refers to a comment by Georgia in a 1922 letter to her husband – the influential photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz – in which she said their relationship was “like a circle that nothing can break.” Looking around the small gallery, circles and arcs are everywhere – in her earliest charcoal abstractions, a circle of blue sky seen through a curved goat horn, and her late-in-life abstractions.
O’Keeffe’s 1945 pastel Goat’s Horns with Blue. Courtesy: private collection
Even some of her favorite fashion accessories feature circles! Take a look at some of our favorites in our Flickr album.
O’Keeffe’s 1915-1916 charcoal drawing Abstraction with Curve and Circle.
Personal accessories featuring the circle motif – a 1960s-1970s Italian scarf with concentric circle designs and her signature 1930s “OK” brooch from Alexander Calder.
When O’Keeffe took summer classes at the University of Virginia in 1912, her teacher Alon Bennett often played music on his Victrola during class and encouraged her to explore expressionist synergy between music and art. Around 1914, she also read Kandinsky’s influential book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art. It made quite an impression on her with quotes such as “Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmony, the soul is the piano…(and) the artist is the hand which plays…”
Georgia’s early charcoal works show her experimentation in using lines as “sounds” and interest in using circles in an expressionistic way. In letters to her long-time friend Anita Pollitzer, sent in 1915-1916 while she was teaching in South Carolina, Georgia said she did a “liberating series of drawings.” She explained that she often played violin for many hours to interpet her feelings, and then translated it all through her charcoal drawings.
O’Keeffe’s 1919 oil painting Green Lines and Pink.
O’Keeffe’s 1970s watercolor Abstraction Dark Green Lines with Red and Pink. Painted with the assistance of Belarmino López.
These drawings electrified her future husband, Alfred Stieglitz, who immediately mounted them for a show in his gallery and kick-started her career.
Four O’Keeffe 1970s watercolors (painted with assistance from Belarmino López) – Untitled (Abstraction Pink Curve and Circles), Untitled (Orange and Red Wave), Abstraction, and Untitled (Abstration Blue Curve and Circles).
In New York, the couple shared a love of live concert and recorded music throughout their lives together. By the time Georgia moved to New Mexico, she had assembled an extensive classical record collection. During the 1960s, when she began to lose her eyesight, listening to music from the comfort of her BARWA Lounger was a near-daily afternoon routine.
The exhibition selects paintings from throughout Georgia’s life featuring this circle motif – early oil paintings and sketches through to her late-in-life watercolors (done in her nineties with help from artist Mino López) that revisit these early themes. Note the upper arcs that suggest the top of a violin. She remembered it all.
Listen to this fascinating talk by music education professor Janet Revell Barret, who provides an in-depth explanation of how O’Keeffe’s early training and musical inclinations led her to greater expression on the page and canvas:
Just before the US Bicentennial in 1976, a city rose inside 88 Pine Street in downtown Manhattan – Creative Time’s first public art project. It was a crazy, hilarious, participatory comic papier-mâché labrynth that was dreamed up by a beloved Pop Art power couple – Red Grooms and Mimi Gross – that was a love letter to New York City.
Their cartoon Manhattan had everything – Times Square, the World Trade Center, the Staten Island Ferry, Wall Street, and even a subway car on springs you could enter and bounce around in amid life-sized papier-mâché and soft-sculpted passengers.
Publicity and photos from the 1976 installation of Ruckus Manhattan at Marlborough Gallery on 57th Street.
Within the 6,400-square-foot area, you could walk through big brightly painted, silly constructions to experience all the sights, sounds, and crazy characters everyone observes and bumps into on New York City streets. It was sensational (drawing 50,000 visitors) and people came back over and over to catch things they didn’t notice the first time.
Film still from Ruckus Manhattan documentary by Red Grooms and Mimi Gross, showing Red Grooms at work on the Woolworth Building for the 1975 installation at 88 Pine Street, Financial District.
The major part of the first-floor installation depicts the blue waters of New York Harbor (an undulating, draped blue plastic sheet) and a big, cartoon-like Staten Island Ferry – Dame of the Narrows – pulling into its berth at the terminal. The yellow ferry boat is packed with picture-taking tourists, commuters, vehicles, and (as usual) a few passengers and a motorcyclist poised at the edge of the lower deck, waiting for the bump against the landing and the hinged gate release before scooting ashore.
Dame of the Narrows, a 1975 installation by Red Grooms, Mimi Gross, and their collaborators known as the Ruckus Construction Company; here, a cartoon version of the Staten Island Ferry is about to arrive at the dock.
A seagull sits atop the vertical wooden pillars that line the terminal approach. It’s the same as you’ve witnessed a thousand times in real life. Funny how the harbor smells, humidity, and seagull sounds pop into your head, making you feel as if you’re really there.
Cartoon seagull looks for a meal atop the timbers lining the Manhattan dock for the Staten Island Ferry; 1975 installation from Ruckus Manhattan.
View of the lifeboat and underwater life beneath the cartoon Staten Island Ferry Dame of the Narrows, 1975 installation from Ruckus Manhattan.
Like the rest of the larger Ruckus Manhattan, this harbor installation was created from Red’s sketches of the ferry people, architecture, and technology by a crew of around 40 other members of his team – the Ruckus Construction Company. It was a joyous mix of painters, sculptors, puppet makers, performance artists, and kids, all on view through the plate glass windows of 88 Pine Street in the Financial District, bringing the buildings and neighborhoods of Manhattan to life.
Centerfold of The Daily Ruckus comic newspaper created in lieu of an exhibition catalog; November 1975 issue includes pictures and bios of the installation artists.
Surrounding it all are two long painted murals from 1992, featuring landmarks across the waters – the skyscrapers of Jersey City above Journal Square, the looming cranes of the container shipping port, and the Verazzano Narrows Bridge is shoved in there, too, right at the edge.
Video of Design for Staren Island Ferry – enlargement of a 1992 watercolor and drawing by Red Grooms.
After Ruckus Manhattan closed downtown in 1975, the entire kit and kaboodle moved uptown to Marlborough Gallery on 57th Street in 1976. Nearly 100,000 people came to see it in Midtown, as did Jackie O. In 1977, Dame of the Narrows was presented to the Brooklyn Museum by the newly formed Citizens Committee for New York City, which began community initiatives to help the City rise up after its devastating fiscal crisis.
Brooklyn has a nice collection of ephemera that it’s put on display in an adjacent gallery that runs Red and Mimi’s Ruckus Manhattan documentary. Here’s a clip with Red and Mimi:
Visitors can take a minute and see photos of the full-scale installation, a brochure for a 1993 installation at Grand Central Terminal, and The Daily Ruckus newspaper handed out at the 88 Pine Street opening.
Video showing the exterior of the 42nd Street Porno Bookstore and a leather-clad passerby, a 1976 installation for Ruckus Manhattan.
For visitors who want to see what Times Square was like before it was renovated into a more family-friendly environment, the museum has installed another Ruckus component (not as family friendly…be warned!). Around the corner (hidden from the ferry installation), you’re greeted by a seedy façade and live-sized leather-clad lurker. Welcome to the 42nd Street Porno Bookstore! Inside, you can peruse goofy magazine covers that spoof Times Square’s dicey past alongside a satirical peep show and another sketchy lurker.
Thanks to the Ruckus team for its creation, to Alex Katz for donating the Bookstore, and to Brooklyn Museum for this walk down Memory Lane and its preservation of one of New York’s best-loved art extravaganzas!
Film still from Ruckus Manhattan documentary by Red Grooms and Mimi Gross, showing Red Grooms at work the 1975 installation at 88 Pine.
The quiet adobe museum entrance displaying a retro WWII-era poster prepares no one for the ultra-modern abstraction extravaganza inside the Harwood.
Pursuit of Happiness: GI Bill in Taos, on view through May 31, 2026, shows and explains how an influx of rule-breaking painters from both coasts returned from the War, enrolled in contemporary art classes, and created the mid-century phenomenon that art historians classify as Taos Modern. Take a virtual visit in our Flickr album.
Harwood Museum of Art entrance in Taos
The exhibition tells the story of young people who first applied their talents to defend America in Europe, the Pacific, and the home front, and then chose to channel their energies and experiences through color and paint on large canvases to give life to postwar Abstract Expressionism, big-field flat color painting, and innovative materials.
The exhibition captures both the energy and optimism of the moment and shines a light on the mentors, teachers, and educational institutions that gave these vets a platform to experiment as social realism’s dominance in the art scene was giving way to new expressions – inner spiritualism, bold strokes, and white canvases with wide open spaces.
South Pacific Army airman Wolcott Ely’s undated oil From the Seas that are South – trained in Paris and was a private student of Andrew Dasburg in New Mexico. Courtesy: Taos Municipal Schools Historical Art Collection.
Mid-century modern dominates the exhibition, but there are a few references to artists’ wartime experiences – dramatic ink drawings from Oli Shivonen’s European war journals and Janet Lippencott’s expressive canvas that puts the viewer amid the carnage in London from one of Germany’s final bombing raids – something she experienced as a WAC serving on Eisenhower’s staff.
Janet Lippencott’s 1940s painting Raid – reflecting her experience as a WAC in London during one of Germany’s final 1944 bombing raids; in 1949, she used the GI Bill to study at the Bisttram School of Fine Art.
An award-winning 1942 poster by Taos Pueblo artist, cartoonist, and Army veteran Eve Mirabal, who studied at the Taos Valley Art School. Courtesy: private collection.
The exhibition frames the work by highlighting the seasonal and year-round schools that welcomed students under the GI Bill of 1944, which provided WWII vets with benefits for education, mortages, and employment. A remarkably high percentage of veterans took advantage of this transformative legislation that built America’s middle class. To learn more, download the gallery guide here.
Gestural abstraction by a former student of the UNM Taos Field School on the GI Bill – Malcolm Brown’s 1960 oil painting Olaf’s Dream.
The earliest modern art program in Taos was the University of New Mexico Summer Field School, which began in 1929. Students worked and slept on the grounds of today’s Harwood itself. By the time that GI Bill students attended, property owner and philanthropist Elizabeth Lucy Harwood gifted her former residence – now the Harwood Museum – to UNM. The exhibition showcases work by former UNM summer students R.C. Ellis and Malcolm Brown.
Although she wasn’t on the GI Bill, the Harwood has an entire room full of the UNM program’s most acclaimed attendee, Ms. Agnes Martin, who shared studio space alongside returning war vets in 1947.
Transcendentalist artist Emil Bisttram also accepted GI Bill students into his seasonal fine arts program, which emphasized the principles of Kandinsky and European spiritual abstractionists. Although Taos was his home, Bisttram offered summer and winter fine arts sessions were in Los Angeles and Phoenix, where he taught. Janet Lippincott, who became a lifelong Taos resident, and Cliff Harmon, who also trained with Albers at Black Mountain College, are featured.
Founder of Bisttram School of Fine Art –transcendentalist Emil Bisttram’s 1954 geometric abstraction Out of Space.
Work by a former student of Josef Albers at Black Mountain College and the Bisttram School of Fine Art on the GI Bill – Navy sonarman Cliff Harmon’s 1951 oil painting, Construction.
The cross-pollination of styles, personalities, spiritual influences, and teaching philosophies in Taos was intense and rewarding in those post-war years. Two upstart abstractionists – Bea Mandelman and Louis Ribak – arrived and began the Taos Valley Art School in 1947, which welcomed 20 students per semester.
A significant number of works are by Leger-trained Mandelman and social-realist-turned abstractionist Ribak, and their former GI Bill students – Louis Catusco, Ted Egri, Leo Garel, Herman Rednick, and Eve Mirabal (the Taos Pueblo artist credited as the first female Native cartoonist in America).
Co-founder of the Taos Valley Art School – Beatrice Mandelman’s 1950 Mouintain (formally Dark Cloud)Co-founder of the Taos Valley Art School – Louis Ribak’s 1950 abstract Movement No. 2.
Clyfford Still-trained painters also made their way to Taos from the California School of Fine Arts, the legendary modern-art training ground in San Francisco. The Harwood’s all-white back gallery features spectacular works by Clay Spohn, Lawrence Calcagno, and Ed Corbett. When the pay was too low at CSFA, even Richard Diebenkorn enrolled in UNM to use his more generous GI Bill benefits.
Edward Corbett’s 1951 chalk on paper Number 9 – former student at California School of Fine Arts who moved to Taos. Courtesy: Tia Collection.
Former teacher and student at California School of Fine Arts who moved to University of New Mexico – Richard Diebenkorn’s 1951 untitled abstraction inspired by New Mexico’s Southwestern landscape.
The back corner features work by two former Black Mountain College. Several are by Oli Shivonen, who served in the corps of artists and sound engineers in the “Ghost Army” that created battlefield deceptions to deceive Axis troops. Note the flat shapes and bold colors, reminiscent of another Ghost Army vet, Ellsworth Kelly.
A small multiple by John Chamberlain also stands here – a tribute to the inspiration that Chamberlain drew from the new methods, material, and iridescent magic reflected in work by another SoCal-to-Taos transplant, Larry Bell.
Former Black Mountain College student on the GI Bill who moved to Taos – Oli Shivonen’s 1965 color abstraction Column Three.
John Chamberlain’s 1971 El Molé based on crumpled paper bags – one of a cast poly resin edition by Gemini G.E.L.; coated with silicon oxide. Courtesy: private collection
For more stories, background, and innovations by GI Bill beneficiaries across the US art world, listen to this lecture by the curator of this amazing show, MaLin Wilson-Powell:
And in a living tribute to all of the Taos veterans, the Harwood created a community space for temporary exhibition of photos, memories, and tributes right inside this remarkable exhibition that honors the men and women of art and service.
Photos and other items donated by the community for the Harwood’s veteran memorabilia space.
How do artists forge a path forward in contemporary art by adapting to and then shaking off the constraints of colonialism? The Tate Modern explains how one country’s artists did it through its expansive exhibition Nigerian Modernism: Art and Independence, on view in the Nathalie Bell Building Level 4 through May 10, 2026.
The exhibition unfolds across nine galleries that provide some history, honor 20th century art legends, and introduce groups of artists that converged in universities and other towns to chart their unique paths. It’s a sensational visual ride through an art culture that had to contend with civil wars, upheavals, ethnic conflict, and the decision either to stay put and build artistic infrastructure or to build another life abroad.
Ben Enwonwu’s masterful 1986 painting Ogolo with an Igbo masquerade figure showing how to transition from this world to the next. Courtesy: Osahon Okunbo Foundation.
Early moderns: Olowe of Ise’s 1910-1914 carved and painted double doors showing Ogaga the king of Ikere and his wife receiving the British ambassador in Ondo province in 1895; exhibited at the Nigerian Pavilion in 1924 British Empire Exhibition. Courtesy: British Museum.
See some of our favorite works in our Flickr album.
The modernist tour begins with an introduction to artists who paved the way before Nigeria became an official colony of Great Britain in 1914 – such as late 18th-early 19th century photographer Jonathan Adagogo Green – and Aina Onabolu, a self-taught artist who went to Europe in the 1920s for academic art training. He then returned to Nigeria to create and implement a secondary-school art curriculum that taught young artists how to use European art techniques (perspective, color theory, easel painting) to depict Nigerian subjects.
Onabolu’s work was significant, since colonial schools had none. They were trying to create turn students into perfect “British” civil servants and missionary schools were out to destroy ethic Nigerian practices and symbols.
In this first gallery, you see work by the next generation of figurative artists who came of age during British rule, traveled to Europe, and blended what they learned with African subjects – traditionally inspired sculptures by globe-trotting Yoruba carving advocate, Lamidi Olonade Fakeye; portraits and scenes by modernist pioneer Akinola Lasekan; modern sculptural influencerJustice D. Akeredolu; and works by sculptor Felix Udabor, who opened the first contemporary gallery in Lagos.
Abayomi Barber’s undated Ola EduI, a terracotta bust of a Yoruba woman that blends European and Yoruba artistic traditions. Courtesy: private collection.
Acclaimed Benin carver Felix Udabor’s regal 1930s Head of A Girl. Courtesy: University of Birmingham collections.
This room leads to a spectacular display of dramatic modernist ebony figures by Africa’s first internationally recognized modern painter, Ben Enwonwu. The room is a mini-retrospective of his work, from early student sculpture that has a Henry Moore influence to a self-portrait and larger, more emotive gestural work.
Ben Enwonwu’s 1961 ebony series Seven Wooden Sculptures Commissioned by The Daily Mirror surrounded by a retrospective of his modern paintings. Courtesy: Access Holdings Plc
Ben Enwonwu’s 1967-1968 Crucified Gods Galore – an invocation of ancestral dancing, masked, frenzied spirits evoking the chaos of the Nigerian Civil War. Courtesy: private collection
Born into an esteemed Nigerian family, Enwonwu was championed as a young artist by the top British art educator in the colony, and a received scholarship to train in London. He soaked up post-War artistic trends, exhibited extensively, toured and lectured across the United States, and sculpted the Queen when she visited Nigeria. Yet, through it all, he was blunt about repression under the colonial regime and advocated for the African Nationalist movement. Nigeria won its independence in 1960.
Ben Enwonwu’s 1965 oil River Niger Landscape. Courtesy: private collection.
The next gallery shows the work and legacy of Nigerian art ambassadorLadi Kwali, who transformed traditional forms of earthenware into high-fired glazed modern art admired and collected worldwide.
With independence, formally trained artists, writers, poets, and dramatists formed associations to usher in new, more expressive works across all media – work that reflected a Nigerian sensibility, not just Europe’s. Pop music and new art flourished and Lagos nightclubs ruled. Successive exhibition galleries hone in on trends in different cities and geographic regions throughout Nigeria.
There’s a room dedicated to work by artists who wrote the manifesto for and created the legendary Zaria Art Society –Emmanual Okechukwu Odita, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Yusuf Grillo, Uche Okeke, Demas Nwoko, and Oseluka Osadebe. They wanted art to reflect Nigeria’s cultures – all of them, including Islam and Christian religions as well as traditional ethnic practices.
Zaria Art Society: Jimo Akolo’s 1962 oil painting Fulani Horsemen, who brought Islamic religion into northern Nigeria. Courtesy: Bristol Museum.
And the world was eager to see it, as exhibitions were organized and showcased overseas.
Art of new nation: 1961 publication Art from Africa of Our Time promoting an exhibition of modern African art in New York. Courtesy: New Culture Foundation
The New Sacred Art Movement was happening deep in the 400-year-old Osun-Osagbo Sacred Groves of southwest Nigeria, where artist Susanne Wenger gathered committed individuals (bricklayers, concrete workers) and other artists to transform (and save) the forest by building ritual clearings and shrines. In 2005, UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site.
New art for the Sacred Forest: Against a background depicting the forests Osun-Osogbo Sacred Groves, sculptures from the shrine – Adebisi Akanji’s 1990s cement sculptures of river goddess Osun and war god Ogun Timeyin; and Buraimoh Gbadamosi’s 1980s stone sculptures of benevolent nature spirits, Sango and Osun. Courtesy: private collection.
The artists associated with The Oshogbo School lived in a community where Christian, Muslim, and Yoruba festivals and ceremonies were held side by side. The cultural center in Osogbo was active, inviting international artists to run workshops and sending out theatrical troupes to perform traditional stories in honor of the the region’s river goddess, Osun.
When theater leaders wanted more community involvement, they trained theater performers and technicians to run painting, printmaking, and textile workshops. Many workshop participants and teachers went on to create and innovate, as shown on the walls.
The Oshaogbo School: Jimoh Buraimoh’s 1973 beadwork panel Figural Abstract referencing traditional Yoruba beaded staffs, stools, and crowns. Courtesy: private collection.
The Oshaogbo School: Rufus Ogundele’s 1965 oil painting Sacrifice to Ogun, God of Thunder. Courtesy: private collection.
The Nsukka School developed at University of Nigeria, whose students were from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds. Uche Okeke was invited to lead the art department, and asked students to use art to “reclaim” indigenous culture toward the end of the 1960s after Nigeria’s tumultuous civil war. Artists mixed symbols from different ethnic traditions and produced powerful work.
Nsukka School: Obiora Udechukwu’s 1993 four-panel ink and acrylic painting Our Journey – referencing the political unrest in Nigeria following the 1993 election when the military government refused to release election returns to maintain power. Courtesy: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth.Nsukka School: El Anatsui’s 1965 tempera and house paint on tropical hardwood Solemn Crowds at Dawn.
The final gallery showcases the work of Uzo Egonu, a Nigerian artist who left his homeland for a successful career abroad as an innovator in the British Black Art Movement. He’s a keen observer of the events, changes, and tumult that have rocked his home country, and through his work cheers on those whose work continues there.
Uzo Egonu’s 1985 oil painting Will Knowledge Safeguard Freedom 2 – a reflection on the potential of the creative arts and technical advancements to improve a free society. Courtesy: private collection
For a glimpse of life inside a Lagos gallery today, meet chief Nike davies-Okundaye, one of Nigher’s best-known textile artists and painters. It’s a recent video produced by the Tate in honor of living artists carrying on modern legacies of this extraordinary exhibition:
To read the Tate guidebook for this show, click here.
You’ll have to go downstairs and get past the doorman to get into the club where art, design, trend, creative dress, techno-pop, synth, retro, and gender-bending fashions rule. The Design Museum in Kensington, London has created a time machine that takes visitors back to the edgy days of Covent Garden through the exhibition Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s, on view through March 29, 2026.
As soon as you enter the museum lobby, you can tell who’s there for the exhibition. Many are dressed for the occasion in bold designs, sparkly accessories, band T-shirts, and 80s hair accessories. Everyone’s having fun, going back to their youthful club days in London, remembering the “private party” at the Blitz wine bar every Tuesday night.
Exhibition entrance with photo of Steve Strange, who decided who got into the Blitz club.
See some of our favorite memorabilia and fashion in our Flickr album.
The exhibition recreates the convergence of everything cool in London culture circa 1979-1980. Visitors stand before posters, walls of photos, and fashion recollecting their own experiences at the Tuesday-night wine-bar “private party” where Steve Strange and DJ Rusty Eagan presided over bare-bones space that came alive with color, outrageous fashion, and ginormous personalities. Steve worked the door and (for a nano-second) Boy George ran the coat room. No one repeated outfits.
Photo wall of Blitz party goers 1979-1980 – (top) David Bowie and Toni Basil by Robert Rosen; double portrait by Robyn Beeche; (bottom) designer/club kid Stephen Linard by Robyn Beeche; Marilyn at Club for Heroes by Robert Rosen; and Stephen Linard by Ted Polhemus.
The journey opens with a look at the counter-culture that was percolating in Britain in the mid-1970s – the subversive punk scene, young people’s passion for European retro avant-garde cinema and art (thought to be more exciting that UK’s drab day-to-day), the magic of public persona reinvention (look no further than the music and image of the morphing Mr. Bowie), and and subversive, transmuting morals exemplified by drag and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Keeping track of a style and music influencer – late 1970s scrapbooks with pictures of David Bowie. Courtesy: Iain R. Webb.
Clubbing before Blitz: Nicola Tyson’s 1978 photos of “Bowie Night” hosted by DJ Rusty Egan and Steve Strange at Billy’s Club in Soho, London. Courtesy: Sadie Coles HQ, London.
DJ Rusty Egan began by hosting parties at other venues (“Bowie Night” and so forth) before asking the Blitz to agree to his recurring weekly event. Young art and fashion students of St. Martin’s and Central flocked to these party nights, turning themselves (and friends) into unique cultural creations. You were safe at the Blitz.
Student designer David Hola’s 1979 robe and dress; 1979 photo by Derek Ridgers of makeup artist Lesley Chilkes wearing it. Courtesy: Lesley Chilkes
1980 man’s hand-painted leather coat by Melissa Caplan for Pallium Products. Courtesy: the artist.
Fashion and innovation at the club were key, and after the Blitz club opened in 1979, it didn’t take long for the press to catch on. Spandau Ballet did their first live performance at the Blitz, costumed by up-and-coming student designers. Manolo Blahnik and (future milliner to Dior and Diana) Stephen Jones were just part of the crowd, collaborating with designer friends, musicians, and make-up and hair artists to create look after look. They never imagined from those funky club days that their business would become the stuff of Met Galas, big-time runways, and museum archives.
Peter Ashworth’s 1980 photograph of Blitz style icon Kim Bowen wearing the Archbishop hat by Stephen Jones. Courtesy: Iain R. Webb.
Press about milliner Stephen Jones from a 1982 article in the Daily Express and 1983 story in Tatler. Courtesy: Stephen Jones; Central St. Martin’s Museum.
The exhibition shows off many of the designers who defined the ever-evolving look of (what the press called) “The New Romantics.” Backless leather dresses by Fiona Dealey, retro zoot suits by Chris Sullivan, ecclesiastical-inspired unisex garb by Darla-Jane Gilroy, and socio-political tank-top commentary by Sue Clowes. After their graduation collections, many of them sold clothes at Camden Market or specialty boutiques near the club. Their careers were off and running.
Darla-Jane Gilroy’s 1980 fashion illustration for her final-year student collection.
1980 magazine story about the Blitz designers inspired by ecclesiastical garb.
Celebrity sightings were common at the club in those days. But just as many of the “Blitz Kids” promoted their own celebrity. Eventually Steve Strange was starring in music videos for his group Visage and Boy George was fronting Culture Club, all with revolutionary clothes, makeup, hats, and hair. With the advent of the wildly successful MTV, the whole thing went TV-viral.
Blitz Kids hit the charts – album and record-sleeve art for Spandau Ballet by Graham Smith and Culture Club.
1984 book by Wayne and Gerardine Winder and Christina Saunders, Boy George Fashion & Makeup Book. Courtesy: Michael Bean.
The central gallery of the exhibition is a physical recreation of the club with a period soundtrack. Although there aren’t any drinks being served, a virtual DJ Rusty Egan and virtual images of club goers thoroughly entertained museum visitors, all remembering those days when they were young and the the scene felt so alive.
Video of the Blitz recreation inside the exhibit with virtual club-goers and museum visitors enjoying the scene at the bar.
Several visitors shepherded their now-adult kids through the exhibit, reliving those days and explaining how it felt to be witnessing pop-culture history-in-the making. You see walls of record albums from the era, a series of MTV video clips, and first editions of i-D magazine that quickly morphed from a punk-music publication to a chronicle of Blitz Kid fashion and street style.
Sue Cowles’ 1981 “Destruction of Purity” vest with images of warplanes, English roses, and St. George’s cross. Courtesy: Mikey Bean.
Graham Smith’s 1980 photo of BodyMap creators Stevie Stewart and David Holah with 1986 BodyMap tunic with print by Hilde Smith. Courtesy: University of Westminster Menswear Archive.
Watch this short video with curator Danielle Thom, Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet, and Blitz creator Rusty Egan, who talk about the creative sparks that flew in a pre-Internet society.
Bravo to The Design Museum for making so many Londoners so happy, and to let everyone see, feel, and experience a time when transformation people and ideas seemed limitless and an army of misfit creatives changed pop-culture, design, and fashion for the better.
