Walker Art Center Opens Major Mid-Career Survey of Acclaimed Artist Dyani White Hawk
| On October 18, the Walker Art Center will open Dyani White Hawk: Love Language, a major mid-career survey featuring nearly 100 works from the past 15 years of the artist’s wide-ranging practice. Co-organized with Remai Modern (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada), the expansive exhibition features paintings, sculptures, works on paper, video installations, and objects that incorporate porcupine quillwork and lane stitch beadwork, as well as several new large-scale sculptural pieces and mosaics making their debut in the show. Together, the depth of works highlights White Hawk’s ongoing commitment to formal and material experimentation. It is especially meaningful that the artist’s largest and most comprehensive institutional survey to date opens in Minneapolis, where she has lived and worked since 2011.
White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota, b. 1976) is recognized for her dynamic visual language and approach to image making. Grounded in a celebration of Lakota art forms and symbols, White Hawk’s work challenges prevailing narratives and histories of abstraction and amplifies the influence of Indigenous cultural production on modern and contemporary art. Through a remarkable array of works, Love Language engages viewers with White Hawk’s distinctive multimedia practice and examines the ways the artist honors Lakota artistic traditions while exploring the possibilities of new aesthetic, conceptual, and technical innovations. The exhibition design, which is being developed in close collaboration with the artist and community members, emphasizes a sense of welcome, bringing a core grounding from White Hawk’s work into the physical space of the show. The exhibition is co-curated by Siri Engberg, Senior Curator and Director of Visual Arts at the Walker, and Tarah Hogue (Métis), Adjunct Curator of Indigenous Art at Remai Modern, and further supported by Brandon Eng, Curatorial Assistant, Visual Arts, at the Walker. It will remain on view at the Walker through February 15, 2026, and then open at the Remai Modern on April 25, 2026. Love Language is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, assembled in close collaboration with the artist. The 350-page monograph offers new scholarship and platforms a range of Indigenous voices, providing a deeper exploration of White Hawk’s vision and work. White Hawk has gained renown—including being named as a 2023 MacArthur Fellow—for foregrounding Lakota abstraction and placing it in active conversation with European and American geometric abstract painting. She draws from Indigenous teachings and histories embedded in materials and practices to reclaim knowledge, inspire emotion, and stir memory. In doing so, she merges traditional and contemporary approaches to create evocative new forms and expressions. To center Indigenous value systems significant to White Hawk’s practice within the exhibition, Love Language unfolds in a loose chronology around four guiding words—See, Honor, Nurture, and Celebrate—that reflect the importance of family, ancestry, community, language, and the land. White Hawk comments: Centering Indigenous voices in the Walker, on Dakota homelands, is an action of agency and assertion of belonging. Through the creation of a welcoming space guided by Indigenous value systems, a nurturing environment will be provided for all. Love Language is an opportunity to celebrate Indigenous art, strengthen critical thinking on institutional and national histories, and share in the reciprocal practice of creation and engagement. Art is a gift. When we share the truths of our lived experiences and take the time to listen to learn about one another, we are better equipped to practice compassion. Through this exchange, we collectively embark on building healthier models for the future.” The exhibition opens with See, which introduces audiences to White Hawk’s aesthetic language, lived experience, and worldview through a series of early works informed by her experiences as a woman of Lakota and European ancestry, her knowledge of Indigenous and Western art histories, and her converging educational experiences. Works in this section combine Lakota techniques, such as porcupine quillwork and lane stitch beadwork, with methods of painting on canvas. In so doing, the artist asks us to see her work as part of both artistic lineages. Additionally, this gallery includes a selection of works on paper—including prints, drawings, and mixed-media works using 1800s ledger paper—brought together for the first time in an exhibition. Works gathered in Honor showcase a group of paintings that depict recognizable forms, such as moccasins and quilts, which the artist begins to visually distill into abstraction, celebrating their sophisticated geometries and bold colors. Featured here and throughout the galleries are examples from White Hawk’s acclaimed Carry series, oversized beaded sculptural vessels that reference highly adorned functional objects of Lakota culture and ways that adornment signifies value systems. The Carry series challenges the hierarchies often imposed in academic and museum spaces between fine art and craft. The works featured in Nurture embrace female strength and connectivity across generations. The section is anchored by White Hawk’s LISTEN (2020–ongoing), a multichannel audio and video installation, with cinematography by Razelle Benally (Oglala Lakota/Diné), which features Indigenous women speaking their Native languages on their homelands. Through a merging of sound and cadence, the installation asserts the range and diversity of Native languages spoken on this land base. Also included, among other works, is Braids (2018), a video work by White Hawk and artist Jovan C. Speller (US, b. 1983), with videography by Elizabeth Day, an homage to hair braiding in Indigenous and Black communities as an act of care, and a window into the connected yet unique impacts of colonization on Black and Native communities. Also on view are examples from White Hawk’s acclaimed Quiet Strength series (2016–), a body of abstract paintings in which the artist’s meticulously painted vertical brushstrokes—references to quillwork and beadwork—amass to create expansive fields of color and texture, honoring the women who gifted and upheld these art forms over generations. The final section, titled Celebrate, focuses on White Hawk’s most recent innovations and is anchored by a grouping of large-scale, multipaneled beaded paintings, including the monumental Wopila | Lineage (2022). These works, laboriously produced with the artist’s team of studio beadworkers, emphatically frame Indigenous aesthetics and making in the space of contemporary art. The paintings invite audiences to linger and to appreciate their beauty and complexity, while accompanying interpretive materials encourage visitors to uncover complicated layers of meaning and history embedded within the works. These paintings are complemented in the exhibition by RELATIVE (2023), a room-scaled environment that includes video and sound, with video assembly and editing by Leya Hale (Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota/Diné) and sound composition by Talon Bazille Ducheneaux (Crow Creek Dakota/Cheyenne River Lakota). The installation visually echoes the geometries of White Hawk’s beaded paintings and includes mirrored surfaces that bring the viewer into the work, creating a powerful sense of connection. White Hawk’s ongoing processes of translating and transforming Lakota iconography and materials finds new context and form with her newest sculptural works. The columnar sculpture Visiting (2024) stands 10 feet tall and is wrapped in patchworks of intricately beaded strips. Another large-scale work Infinite We (2025), in the form of a three-dimensional kapémni (2025), is sheathed in patterned enamel on copper. On view for the first time in this exhibition, the piece provides visitors with an immersive experience with this important Očeti Šakowiŋ (Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota) cosmological symbol expressed visually with two triangles, joined at the tips to form a twisting, hourglass-like shape. The kapémni signifies the values of relatedness, and balance between the worlds of the cosmos and the earth, and the need for harmony between human beings and the natural world. Additionally, working with glass fabricator Franz Mayer of Munich, White Hawk has created a new series of glass mosaics that will debut in Love Language that build on motifs established in her paintings. “Vibrant, dynamic, and rich with meaning, White Hawk’s work is generous, welcoming, and celebratory. Guided by Lakota values, her practice is thriving and maturing as she pushes into new conceptual and formal realms, conjuring moments of joy and awe as well as a deep thinking about the construction of history,” said Engberg and Hogue. “The exhibition and its catalogue invite audiences to experience anew the depth and intricacy of White Hawk’s practice. It is an exciting and fresh opportunity to connect with an extraordinary range of works and to engage in dialogue on the many ideas and histories they conjure.” The exhibition design and interpretation for Love Language is being developed to ensure a sense of belonging for the Indigenous community and for all of the Walker’s and Remai Modern’s many visitors. The gallery environment includes ample seating featuring the artist’s dynamic blanket and cushion designs made with Faribault Woolen Mills and Ginew. The installation also includes a range of interpretive audio recordings and videos exploring the artist’s working process and featuring Indigenous voices. In-gallery touch stations, developed in collaboration with the artist’s studio team, also allow visitors to explore materials such as quills, beads, and buckskin used in White Hawk’s works. More details regarding public programming will be announced closer to the exhibition opening.
RELATED EVENTS Community and Circle Member Opening Reception: Dyani White Hawk: Love Language This special event is free, but reservations are required, and capacity is limited. The reception will be followed by an After Hours party. After Hours: Dyani White Hawk Opening-Day Panel: Dyani White Hawk: Love Language This event requires a free ticket. Registration is available online or at the Main Lobby desk beginning at noon. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Evening for Educators: Dyani White Hawk: Love Language Evening for Educators is free and open to K–12 teachers across disciplines. Doors open at 5 pm and the presentation will begin at 6 pm. Educators may bring one additional guest, and parking validation will be provided. RSVP by October 20. For more information, email lakayla.williams@walkerart.org. Scholar’s Night: Indigenous Academia Sun, Oct 23, 2025 | 5 -8 pm Walker Art Center Free Post-secondary students, professors, and faculty alike are invited to the Walker’s second annual Scholar’s Night. This year’s program will celebrate the field of Indigenous Studies with an evening of activities across campus. Stop by for curated film screenings, drop-in zine-making, a professor-led conversation, free coffee and tea, and more! Free First Saturday: See, Honor, Nurture, and Celebrate One on One: Indigenous Artists on Dyani White Hawk: Love Language Art Club with Noah Polk Free Digital Guide on Bloomberg Connects
Guided Tours
ABOUT DYANI WHITE HAWK In addition to her participation in a breadth of solo and group exhibitions, her work is in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker Art Center, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Baltimore Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, National Gallery of Canada, Denver Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Tweed Museum of Art, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, and Aktá Lakota Museum, among other public and private collections. White Hawk earned an MFA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (2011) and BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico (2008).
EXHIBITION TOUR
PUBLICATION Commissioned texts for the volume include essays by heather ahtone (Chickasaw Nation), PhD, Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, First Americans Museum; mary v. bordeaux (Sicangu Oglala Lakota), EdD, Assistant Professor in American Indian Studies at Black Hills State University; co-owner and creative director of Racing Magpie, Rapid City, South Dakota; Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota), poet, author, and activist; and Joyce Tsai, PhD, Executive Director, Clyfford Still Museum, Denver. The catalogue also includes an overview essay by exhibition co-curators Tarah Hogue (Métis) of Remai Modern and Siri Engberg of the Walker Art Center; and a roundtable conversation, moderated by Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation), Executive Director and Chief Curator, Forge Project, between White Hawk and artists Christi Belcourt (Métis, b. 1966) and Marie Watt (Seneca Nation, b. 1967). The publication is coordinated by the Walker’s in-house publications and editorial team and designed by Kathleen Sleboda (Nlaka’pamux and a member of the Coldwater Indian Band), cofounder and Design Director of Draw Down Books and cofounder of Text Field Office. The catalogue will be available through the shops at Walker Art Center and Remai Modern and distributed by Distributed Art Publishers (D.A.P.).
ABOUT THE WALKER ART CENTER
Acknowledgments Dyani White Hawk: Love Language is co-organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and Remai Modern, Saskatoon. Lead support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support is provided by Akio Tagawa. The exhibition catalogue is supported by Girlfriend Fund. The Walker Art Center’s presentation is made possible by Lead sponsor thrivent Major support is provided by Martha and Bruce Atwater and the Whaley Foundation. Supporting sponsor Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Additional support is provided by Lewis Baskerville, Mary C. Dolan – The Longview Foundation, and the Martin and Brown Foundation. Media partner Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.
Thrivent Sponsor Statement Thrivent believes money is a tool, not a goal. We are a financial services company that puts generosity at the heart of saving and investing. We help build, grow and protect financial well-being through purpose-driven advice, investments, insurance, banking and generosity programs. In 2024, alongside our clients, we helped provide nearly 15 million hours of volunteering and $331 million in funds raised and donated nationwide. Thrivent also recognizes the powerful connection between art and culture. We believe inspiring generosity helps humanity thrive and empowers lives of service and faith. We are proud to support Dyani White Hawk: Love Language, as this exhibition marks the artist’s innovative achievements to date across a multimedia practice nurturing creation and imbued with meaning uplifting the importance of family, community and honoring generations of Native artists and culture. Thrivent’s own art collection – established in 1982 – serves as a cultural and educational resource for the community and is a vibrant expression of our history and humanity. Thrivent’s collection represents our commitment to supporting the arts, culture and our communities. Artworks in the Thrivent Art Collection span nine centuries, telling an expansive story through the work of artists across the world. The Thrivent Art Gallery offers public access and educational, scholarly programming, setting the collection apart globally among corporate collections. Across the country, thousands of Thrivent financial advisors serve individuals and families planning for the future, establishing legacies for loved ones and making their communities better. We believe art and culture are critical to those communities. |