John A. Cooper Visiting Artist Lecture Series: Jeffrey Gibson — Never Let Your Spirit Bend

Abstract

Jeffrey Gibson, an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and convenor, presents Never Let Your Spirit Bend, a lecture tracing the evolution of his artistic practice and ideas over the past two decades. Gibson will reflect on the power of materials and on how he distills complex ideas of belonging and collectivity through layered media and diverse reference points. The lecture examines his interwoven roles as artist and educator, highlighting major projects such as his façade installation for the Metropolitan Museum of Art alongside curatorial endeavors and educational initiatives, including MORE COLORS THAN THE EYE CAN SEE, an expansion of his 2024 US Pavilion exhibition that introduces new national resources for K–12 educators.

In advance of the lecture, AAP’s Molly Sheridan talked to Gibson about about the methods, materials, and motivations that ground his work. Read the conversation.

Biography

Jeffrey Gibson

Jeffrey Gibson (American, b. 1972) is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and convener celebrated for his work in painting, installation, video, and performance. For over two decades, he has examined how language, pattern, and music construct meaning, synthesizing Indigenous and Western traditions through vibrant color, complex patterning, and layered sound. A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, Gibson represented the US at the 2024 Venice Biennale with his acclaimed exhibition the space in which to place me, which made its US debut at The Broad in Los Angeles in May 2025. In June 2025, he unveiled a site-specific installation at Kunsthaus Zurich. Gibson was selected for the Metropolitan Museum’s 2025 Genesis Facade Commission, and his monumental bronze sculptures will be on view through June 2026. His work is held in major collections including MoMA, the Whitney, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery of Art. He lives in New York’s Hudson Valley and is artist-in-residence at Bard College.

The John A. Cooper Visiting Artist Lecture Series brings distinguished artists of particular renown to Cornell’s Ithaca campus to address art students and the art community through lectures, studio visits, seminars, and individual critiques with B.F.A. students. It is supported by generous gifts from John A. Cooper (B.F.A. ’97) and Heidi Cooper (’97).