Review Jaune Quick-to-See Smith at Fruitmarket | Berlin Art Link

"Jaune Quick-to-See Smith's groundbreaking career as an artist, activist, curator and educator unfolded over more than four decades, driven by restless imagination and a pursuit of justice. She was still making new work in the months before her passing in January 2025, preparing for a solo exhibition now on view at the Fruitmarket in Edinburgh. Titled 'Wilding,' the show has become her first posthumous presentation, offering a cross-section of her practice-from works made in the 1980s to those she continued to develop until illness brought her labor to a halt."

"Many of Smith's works harness the power of language. In 'Indian Lands: Indian, Indio, Indigenous II' (1992), sardonic phrases such as "It takes hard work to keep racism alive" and "Money is green: it takes precedence over nature" are scrawled on a large-scale canvas layered with collaged elements-including a cut-out from the Flathead Reservation's 'Char-Koosta News' and fragments of a US map. In 'I See Red: Going Forward, Looking Back' (1996), clippings from various indigenous nations' newspapers reporting on community life strain for visibility beneath washes of paint. The artist's rage at Native erasure and refusal to let historical injustice fade into the background is spelled out in the work's title."

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith sustained a more-than-four-decade practice as an artist, activist, curator and educator, producing work until shortly before her January 2025 passing. A member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation, she centered Native Americans' histories, land sovereignty, racism and cultural preservation. Her work repeatedly returned to land and the environment, framed by Indigenous knowledge and reparative visions. Language and collage feature prominently, with scrawled phrases, newspaper clippings and maps that expose racism, economic priorities and erasure. The Fruitmarket exhibition 'Wilding' presents a cross-section of work from the 1980s to her final pieces.

Read at Berlin Art Link