Frieze Viewing Room 2021

Donald Ellis Gallery is pleased to announce its participation in Frieze Viewing Room 2021, live May 5-14, 2022.

How does a Lakota artist read Lakota Ledger Drawings that are 120 years old and how can these drawings inform contemporary life?

Fast Ponies and War Bonnets: A Lakota Look at Ledger Art is a curated exhibition of 19th century Lakota Ledger Art by critically acclaimed artist, filmmaker and photographer Dana Claxton. Ledger Drawings represent first person narratives of war, love and the everyday at a time when Indigenous sovereignty was increasingly challenged by American imperialist expansion. The exhibition explores how a contemporary Hunkpapa Lakota artist relates to an Indigenous telling of their current reality as rendered with their own hands on sheets of ledger paper acquired from Euro-Americans. Existing between art, documentation, cultural aesthetics and storytelling, Ledger Drawings ’provide the line and the vision of the line to carry historical narratives and cultural aesthetics into the present.’

To read Ms Claxton’s full curatorial inquiry and view the complete exhibition please visit Fast Ponies and War Bonnets: A Lakota Look at Ledger Art.

Donald Ellis Gallery will donate 10% of all sales made during this exhibition to Cairns, The Center of American Indian Research and Native Studies, as chosen by Ms. Claxton.

Ms. Claxton and Donald Ellis will host a virtual walk-through and panel discussion of the exhibition on May 7, 2021, at 2pm EST.