Fast Ponies: Past and Present Receives Praise

Will Heinrich and Siddhartha Mitter of The New York Times have selected Donald Ellis Gallery’s exhibition Fast Ponies: Past and Present as one of the best presentations at The Armory Show 2022. Among a ‘gargantuan amount of contemporary art,’ the author writes, ‘we were drawn to work that seemed to move against the currents.’

Fast Ponies: Past and Present places late 19th and early 20th century Ledger Drawings in dialogue with three contemporary photographs by Lakota artist and filmmaker Dana Claxton (b. 1959). ‘Showing Claxton’s fellow artist Iikaakskitowa against a green-screen-like background with a lasso, bow and arrow, serape, or lowrider bicycle,’ Heinrich observes, ‘the pieces speak to the mutability of identity and to the complicated ethics and optics of performing one’s identity for an audience.’