Wičháȟpi Owihaŋke Waníča Kiŋ (Infinite Collapsing Star)

Bockley Gallery is honored to open the first solo gallery presentation in the United States by Kite (Oglála Lakȟóta). Wičháȟpi Owihaŋke Waníča Kiŋ (Infinite Collapsing Star) extends Kite’s generative relationship to Lakȟóta ontologies and methodologies with a focus on black holes. Within the artist’s wider care for cosmologyscapes – interactions between human-human and human-nonhuman, land and cosmos, and the spectrum of landhood and beinghood – black holes have multiple material manifestations in the exhibition, alongside and within the ancestral gifts and technologies of mirroring and dreaming. In a new series of deer hide wall works and a site-specific installation combining river rocks with glass beaded clusters, Lakȟóta geometric semiotics translate dream fragments, while doubling as graphic scores for sonic performance. The single-channel video Pȟehíŋ kiŋ líla akhíšoke. (Her hair was heavy.) highlights one of Kite’s earliest works in her decade-long practice of developing body interfaces and machine learning across sound, video, and performance. 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kite (Dr. Suzanne Kite) is an Oglála Lakȟóta performance artist, visual artist, and composer raised in Southern California, with a BFA from CalArts in music composition, and an MFA from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School, and a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Concordia University, Montreal. Kite’s scholarship and practice investigate contemporary Lakȟóta ontologies through research-creation, computational media, and performance, often working in collaboration with family and community members. Recently, Kite has been developing body interfaces for machine learning driven performance and sculptures generated by dreams, and experimental sound and video work. Recent exhibitions include Kite and Wíhaŋble S’a Center: Dreaming with AI, Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Sante Fe, NM (forthcoming March 2025); Cosmos Cinema, 14th Shanghai Biennale, China (2024); All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace, REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA (2024); The Land Wants You, film program Whitney Biennale (2024); Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969, CCS Bard Hessel Museum, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (2023); Who can think, what can think, Te Tuhi, Auckland, Aotearoa (2023). A selection of recent performances have been hosted by House of World Cultures (HKW) Berlin; Serpentine Gallery, London; Remai Modern, Saskatchewan, CA; Vera List Center and PS11, NY, and many more. Kite’s research is widely published including in The Journal of Design and Science (MIT Press), with the award winning article, “Making Kin with Machines,” co-authored with Jason Lewis, Noelani Arista, and Archer Pechawis (2018). Recent awards include the Creative Capital Award, Forge Fellowship, and USA Fellow Award (all 2023), and Creative Time Open Call artist with Alisha B. Wormsley (2022-2023). She is currently Director of Wihanble S’a Lab, Distinguished Artist in Residence, and Assistant Professor of American and Indigenous Studies at Bard College. She is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

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Wičháȟpi Owihaŋke Waníča Kiŋ (Infinite Collapsing Star) is curated by Erin Robideaux Gleeson with a new commission and performance presented in collaboration with FD13 residency for the arts.

Opening Reception
March 13, 2025
6:30–7:30 pm