Eric-Paul Riege at Henry Art Gallery

The connections between materiality, animacy, and authenticity in ojo|-|ólǫ́ at the Henry Art Gallery, Eric-Paul Riege’s most extensive solo exhibition to date, are reflected on in Rachel Gallaher’s review for Seattle magazine. 

Gallaher notes her pleasant surprise when learning that Riege and curators Nina Bozicnik and Thea Quiray Tagle welcome touching the artwork as a way to welcome mutual exchange, believing that such interactions transform both artwork and audience. This is framed as an extension of how Riege honors his “inherent collaborators” – the unseen beings and processes that allow his artwork to exist. 

These relationships are further unpacked as Gallaher quotes Riege’s belief in the aliveness or animacy of his artworks: “My work is really modular,” he says. “A lot of parts are new, but then other parts [were] made 10 years ago and they are sewn directly onto each other. Things get changed and moved all the time in my work … That’s something that I want to celebrate with objects that I consider living, is to have that accumulation of marks and tattoos and stitches and mending, because it has a lived history, both with me and separate from me and with [the viewer].” 

For the exhibition, Riege engaged with the Navajo collections housed at Brown’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology and the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Gallager highlights the material and historical research embedded in ojo|-|ólǫ́ that draws attention to themes of material authenticity and value. Riege’s artwork plays with and combines materials considered “real” and “fake,” turning the importance to “the person and intention behind it, as well as the preceding stories, traditions, and artists that created its path forward.”

ojo|-|ólǫ́ initially opened at the Bell Gallery at Brown University, before traveling to the Henry Art Gallery, where it is on view through October 25, 2026.