Tom Jones and Dyani White Hawk Featured in Joslyn Art Museum’s Reopened Permanent Collection

The Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha has reopened after a 2-year closure with a new installation of its permanent collection that fully integrates Native American art into its American and contemporary art galleries.

Tom Jones and Dyani White Hawk feature in the reinstallation, which aims to counteract the white supremacist hierarchies that have structured mainstream American museums for over a century. “We wanted to tell one–albeit complex and multifaceted story–of American history, and explore 150 years of art and creativity across cultures, across traditions, but also be honest about the history of American Empire and it’s continuing effects on Indigenous peoples and on the environment,” said Chief Curator Taylor Acosta. “We knew very early on in this reinstallation process that intertwining those historically separated collections was critical.”

Tom Jones’ Daniel Prescott (2022) is part of his Strong Unrelenting Spirits series, in which portraits of Ho-Chunk relatives are caringly surrounded by floral beadwork designs stitched directly onto the mounted photographs. White Hawk’s Wopila | Lineage III (2024) is a newly commissioned work comprising nearly half a million glass bugle beads on aluminum panel. Both artworks are on view for the first time in the Joslyn’s contemporary art galleries.

Read more about the reinstallation and the new Joslyn Art Museum building at Forbes, The Art Newspaper, and Omaha Magazine.