Two videos from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., this past fall highlighted the work of John Hitchcock, a contemporary artist and musician, and a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the School of Education’s Art Department.
An installation by Hitchcock was part of the National Gallery’s exhibition, “The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans,” which showcased works by an intergenerational group of nearly 50 living Native artists from across the United States. The four-month exhibition ran through Jan. 15, 2024.
The artists featured use a variety of practices — including weaving, beadwork, sculpture, painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, performance, and video — to visualize Indigenous knowledge of the land.
One video shows a time-lapse of Hitchcock and the exhibition team transforming an empty gallery into “a wall of wonder” as they install Hitchcock’s work, “Impact vs. Influence.”
The National Gallery also published an interview to YouTube with Hitchcock about the installation, where he talks about his journey to becoming an artist. “When I was a little kid, my mother, she would let me run up and down the hallway with crayons,” Hitchcock says. “And I would have crayons on both sides, and just (run and draw) on the wall. And it was super exciting.”
The work of Tom Jones, a professor of photography in the Art Department, was also included in “The Land Carries Our Ancestors.”