Virgil Ortiz
March 1, 2025 - August 31, 2025
Entrance, Shuford & Coe Galleries
Meet the Artist: Virgil Ortiz
Saturday, June 7 | 4 PM
About the Artist
One of the most revolutionary potters of his time, Virgil Ortiz’s works have been exhibited in museum collections worldwide, including the Design Museum Den Bosch, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Triennale Milano, Smithsonian Institution, Denver Art Museum, Lowe Art Museum in Miami, and the Autry Museum in Los Angeles. His latest exhibition, I AM: Indigenous Ancestral Memory at Hickory Museum of Art, is a testament to his global influence and visionary artistry.
Ortiz, the youngest of six children, grew up in a creative environment in which storytelling, collecting clay, gathering wild plants, and producing figurative pottery was part of everyday life. His grandmother Laurencita Herrera and his mother, Seferina Ortiz, were both renowned Pueblo potters and part of an ongoing matrilineal heritage. “I didn’t even know it was art that was being produced while I was growing up,” he remembers. Ortiz keeps Cochiti pottery traditions alive but transforms them into a contemporary vision that embraces his Pueblo history and culture and merges it with apocalyptic themes, science fiction, and his own storytelling.
Ortiz describes Tahu:
Tahu is purposely blinded by the oppressors for her combat prowess. She recruits a ‘spirit army’ and relentlessly battles the enemy [the colonial oppressors]. Tahu is a Pueblo superhero. Her example leads young people to seek the truth and defeat their fear. Tahu is inspired by and honors Pueblo women, including my late mother. Women keep the stories of our people, our traditions, and ceremonies alive. Our mothers teach us to face adversity with a positive outlook. We have endured because we face our fears, both real and imagined.
About the Exhibition
Cochiti Pueblo artist Virgil Ortiz continues his REVOLT 1680/2180 saga at Hickory Museum of Art with a brand new chapter. The artist draws inspiration from the most successful Indigenous uprising against a colonizing power in North American History, the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. Ortiz keeps Cochiti pottery traditions alive but transforms them into a contemporary vision that embraces his Pueblo history and culture and merges it with apocalyptic themes, science fiction, and his own storytelling.
Virgil Ortiz brings his narrative to life at HMA through immersive projection and sound, augmented reality, traditional Cochiti pottery, monumental contemporary pottery, and surprises being debuted at our Museum. This exhibition encourages repeat visitation as you engage with the story and meet the rebellion’s protagonists.
Ortiz has developed 19 groups of characters that represent the 19 Pueblos that still remain. HMA’s storyline highlights Tahu, leader of the Blind Archers. The beautiful, evocative Tahu reflects the strength, power, and resilience of the Pueblo women.
PBS SoCal | Future Imaginaries: Indigenous Art, Fashion, Technology | Fusing Art & Science
New Mexico PBS ¡COLORES!: Cochiti Sculptor Virgil Ortiz
New Mexico PBS ¡COLORES!: Virgil Ortiz, Time Portals
New Mexico PBS ¡COLORES!: Virgil Ortiz at Meow Wolf
Catawba Nation
March 1, 2025 - August 31, 2025
Third Floor Mezzanine Gallery
Eric Canty, Vase, Hickory Museum of Art Collection, Museum purchase, 2016.
Exhibition Features:
• Catawba River that “flows” through the gallery
• 13 larger-than-life portraits of Catawba Nation members by photographer Randy Bacon, accompanied by their first-person stories
• Catawba pottery by Nation members continuing the tradition
• HMA Collection Spotlight on Eric Canty
Photograph of Grace Richey. © Randy Bacon
The Catawba have lived on their ancestral lands along the banks of the Catawba River dating back at least 6,000 years. Before contact with the Europeans it is believed that the Nation inhabited most of the Piedmont area of South Carolina, North Carolina and parts of Virginia. Early counts of the Catawba people made by Spanish explorers estimated the population of the tribe at the time as between 15,000-25,000. After settlers arrived in the area, two rounds of smallpox decimated the tribe’s numbers, and by 1849 the once large group was down to under 100 citizens. Now there are currently over 3,300 enrolled members of the Nation. The Catawba have a long history and a rich culture that lives on today.
An unbroken chain of pottery production has helped preserve a cultural identity that was nearly lost after European settlement. Traditionally, women made pottery; but when the population declined so severely, everybody had to make pottery. This activity helped maintain community traditions and is now one of the purest folk art forms in this country.
Utilizing clay dug near the Catawba River, the Catawbas’ methods of production are nearly unchanged since the Woodland (1000 B.C.E.–600 C.E.) and Mississippian (600–1600 C.E.) periods. It is the oldest continuously practiced traditional art form found east of the Mississippi River. This unbroken tradition helped preserve the cultural identity of the Catawba and restore their Federal status that was taken during the Termination Act.
Catawba pottery is handbuilt using traditional coiling techniques. Handles and legs are attached by riveting, pushing the attachment through a hole pierced in the pot. This technique creates features that will not break-off easily. Once pots are air dried, the surface is scraped even with a piece of bone, antler, or a knife and then burnished to a shine with a smooth river stone (or other favorite object). Decoration, if desired, is then incised into the surface. Firing is often in two stages. A fire is built in a pit and the pots placed near it to heat. Then the warmed pots are placed in the pit to complete the process. Smoke from the burning wood creates distinctive patterns on the surfaces of the pots. Glazes are not used.
Exhibition Sponsors:
Dixon Endowment Fund for Innovation in Lifelong Learning
Annual Sponsor:
I AM: Michael Gates
March 1, 2025 - August 31, 2025
Objects Gallery
Michael Gates comes from a long line of Catawba Valley potters. His great-grandfather was Enoch Reinhardt who was part of the pottery shop Reinhardt Bros. of Vale, North Carolina. This exhibition features Michael’s contemporary spin on Catawba Valley pottery along with a few historic family artifacts and pots, including the swirlware for which they are known.
CATAWBA VALLEY POTTERY
March 1, 2025 - August 31, 2025
Objects Gallery
This exhibition features historic Catawba Valley Pottery on loan from the Hart Square Foundation, along with Catawba Valley Pottery selections from HMA’s collection. Artists include Isaac Lefevers, David Hartzog, Thomas Ritchie, Harvey Johnson, Marcus A. Holly, Henry Pottery, Burlon Craig, Joe Reinhardt, Albert Hodge, Steven Abee, and Charles Lisk.
HMA Collection Spotlights highlight work by two additional Catawba Valley potters in the Museum’s collection, Tammy Leigh Brooks and Kim Ellington.
Barry G. Huffman: CATAWBA JOURNEY
March 1, 2025 - August 31, 2025
3rd Floor Gallery
A series of paintings by Barry G. Huffman that were used to illustrate the book “Catawba Journey” with text by Linda Baker Huffman.
Annual Sponsor:
Barry G. Huffman, Catawba Journey
Charles White: A LITTLE HIGHER
March 18, 2023 - July 30, 2023
Coe Gallery
Best remembered for meticulously rendered paintings and drawings of his fellow African Americans, Charles White [1918–1979] committed himself to creating “images of dignity,” which elevated and ennobled his subjects without shying away from the realities of systemic racism and oppression. White’s work bears witness to his lived experience as a Black man who experienced racialized poverty, discrimination, denigration, and violence in America. It also reflects his deep admiration for Social Realists, American Regionalists, and the Mexican Muralists as well as his steadfast belief in a better tomorrow. This same spirit of gracious activism resonated in his devotion to teaching: White touched the lives of an entire generation of students at Otis College of Art and Design, including Kerry James Marshall and David Hammons.
White‘s body of work is marked by consummate skills of observation and powerful social critique tempered by a genuine love for humanity. This exhibition weaves together the complex threads of White’s compelling life and work, providing a thorough overview of his oeuvre, including the twelve paintings commissioned by the Johnson Publishing Company to illustrate Lerone Bennett, Jr.’s The Shaping of Black America (1975); a suite that has not been publicly exhibited in our region before.
My whole purpose in art is to make a positive statement about mankind, all mankind, an affirmation of humanity...This doesn’t mean that I am a man without angers—I’ve had my work in museums where I wasn’t allowed to see it—but what I pour into my work is the challenge of how beautiful life can be.
Charles White, 1964
Exhibition support provided by: City of Hickory; Sandra Pait Clay & George Clay III; Dixon Endowment Fund for Lifelong Learning; Spark the Arts; United Arts Council of Catawba County with funding from the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts; Linda & John Greenwell; Lynn & Leroy Lail; Kenneth K. Millholland & Suzanne G. Millholland Endowment Fund — a component fund of the North Carolina Community Foundation; Resource Partners, LLC; Carolina Anesthesia Associates, PA; and annual sponsors Shurtape Techologies and Alex Lee.
Works by Warhol
February 6, 2021 - June 6, 2021
Coe Gallery
“Works by Warhol” brings 36 iconic masterworks by one of America’s most prominent artists to Hickory Museum of Art. Featuring a broad cross-section of examples from Warhol’s storied career, the galleries will be activated by the appearance of pop culture staples such as “Mick Jagger,” “Santa Claus,” and “Mickey Mouse.” The show will also explore Warhol’s responses to major moments in U.S. history, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Neil Armstrong’s moon landing, and the perception of Native Americans in the aftermath of the bicentennial of the United States. The exhibition will include the entire series of “Myths”. This body of work was completed in 1981 and showcases Warhol’s lifetime fascination with Hollywood imagery. Afflicted as a youth by a sickness termed St. Vitus’ Dance, the artist spent countless hours absorbing television, movies, and graphic novels. “Myths” marks a return to his formative encounters with figures such as Howdy Doody, the Wicked Witch of the West, Superman, and more. However, the series can also be interpreted through the lenses of consumerism and gender stereotypes.
Exhibition artwork comes from the collection of Wesley and Missy Cochran. Exhibition organized by Wesley and Missy Cochran.
Exhibition support provided by: Imagine One Hospitality, LLC; Corning Incorporated Foundation; United Arts Council of Catawba County with funding from the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts; Kenneth K. Millholland and Suzanne G. Millholland Endowment Fund — a component fund of the North Carolina Community Foundation; David Millholland; Lynn and Leroy Lail; and annual sponsor Alex Lee.
Juan Logan: CREATING & COLLECTING
January 18, 2020 - May 19, 2020*
Coe Gallery
Working out of his studio in Belmont, North Carolina, artist Juan Logan continues to expand the reach of his art’s unyielding call for social responsibility. A retired University of North Carolina Professor, Logan’s installations, sculptures, prints, and paintings are included in the collections of Whitney Museum of American Art, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and many more. This exhibition is the first to present his own work in dialogue with selections from his personal art collection which features some of the most important artists from the 1970s to the present, including Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Elizabeth Catlett, Mark Bradford, and Robert Rauschenberg.
*HMA closed during this exhibition’s show run due to the Covid Pandemic.
Exhibition support provided by: Corning Foundation; United Arts Council of Catawba County with funding from the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts; The Unifour Foundation, Inc. Endowment a component fund of the North Carolina Community Foundation; City of Hickory Community Relations Council; and annual sponsor Alex Lee.