June 28, 2019

Heard Museum Presents Contemporary Artist Raven Chacon

Raven Chacon, Still Life, #3, 2015 (detail). Sound and light installation with text. Voice and translation by Melvatha Chee. Collection of the artist. PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN KUCZALA

The Heard Museum presents Still Life No. 3: Raven Chacon, a solo exhibition of the renowned contemporary artist. The exhibition opens July 5 and will run through Nov. 3, 2019.

Still Life No. 3, curated by Erin Joyce, Heard Museum fine arts curator, tells the story of Diné Bahane’, a Navajo story of creation and emergence into the current world. The exhibition comprises sound, speakers, text and timed lights, that scroll through several hues over an eight-hour cycle – relating not only to the colors of light throughout the day, but also to worlds of emergence.

Using programmed audio and delay systems, the voice of Melvatha Chee (Diné) is amplified through the speakers, causing parts of the story to overlap, telling the story in a non-linear form to illuminate the past, present and future, all in one singular moment. This in turn situates the piece within a framework of a continuum of culture.

“As part of the museum’s increased commitment to showing the work of contemporary artists, Raven’s work is a natural fit” says Joyce. “His work is thought-provoking, complex and disrupts preconceived notions of what contemporary Indigenous art from North America looks like and engages with conceptually.”

Chacon (Diné) was born in Fort Defiance on the Navajo Nation and raised in Albuquerque, N.M. As a solo artist, collaborator or former member of Postcommodity, Chacon has exhibited or performed at Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, REDCAT, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Chaco Canyon, Ende Tymes Festival, 18th Biennale of Sydney and The Kennedy Center. Chacon has received several awards including the United States Artists fellowship in music, The Creative Capital award in Visual Arts, The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation artist fellowship and the American Academy’s Berlin Prize for Music Composition. Chacon is currently based in both Albuquerque and Toronto.

To celebrate the opening of the exhibition, the Heard Museum will host a First Friday event on July 5 with a special live performance by Tohono O’odham Nation band, The Guardians, with free general admission to the museums’ galleries from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Still Life No. 3: Raven Chacon

July 5 – Nov. 3

Heard Museum, 2301 N. Central Ave., Phoenix

For more information, visit heard.org.