Wendy Red Star: Bíilukaa

Wendy Red Star made her first big move off the Crow reservation to attend Montana State University in Bozeman. During one of her study sessions she discovered an image of Medicine Crow, an Apsáalooke chief, in a random book in the university library. Enamored by his image, she made a xerox copy and kept the chief’s image in her sketchbook. A decade later, in 2014, she revisited this image to create an exhibition at the Portland Art Museum titled Medicine Crow & the 1880 Crow Peace Delegation.

Bíilukaa builds upon this theme of researching historical photographs of Apsáalooke individuals and material culture, with the artist drawing on both her personal collection and works held in museums and archives across the country. Red Star notes, “Since the time I left the Crow reservation I have encountered my tribe’s material cultural in every city I have exhibited or occupied. It is incredible that so much of my community’s history and material culture is kept in the vaults of these institutions hundreds of miles away from their source.” The text features interviews with the artist and members of her extended family and scholars, alongside new works of primarily collaged photography.

Red Star has chosen the title Bíilukaa in reference to what the Apsáalooke call themselves: Our Side. Bíilukaa is the book Red Star wishes she could have read when setting out as a young artist, a book that educates the public about collections and archives, while also honoring her family and community.

Wendy Red Star (b. 1981, Montana) is an multi-media artist and photographer. Red Star has exhibited in the United States and abroad at venues including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Domaine de Kerguéhennec, Portland Art Museum, Hood Art Museum, St. Louis Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Frost Art Museum, among others. 

Her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Williams College Museum of Art, the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, and the British Museum, among others.

She served a visiting lecturer at institutions including Yale University, the Figge Art Museum , the Banff Centre, National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Dartmouth College, CalArts, Flagler College, and I.D.E.A. Space in Colorado Springs. In 2017, Red Star was awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and in 2018 she received a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship.

Red Star holds a BFA from Montana State University, Bozeman, and an MFA in sculpture from University of California, Los Angeles.  She is represented by Sargent's Daughters in New York City and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles. She lives and works in Portland, OR.