The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
January 16 - May 8, 2022
Over a career spanning thirty years, painter Duane Slick has consistently pursued a vision to integrate secular Modernist abstraction with the beliefs and traditions of his Native American heritage. Duane Slick: The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition, bringing together over 90 paintings, prints, photographs, and video, all made within the last five years. The selected works include the artist’s ongoing series that reference the coyote as a seminal figure in indigenous culture, as well as paintings that reflect both the landscape of Slick’s upbringing in Iowa and the symbology and beliefs of his heritage as a citizen of both the Meskwaki (Fox of Iowa) and Ho-Chunk (Nebraska) Nations.
- Richard Klein, Exhibitions Director
Installation view, The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Installation view, The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Installation view, The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Installation view, The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Installation view, The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Installation view, The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Installation view, The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Installation view, The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Installation view, The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Discordant Wind, 2016
Acrylic on linen
14.5 x 11 in
There Are No Endings, 2018
Acrylic on linen
18 x 60 in
The Warehouse of Human Knowledge I, 2021
Acrylic on linen
42 x 60 in
An Actuarial Space, 2021
Acrylic on linen
54 x 68 in
A Divided Garden, 2017
Acrylic on linen
50 x 38 in
Silver Prism, 2019
Acrylic on linen
20 x 20 in
Predecessors, 2019
Acrylic on linen
50 x 40 in
An Actuaries Collection, 2019
Acrylic on linen
55 x 45 in
Silver Sky, 2020
Acrylic on linen
45 x 36 in
Midnight in the Metaphysical Economy, 2021
Acrylic on linen
71.5 x 54 in
The Night Belongs to the Night, 2021
Acrylic on linen
72 x 54.5 in
A Certain Cadence of Night, 2022
Acrylic on linen
39 x 27.5 in
Interpreting the Night, 2021
Acrylic on linen
42 x 60 in
A Dream of the First Light, 2018
Acrylic on linen
36 x 24 in
The Light Apart, 2018
Acrylic on linen
36 x 24 in
An Actuarial Space II, 2022
Acrylic on linen
42 x 60 in
The Light in the Red Body, 2021
Acrylic on linen
36 x 24 in
Empathy in Green, 2021
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Dissonance for Andy Warhol, 2016
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Gracious Humor, 2021
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
An Utterance and Its Echo, 2021
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better II, 2021
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
A Known Disbelief, 2021
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Cloaked Coyote, 2021
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Sorrowful Eyes, 2021
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Teal Speaking Voice, 2015
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Clarifying Question, 2017
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Locating the Third Eye, 2020
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Your Doppleganger, 2016
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Slate Grey Coyotes series, 2018
Beg to Differ, 2018
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Epic Profile, 2018
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
The Bluff, 2018
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Disagreeable Coyote, 2016
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Technicolor Coyote, 2016
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Technicolor Coyote III, 2016
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Technicolor Coyote II, 2016
Acrylic on panel
14 x 11 in
Installation view, The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
The Sum of All Knowledge and its companion piece were shown in the 2022 exhibition The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.
The earlier work, The Sum of All Knowledge, was realized in 2016 as part of a collaborative exhibition titled Finding Metacom (pictured below). The three digital photos are part of a documentation of all the books on Native American culture from the library at the University of Northern Iowa in 2012.
The companion piece The Sum of My Knowledge is a mounted actual scale photograph from the artist’s personal collection of books on Native American culture.
The Sum of All Knowledge, 2012
Three digital prints
42 x 12 in each
The Sum of My Knowledge, 2021
Digital print on vinyl adhered to painted plywood
80 x 35 in
The Sum of All Knowledge, 2012 (left) and The Sum of My Knowledge, 2021 (right)
The Sum of All Knowledge (detail), 2012
The Sum of All Knowledge (detail), 2012
The Sum of All Knowledge (detail), 2012
Installation view, Finding Metacom: Duane Slick and Martin Smick in Dialogue with the Native American Art Collection at the Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA, 2016
Installation view, Finding Metacom: Duane Slick and Martin Smick in Dialogue with the Native American Art Collection at the Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA, 2016