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Cannupa Hanska Luger’s exhibition “American Traditional” is on view at Garth Greenan Gallery in New York. The works combine wood, ink and archival imagery to confront the mass killing of bison and its connection to the displacement and trauma of Plains Indigenous peoples.
Cannupa Hanska Luger’s exhibition “American Traditional” at Garth Greenan Gallery in New York uses sculptural forms and archival references to examine the destruction of North American bison and its relationship to the dispossession of Plains Indigenous peoples. A Hyperallergic review describes the 2026 works as a more declarative synthesis of wood, ink and historical material than the artist’s better-known participatory, ceramics-based projects.
The review centers on works that place abstracted bison forms against altered furniture and other materials associated with American life. In “Requiem” (2026), Luger sets a black, abstracted bison atop a blackened rendering of a 19th-century American dining table. The arrangement brings together an animal whose lives were bound to Plains communities and a domestic object associated with settler society.
Luger was born on the Standing Rock Reservation and is an enrolled citizen of the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, according to the review. Its author reads the exhibition’s materials and imagery as carrying the history of bison destruction within their visual forms, rather than treating the animals’ disappearance as a distant historical episode.
The review also identifies “Shoots Today, Kills Tomorrow” (2026) as part of the exhibition. It does not provide a full inventory of the works or detailed production information. Its account frames the show around the relationship between the industrial-scale killing of bison and the profound effects on Native nations whose food, clothing, shelter and cultural relationships depended on them.
Bison Loss and Plains Communities
The exhibition addresses a history in which the destruction of bison was tied not only to ecological change but also to the weakening of Indigenous communities. The review cites Cree scholar Tasha Hubbard, who describes bison as kin to Plains nations and characterizes the campaign against them as genocide carried out by proxy. That is Hubbard’s scholarly interpretation, as presented in the review, rather than a finding made by the gallery.
One reason the works matter is that they place this history inside familiar forms. A dining table can suggest domestic life, while the darkened table and bison in “Requiem” bring that setting into contact with a record of violence. The exhibition asks viewers to consider how the country’s material and visual traditions can coexist with histories of mass killing and dispossession.
The review’s account also points to questions of how museums display troubling historical images. Its author recalls a 1892 photograph of men beside a mound of buffalo skulls, shown at the Baltimore Museum of Art with a small curtain designed by Yurok artist Stormi Turner. That earlier intervention provides a point of comparison for Luger’s approach: both bring attention to the care and framing required when images document destruction.
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The Historical Record Behind the Works
North American bison once existed in vast numbers. The review draws on Mari Sandoz’s The Buffalo Hunters: The Story of the Hide Men, first published in 1954, for an account of their abundance and the later arrival of European settlers, horses, guns and railroads. Those technologies helped turn hunting into an industrial-scale activity across the Great Plains.
The effects extended beyond the loss of an animal population. Sandoz described bison as central to Plains people’s subsistence, providing shelter, clothing, food and fuel. The review supplements that account with Hubbard’s emphasis on kinship and trauma, situating bison destruction within a broader history of harm to Indigenous nations.
It also cites statements by military figures that make the political purpose of the slaughter explicit. Colonel Richard Irving Dodge reportedly advised hunters that “every buffalo dead is an Indian gone.” In 1875, according to the review’s account of historian John R. Cook, General Philip H. Sheridan opposed a Texas proposal to protect bison and urged that hunters be supplied with ammunition. These historical statements are quoted in the review; they are not remarks made about the exhibition.
“The visual history of destruction is embedded into each element.”
— Hyperallergic reviewer
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Exhibition Details Still Unreported
The source identifies the gallery, exhibition title and several works, but does not state the show’s opening and closing dates, its full checklist, or whether additional public programs are planned. It also offers an art review rather than a gallery announcement, so its judgments about the work’s achievement and meaning should be understood as the reviewer’s assessment.
The review describes the historical and Indigenous perspectives that inform its reading, but it does not provide a statement from Luger explaining his intentions for each piece. The available account therefore cannot establish how the artist would characterize every object or interpretive choice. The historical quotations are also presented through the review’s cited sources, not independently documented in the source material supplied here.
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Gallery Dates and Further Response
Readers seeking to visit the exhibition will need to check Garth Greenan Gallery for current dates, hours and any related events; those details are not included in the source report. The review supplies no announced future exhibition schedule or additional milestones.
Further reporting could establish the complete list of works, whether Luger has issued a separate statement about the show, and how visitors and Indigenous communities respond to its presentation of bison history. Until then, the confirmed development is the exhibition itself and the approach described in the published review.
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Key Questions
What is “American Traditional”?
It is a 2026 exhibition of work by Cannupa Hanska Luger at Garth Greenan Gallery in New York. The review describes works combining wood, ink and archival references.
What subjects does the exhibition address?
The works address the mass killing of bison and its relationship to the history and trauma of Plains Indigenous peoples, as interpreted in the Hyperallergic review.
Which artworks are named in the report?
The report names “Requiem” (2026) and “Shoots Today, Kills Tomorrow” (2026). It does not provide a complete exhibition checklist.
When can visitors see the exhibition?
The source does not give the exhibition’s opening or closing dates. Visitors should check Garth Greenan Gallery for current scheduling information.
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