A Landmark Survey of Native Graphic Arts Defies Expectations

Through next February, New York’s Poster House is home to “Designed to Be Red,” a milestone survey of Native graphic arts. By institutional convention, such a show would unfold chronologically; but as its curator, the Native designer Brian Johnson, notes, time is a snake swallowing its own tail.The show spans two centuries and more than 60 tribes and nations, organized around five themes: Indigenous Joy, Creative Sovereignty, Protest, It’s Complicated, and Extractive Mark