The safety of our visitors, staff, and artwork is our top priority at the MFA. Our team worked diligently ahead of Hurricane Idalia to ensure that all of the artwork within the MFA was safe, secure, and out of harm’s way. Out of an abundance of caution, the Tom Jones: Here We Stand exhibition was de-installed and will not be extended as we had hoped. Please take a look at our exciting upcoming exhibition, The Nature of Art, opening to the public on Saturday, October 21!

Featuring more than 100 works spanning 1998–2021, the exhibition is the first major retrospective of the Ho-Chunk photographer’s work. 

For over twenty years, Tom Jones has created a visual record and exploration of his Ho-Chunk community. The show comprises over a dozen series, ranging from the documentary to the conceptual. Jones’s photographs examine identity and geographic place with an emphasis on the experience of Native American communities. He is interested in how American Indian material culture is portrayed through commodification and popular culture. Much of his work counteracts and corrects decades of misinformation and misrepresentation of American Indians, particularly targeting the field of U.S. history. Jones’s critical assessment of the romanticized representation of Native peoples in photography re-examines historic pictures taken by white photographers. This reassessment questions the assumptions about identity within the American Indian culture by non-natives and natives alike.

The exhibition was co-curated by Dr. Jane L. Aspinwall, Senior Curator of Photography at the MFA, and Graeme Reid, Director of Exhibitions at the Museum of Wisconsin Art. A catalogue, including a major essay by Aspinwall accompanies the exhibition.

Read the full press release here.

Tom Jones: Here We Stand is organized by the Museum of Wisconsin Art.