Kent Monkman: Death of Adonis
exhibition sponsors
Norma & Gary Buchanan
Bess Lovec
Yellowstone Law
related events
Slow Art Tour: Death of Adonis
Thursday, January 22 // 10:30 AM
Kent Monkman Write-Alongs with Anne Holub
Thursdays, January 29; February 12 & 26; March 12 & 26; April 9 & 23, 2026 // 3:30 – 4:30 PM
Presentation by Sean Chandler: The Buffalo Treaty and the Return of the Buffalo
Thursday, April 9, 2026 // Reception at 5 PM; Talk at 5:30 PM
THE
ONE ARTWORK
GALLERY
Mildred Sandall Scott Gallery 3
January 9 – May 15, 2026
In this intimate installation, visitors are invited to slow down and spend time with a single monumental work by Cree artist Kent Monkman. Death of Adonis reimagines and challenges Albert Bierstadt’s 1888 painting The Last of the Buffalo, exposing the colonial narratives woven into nineteenth-century representations of the North American landscape.
Bierstadt’s original painting, often read as a lament for a “vanishing” wilderness and its Indigenous inhabitants, conceals the true causes of the buffalo’s near-extinction and the displacement of Indigenous nations—settler expansion and resource exploitation. By linking the dying buffalo to the supposed fate of Indigenous peoples, Bierstadt reinforced the myth of a “vanishing race.”
Designed as a space for contemplation and further exploration, this one-work gallery invites visitors to take a seat and spend time with a work that turns the tables on the settler gaze, reclaiming the visual language and viewpoint of centuries of colonial representation.
Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges.
Kent Monkman (b. 1965), Death of Adonis, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 120 in. Art Bridges. Photo: Steve Pancessio
