Image: Speed Art Museum, Louisville
The Speed Art Museum has turned to Jeffrey Gibson’s 2018 work ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’ for its collection highlight ‘Where Glass Meets Gibson’, published on 8 September 2026. The feature traces a material link between the work and the museum’s Adele and Leonard Leight Collection: glass beads are integral to Gibson’s piece.
A shimmering field of beads, wool and tin jingles stretched over canvas, ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’ brings together glass beads, artificial sinew, wool, tin jingles and steel studs on canvas over a wood panel. The work draws on Gibson’s Choctaw and Cherokee heritage, pairing intricate beadwork associated with powwow regalia with a bold contemporary aesthetic.
Its title is taken from a Nina Simone song, a reference the museum connects to Gibson’s longstanding engagement with music and popular culture. The work’s beadwork is central to the museum’s focus on glass: the Leights were collectors of contemporary glass, and their gift significantly expanded the Speed’s holdings in the medium.
The collection feature arrives after a period of major visibility for Gibson. He became the first Indigenous artist to represent the United States with a solo exhibition in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale; in 2025, his monumental sculptures transformed The Met’s Fifth Avenue façade.
Gibson’s work is among more than 450 works from the Leight collection that came to the Speed through the family’s generosity, strengthening the museum’s holdings in glass, ceramics and 20th-century design.
