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BigChief Demond Melancon

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Big Chief Demond Melancon invited to Biennale Arte 2026 by Koyo Kouoh | @marianeibrahimgallery

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When I Got The Message that Madame Koyo wanted To visit me I Knew She was the QUEEN!!!
I wanted to show her who I was in A way she would remember!
Siddhartha was with her when she came! We had a Wonderful time in my studio! Koyo told me To NEVER QUIT WORKING!!
She loved me and My Work as we stayed in touch through insta messages! She continued to make me know I Was a contemporary Artist! I will forever cherish our Friendship!! It’s Hard to Put into Words How I Feel!!! We Say CHAAAAWA!!!!
No HOOMBOW!!!
That’s what I Know she Feels also!! The Power of my Ancestors Guiding Me Through every Stitch!!!
Thank you so much Mother Koyo!!! FOREVER My Empress!!!
Thank you!! #biennalearte2026 #inminorkeys by @qadamawi

@oleandnustylefellas6
2023 🔥🔥🔥🔥 by @qadamawi

Blessed Rise Jah People... by @qadamawi

The first thing you meet at the Venice Biennale is impossible to miss: a Big Chief suit, ablaze in orange feathers.

Everyone photographs the front. So we asked a different question. What does it look like from behind? How do the beads catch the light? How does orange speak to green?

A suit like this is made to be danced, so every side is the artwork.

Big Chief Demond Melancon, Big Chief of the Young Seminole Hunters, New Orleans. Amistad Takeover (2026) and Jah Defender (2020), glass beads and rhinestones on canvas with velvet and feathers. Biennale Arte 2026.

Which detail pulled you in?

#VeniceBiennale #BiennaleArte2026 #BlackMaskingCulture #NewOrleans #TheReflectory by @qadamawi

At the Venice Biennale 2026, immersed in awe-strucking art, I gravitated towards certain artworks. This artwork by @qadamawi revealed so many details as i zoomed into it and spent time with it. The medium of using rhinestones also made me curious in how different materials can be used to create artworks. Art is after all, free expression. And the Biennale is a platform for the freely expressed.

@labiennale revealed a vast array of art/ideas. I use terms interchangeably because in the biennale, imaginative & deep & thoughtful ideas were expressed through art. Art and ideas merge. And that makes both ideas and art evolve. by @qadamawi

Working… #beadwork #bead #beaded #studio by @qadamawi

#BiennaleArte2026 | #InMinorKeys: Giardini
“Ogni tradizione prevede un fondamento solido, un’entità in cui una cultura è radicata saldamente; tuttavia, la cultura è al tempo stesso un’entità viva che cambia nel tempo. La questione del ‘posto giusto’ di una tradizione e della sua articolazione nel momento contemporaneo è al centro della pratica di Demond Melancon. Grande capo della tribù degli Young Seminole Hunter, l’artista svolge un ruolo centrale nella tradizione dei Black Masking Indians, sviluppatasi a New Orleans nel XVIII o XIX secolo. Le radici della cultura dei Black Masking Indians affondano nelle pratiche cerimoniali che gli africani costretti in schiavitù portarono nelle Americhe, probabilmente influenzate dall’incontro con gli indigeni nordamericani. Nella sua veste attuale, questa cultura prevede sfarzo rituale, cerimonie e celebrazioni pubbliche, un insieme che è espressione della resilienza della comunità.”

Visita la 61. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte a Venezia fino al 22 novembre!
Scopri di più e acquista il biglietto → www.labiennale.org - link in bio

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“Tradition implies a bedrock foundation, an entity in which a culture is implacably rooted; at the same time, culture is a living entity that changes over time. The question of the ‘proper place’ of tradition and its articulation into the contemporary moment lies at the heart of @qadamawi’s practice. Melancon is the Big Chief of the Young Seminole Hunter tribe, thereby playing a central role in the Black Masking tradition that developed in New Orleans in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. The roots of Black Masking Culture lie in ceremonial practices that enslaved Africans brought to the Americas, likely inflected by encounters with Indigenous North Americans. In its current incarnation, Black Masking Culture comprises ritual pageantry, ceremony and public celebration, the ensemble forming an expression of community resilience.”

Visit the 61st International Art Exhibition in Venice until November 22!
Find out more and buy your tickets → www.labiennale.org - link in bio

#LaBiennaleDiVenezia #BiennaleArte
📹 @c3tecnologie by @qadamawi

My day at the Venice Biennale, Part One: some favorite pieces from the main exhibition “In Minor Keys,” curated by the late Koyo Kouoh.
The artists are:
Facade intervention: Otobong Nkanga
1 & 2 Otobong Nkanga
3 & 4 Manuel Matthieu
5 Wangetchi Mutu
6 Amina Saoudi Aït Khay
7 & 8 Wardha Shabbir
9 & 10 Ebony G. Patterson
11 Alice Maher
12 Joy Episalla
13 & 14 Daniel Lind Ramos
15 & 16 Beverly Buchanan
17 Kambui Olujimi
18 & 19 Big Chief Demond Melancon by @qadamawi

“Making chawa,” as Demond Melancon (@qadamawi) describes it, means creating culture in a way that preserves, uplifts, and carries it forward for future generations.

In NACF's The Magazine Issue 2, Diné writer Ninabah Reid Winton examines the work of Demond Melancon and photographer + physician Chip Thomas (@jetsonorama), two artists whose practices are rooted in long-term relationship building, accountability, and service to community.

For Melancon, that means honoring the shared histories between Black and Indigenous peoples through beadwork and Black Masking traditions in New Orleans. For Thomas, it means 36 years of living and working alongside Navajo communities, creating public photo murals that reflect contemporary Diné life back to the people and places they belong to.

Rather than treating solidarity as symbolism or performance, both artists show what it means to build trust over decades through craft, care, and presence.

Read more in NACF Magazine Issue 2. Link in bio.
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Images: (1) "Red Cloud & Sitting Bull," 2013, (detail). Photo courtesy of Big Chief Demond Melancon. Photograph by Christopher Porché West. (2) “Desert sand” beads being used in the construction of "Red Cloud & Sitting Bull," 2013. Photo courtesy of Big Chief Demond Melancon. Photograph by Christopher Porché West. (3) Chip Thomas, "hostiin jimmie kee black with his dogs in his backyard," (2025). Installation at the Old Black Mesa Shopping Center, Navajo Nation. Photograph by jetsonorama. (4) Chip Thomas, "Native Enslavement in the Southwest" (2021). Photograph by jetsonorama.

#NativeArts #IndigenousArt #NACFMagazine #ChipThomas #DemondMelancon by @qadamawi

A week ago today in the Giardini at the Venice @labiennale , I witnessed something I’m still carrying with me.

Chief Demond Melancon’s (@qadamawi) Blessing the Ancestors unfolded as both ritual and procession where the body became a vessel for memory, resistance, and spirit. Through movement, sound, and call-and-response, the space opened up to something beyond performance a shared act of remembrance, healing, and joy.

Rooted in the Black Masking culture of New Orleans, and performed in his Jah Defender suit, the work moved in rhythm with the elements water, air, fire, earth and with the presence of those who came before.

@marianeibrahimgallery

#LaBiennaleDiVenezia #BiennaleArte2026 #bigchiefdemondmelancon #inminorkeys #koyokouoh by @qadamawi

The third and final artist I’m featuring today from the @labiennale “In Minor Keys” curated by @madamekoyo, is @qadamawi. His work both at the Girdini in the Central Pavilion and at the Arsenale is powerful!

It was really special to spend time with him during the @marianeibrahimgallery cocktail reception. I’m looking forward to staying connected and highly recommend putting him on your radar if he isn’t already!

Exhibition Description:

BIG CHIEF DEMOND MELANCON
1978, New Orleans, USA
Lives in New Orleans

As Big Chief of the Young Seminole Hunter tribe, Demond Melancon is a central figure in the Black Masking culture of New Orleans. The tradition emerged from ceremonial practices brought by enslaved Africans to the Americas, likely inflected by encounters with Indigenous peoples. In its current incarnation, Black Masking Culture comprises ritual pageantry, ceremony and public celebration, resulting in an expression of community resilience. Each tribe is headed by a Big Chief who appears in elaborately crafted regalia, or suits, during Fat Tuesday, at the end of Mardi Gras season. Meticulously constructed out of glass beads, these suits are unique sculptural objects, and, like those employed in West African masquerades, they are danced and performed into being. Tribes vie to create the “prettiest” confection.

Melancon began participating in Black Masking Culture in 1992; in 2017, he decided his work should have a larger platform, and began exhibiting his beadwork costumes – including pieces like Jah Defender (2020) – in galleries and museums, taking the Black Masking tradition into places on the global stage where it was previously little known. For the Biennale Arte 2026, Melancon has created a new suit, titled Amistad Takeover, to be activated in a procession at the opening of the Exhibition.

—Dawoud Bey

#venicebiennale #biennaledivenezia #art #veniceitaly by @qadamawi

@assembleofficial proud to have designed structural supports for our long time collaborator Big Chief Demond Melancon @qadamawi for his participation in the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia this year with ‘Amistad Takeover’ Black Masking Indian suits. These stands are an iteration from the ones we made for V&A Black Masking Culture in 2019, when we approached the V&A Museum to showcase this incredible artist’s work; who was also our colleague and cofounding teacher at Material Institute in New Orleans since 2018. These solid oak stands have been delivered in collaboration with Villa Filanda Antonini in Treviso, built by Falegnameria Brianese, and with ongoing guidance from Big Chief, Alicia Melancon and David Favret. Thank you @qadamawi @marianeibrahimgallery @labiennale

Photos by @turbofusilli @labiennale @marialisogorskaya

@qadamawi @materialinstitute_neworleans @villa_filanda_antonini @falegnameria_brianese

#blackmaskingindians #bigchiefdemondmelancon #oak #armour by @qadamawi