Too Many Capitalists, Not Enough Indians
- Letter press and newspaper vending machine
- Jacob Meders
For Display Only
Jacob Meders is a member of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of Chico Rancheria, California. He presently lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Jacob possesses a BFA in painting with a minor in printmaking from Savannah College of Art and Design and a MFA in printmaking at Arizona State University. In 2011 Jacob established WarBird Press, a fine art printmaking studio that he operates as the Master Printmaker in Phoenix, AZ. Currently Jacob also is an Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance at Arizona State University, Glendale, AZ.
Jacob has exhibited his work in Divided Lines at The Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, NM, Agents of Change An Exhibition of Artist’ Books with a Social Conscience in Gallery 31 at the Corcoran, Washington DC, Something Old, Something New: Nothing Borrowed Recent Acquisitions from the Heard Museum Collection, at The Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ, Illustrious at The Heard North Scottsdale Museum in Scottsdale, AZ and Transcending Traditions at Mesa Contemporary Arts in Mesa, AZ. His work is collected by major universities and other institutions in the United States and internationally. Jacob has also gained recognition as an influential public speaker and has traveled nationally and internationally to speak on topics within the indigenous contemporary art world.
Jacob’s work focuses on altered perceptions of place, culture, and identity built on the assimilation and homogenization of indigenous peoples. This work reexamines varied documentations of Native Americans through printing processes that hold on to stereotypical ideas and how they have affected the culture of the native people. Using bookforms and prints as a symbol of western knowledge and the linear mind, Jacob deploys them as a vehicle to challenge new perceptions of Native Americans.