Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds

Hachivi Edgar Heap of BirdsThe artworks of HOCK E AYE VI  EDGAR HEAP OF BIRDS include multi-disciplinary forms of public art messages, large scale drawings, Neuf Series acrylic paintings, prints and monumental porcelain enamel on steel outdoor sculpture.

Heap of Birds received his Master of Fine Arts from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1979), his Bachelor of Fine Arts from The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas (1976) and has undertaken graduate studies at The Royal College of Art, London, England. 

The artist has exhibited his works at The Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, New York, New York, The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia, Documenta, Kassal, Germany, Orchard Gallery, Derry, Northern Ireland, University Art Museum, Berkeley, California, Association for Visual Arts Museum, Cape Town, South Africa, Lewallen Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Hong Kong Art Center, China and Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia.

He has served as visiting lecturer in London, England, Western Samoa, Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand, Johannesburg, South Africa, Barcelona, Spain, Belfast, Northern Ireland, Norrkoping, Sweden, Hararre, Zimbabwe and Adelaide, Australia.

Heap of Birds has taught as Visiting Professor at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island and Michaelis School of Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa.  At the University of Oklahoma, Professor Heap of Birds teaches in Native American Studies and Fine Arts.  His seminars explore issues of the contemporary artist on local, national and international bases.

He has received grants and awards from The National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Lila Wallace Foundation, Bonfil Stanton Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trust.

In June 2005, Heap of Birds completed the fifty-foot signature, outdoor sculpture titled Wheel.  The circular porcelain enamel on steel work was commissioned by The Denver Art Museum and is inspired by the traditional Medicine Wheel of the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming.

Heap of Birds’ art work was chosen by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian as their entry towards the competition for the United States Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. He will represent NMAI with a major collateral public art project in Venice, June 2007.

Artist's Works

Glass Works.

Glass Works Glass Works Glass Works

Most Serene Republics.

Native American Memory. Downtown Toronto, Ontario
In 2007 Heap of Birds posted a series of large signs in downtown Toronto, Ontario, which dealt with Native American memory. Multiple images from the outdoor display in automatic sequence:

Use the commands at the upper right to control or escape the slideshow.

Red Penny Memorials
The Venice panel "Red Penny" (at far right) serves as a memorial to one of the three Native children who died, along with 12 Native men, while taking part in Cody's Wild West Show Euro Tour.

Standing Bear Memorial By The Enemy Memorial Beat Bad Bush Memorial Red Penny Memorial

Wheel: Overlays. Denver, Colarado.
Wheel: Overlays is an installation made to be placed in the Great Hall of the Museum of Anthropology. Inspired by Native American architecture and medicine wheels, its ten semi-transparent pillars carry the outlines of forked "tree forms" and are arranged to create a 9-meter circular space. The four sides of each tree are layered with words, symbolic motifs, acronyms, maps, tribal names, dates, and other markings. Together, the forms and texts chronicle the clash of Native and non-Native peoples in Colorado, with particular focus on the cosmology, history, and renewal of the Cheyenne.

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