Poster House in Chelsea, NYC: "Designed to Be Red" Shows Native American and Indigenous Poster Works

Poster House in Chelsea is showing Designed to Be Red: Native American & Indigenous Poster Works in its Main Gallery from September 25, 2026, through February 21, 2027. The premise is simple and pointed. Native designers have rarely been shown as authors of their own images, with no say over how, when or through which channels their stories were told. Mythmakers and marketing teams spent generations telling stories about Native Americans, First Nations, Métis, Alaska Natives and other Indigenous peoples rather than with them, producing reductive and harmful pictures of living communities. The exhibition follows the design history that ran alongside, despite and against that narrative.

The checklist covers nearly two centuries and more than 60 tribes and nations. Selected works include Respect Our Vision (1976) by the Menominee Solidarity Committee; Ka-Kistêyimâyahkik (c. 2015) by Melanie Cervantes; Because Once You Enter My House, It Becomes Our House (2021) by Jeffrey Gibson and Dana Claxton; Crystal Worl's 2020 poster in Pacific Northwest linework; Ryan Red Corn's 2009 National Museum of the American Indian anniversary poster; Let Us Put Our Minds Together (c. 1975) from Akwesasne Notes; Rocky Fiddler's Count Yourself In! (1986); and Winold Reiss's Dancing Boy/Blackfeet Indian (1946). Together they run from protest and advocacy to celebration.

Brian Johnson (Monacan Indian Nation) curated the show. He is a designer and a partner at Polymode, and co-founded the online learning platform BIPOC Design History. His clients include The New York Times Magazine, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Cooper Hewitt. Ola Baldych designed the exhibition. Allow about an hour. The museum rates it PG-13 for some racist and violent imagery and language.

A run of programs accompanies the show: docent tours, Spanish-language tours, Vibrant Verbal Description tours, a book talk and signing on October 29, and an Indigenous Designers Night with Relative Arts on November 20. An audio guide is available. Johnson's companion book, Designed to Be Red: Native American & Indigenous Graphic Works, is sold in the Poster House Shop. The exhibition is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, with federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts.