Education
• M.F.A., Intermedia, Herberger Institute School of Art, Arizona State University,
2012.
• B. A. University of Oklahoma, 2003. Native American studies with emphasis in tribal
policy.
• American Indian Policy Seminar, American University, 1999
Bio and Affiliation
Kade L. Twist is an interdisciplinary artist working with video, sound, interactive media, text, and installation environments. Twist's work examines the unresolved tensions between market-driven systems, consumerism, and American Indian cultural self-determination. Mr. Twist is a co-founder of Postcommodity, an Indigenous artist collective. With his work and the collective Postcommodity, Twist has exhibited work nationally and internationally. Postcommodity’s work has been included in the 18th Sydney Biennale, the 2017 Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, and the 57th Carnegie International. Postcommodity has had numerous solo exhibitions including the Art Institute of Chicago Museum, San Francisco Art Institute, LAXArt, Scottsdale Museum of Art, Remai Modern Museum, and their historic land art installation Repellent Fence at the U.S./Mexico border near Douglas, AZ, and Agua Prieta, SON. Mr. Twist is a 2015 US Artist Klein Fellow for Visual Arts and recipient of the Native Writers Circle First Book Award. Postcommodity has been the recipient of awards from the Harpo Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, Art Matters, Creative Capital, Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, and the Fine Prize for From Smoke and Tangled Waters, They Carried Fire Home, commissioned for the 57th ed. Carnegie International. Kade L. Twist is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and is currently serving as Associate Professor and Curriculum Area Head, of Art+Social Practice in the MFA Fine Arts Department at Otis College of Art and Design, in Los Angeles. Before his current position, Mr. Twist worked in the field of American Indian public affairs for 17 years as a researcher, writer, analyst, and organizer specializing in technology, community development, and healthcare.
Awards and Honors
• Postcommodity (artist collective), 2014, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, Community
Inspiration Grant.
• Postcommodity (artist collective), 2013, Art Matters, Artist Grant.
• Postcommodity (artist collective), 2012, Creative Capital, Artist Grant.
• Arizona State University Graduate College Completion Fellowship, 2012.
• Postcommodity (artist collective), 2010 Joan Mitchell Foundation, Painters and Sculptors
Grant.
• Postcommodity (artist collective), 2010 Elly Kay Fund, Arizona Genius Award.
• Postcommodity (artist collective), 2009 Artist Project Grant, Arizona Commission
on the Arts.
• 2008 Runner-Up, Best Fictional Narrative Screenplay for Heavy Metal Indians, co-written
with Nathan Young, Tribeca Film Festival, All Access.
• Postcommodity (artist collective), 2008 Common Ground Grant, First Nations Composers
Initiative, American Composers Forum.
• 2007 Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas First Book Award for Amazing Grace.
• 2007 Professional Development Grant, Arizona Commission on the Arts.
• 1998-1999 Sequoyah Scholarship Award, University of Oklahoma (for outstanding American
Indian academic achievement).
Professional Accomplishments and Exhibitions
Kade L. Twist has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including: Contour the 5th Biennial of the Moving Image in Mechelen, BE; Nuit Blanche, Toronto, CA; 18th Biennale of Sydney in Sydney, AUS; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Scottsdale, AZ; 2017 Whitney Biennial, New York, NY; Art in General, New York, NY; documenta14, Athens, GR and Kassel, DE; and their historic land art installation Repellent Fence at the U.S./Mexico border near Douglas, AZ and Agua Prieta, SON.
Publications
Anthologies
• The End of the Trail is a Moving Target,” Pine Meoquane, Digitalis Industries, 2005.
• “Urban Indian Equity,” “Gail Norton Was Practically An Indian Princess Herself,”
April, City of Tempe Poetry in April Series, 2003.
Journals
• Selected work from “Marginal Equity,” Kenyon Review, December 2009.
• “Subdivisions,” “Suburban Storms,” Artcite, 2006.
• “Doublewides,” “Cornhusks and Grape Leaves,” South Dakota Review, 2000.
• “There are Some Things and Indian Just Shouldn’t See,” Tempus, 2000.
• “The Oilfields Are Beautiful At Night,” “Truxtun Extension,” How Come Buck Owens.
Never Sang About Cherokees?” Windmill, 1999.
Books
• Postcommodity (artist collective), ” With Salvage and Knife Tongue.” Published in:
Art in the Global Present, Eds. Papastergiadis, Nikos, and Victoria Lynn. 2014. Print.
• Manifestations, Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 2011.
• Marginal Equity, 2007, Book-length narrative poem.
Exhibition Catalogs
• Here, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, 2011
• Defining Sustainability, Arizona State University Art Museum, 2009.
• New American City: Artists Look Forward, Arizona State University Art Museum, 2006.
• Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World, Heard Museum and the Smithsonian
Institution National Museum of the American Indian, 2007.