A Sneak Peek at “Cowboy” — Fort Worth’s Highly-Anticipated New Exhibit at Amon Carter Museum

The newest exhibit to land at Fort Worth’s Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Cowboy, was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Denver ― where it premiered. This is the second and final stop on the exhibition’s tour. It brings together approximately 70 artworks, from sculpture and digital media to photography and paintings.

Cowboy opens on Saturday, September 28.

More than 25 contemporary artists seek to re-examine the significance of cowboy imagery in American culture. And, of course, Amon Carter’s collection of Western art, including masterworks by Remmington and Russell, formed the basis for this unique museum’s ever-growing collection. While those traditional and iconic Western scenes and images are beloved, they don’t tell the whole story of what it means to be a cowboy.

According to a release, this exhibition is “committed to interrogating the Southwest” and “aims to shift the narrative of this figure’s cultural power and significance to be both historically accurate and creatively imaginative.”

Cowboy is organized by Nora Burnett Abrams, Mark G. Falcone Director, and Miranda Lash, Ellen Bruss Senior Curator, both of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. The Carter has teamed with Tarrant County College to provide sign language services as a part of their continued access initiative.

Who is a Cowboy?

“Cowboy reexamines a familiar figure represented in the core collection of the Carter, providing new insight into the historical and current realities of the cowboy, not just in art, but across American culture,” says Amon Carter executive director Andrew J. Walker in a statement.

Here, you’ll find a far more diverse representation of the mythological Western character. Cowboys come in many different forms. They can be Asian American, Latino, Indigenous, Black, LGBTQIA+, Native, or even a woman. This collection examines the diversity of the cowboy across many communities ― that both builds on and challenges the mythology created by Remington and Russell.

There are large audio-visual displays throughout, but one small screen caught my eye ― a ten-minute snippet from a much longer visual artwork produced by Andy Warhol. It depicts a handful of cowboy-attired actors lounging lazily on the concrete floor at his famous New York loft studio, known as The Factory. How they got a live horse up several flights of stairs (or to calmly ride in an elevator) en route to the loft video shoot might be worth its own exhibition.

While the artworks on display span from the mid-1960s to today, the majority of the work was produced in the last 20 years — some even commissioned especially for Cowboy.

Expanding the Narrative of Cowboy Culture at Amon Carter

Along with a thorough reexamining of the “legend and lore of the cowboy,” Cowboy is a challenge to long-held assumptions about cowboys and their relationship to land. So, it’s no surprise that colonialism becomes more than just a passing theme ― it’s confronted throughout.

The intention is to reclaim native identity and restore a truer mythology of the West. Most Westerns play (like children do) around images of cowboys (seen as the perennial good guys) and Indians (who are depicted as savages, sometimes even “noble” savages) ― even when the truth is that they were largely protecting their families and food sources.

An equally prickly reality is shown in the work “Rough Rider” by Mel Chin. It’s a sculptural saddle crafted of rusty barbed wire. Barbed wire, of course, completely transformed the open range ― not only penning in livestock but partitioning off parcels of land and transferring ownership from a nomadic people who, up until then, would never have presumed to “own” the land for themselves.

Cowboy also challenges the traditional imagery and its hyper-masculinity ― those rugged, gun-toting, heroic figures smoking Marlboro cigarettes against a sunset backdrop.

In the “hats section” of the exhibit, you’ll also find three bonnets, the kind donned by Mormon settlers. The journey of these women across the harrowing terrain is symbolized by pearl-topped corsage pins ― showing a veneer of beauty and design on the outside but creating a jarring torture device on the inside. The bonnets covered the heads of Mormon women while, at the same time, silencing their voices.

Cowboy represents the full spectrum of the cowboy experience ― honoring a much more diverse cast of characters who have left their indelible mark on the American West. It will be on view through March 16, 2025.