DETROIT’S 2017 KRESGE ARTIST FELLOWS ANNOUNCED

From more than 750 applicants, eighteen artists in total have been selected to join the 2017 class of Kresge Artist Fellows, reports Ryan Patrick Hooper for the Detroit Free-Press. Each prize winner receives a cash award of $25,000 plus a year of professional support by Creative Many Michigan. This year’s fellows are Nicole Macdonald, Catie Newell, Jennifer Harge, David Philpot, Jeanne Bieri, Robert Sestock, Sydney G. James, Juan Martinez, and Matthew Angelo Harrison. In addition, two artists—Leah V. (creative nonfiction) and Austen Brantley (sculpture)—were selected to receive $5,000 Gilda Awards, commemorating late Detroit painter Gilda Snowden.

Since 2008, the Kresge Arts in Detroit program has given over $4.5 million to metro-Detroit-area cultural practitioners. According to Kresge Arts in Detroit director Christina deRoos, “This is not a judgment on the best artist in the city—this is a curated group of individuals representing literary and visual arts excellence in metro Detroit for 2017.”