NARI WARD WINS $100,000 VILCEK PRIZE HONORING IMMIGRANT ARTISTS
The Vilcek Foundation has announced the recipients of its annual prizes, which recognize immigrants who have made lasting contributions to American society through their extraordinary achievements in biomedical research and the arts and humanities. Nari Ward was selected as winner of the Vilcek Prize in Fine Arts. He will receive $100,000 and a trophy designed by Stefan Sagemeister. The award’s arts category has not honored a visual artist since 2006.
The Jamaican-born and New York–based artist’s practice often explores black history and culture, the dynamics of power and politics, and immigration, specifically the Caribbean diaspora. In a 2015 500 Words with Andrianna Campbell, Ward discussed his midcareer survey, “Sun Splashed,” at the Pérez Art Museum Miami and what led him to start creating his earlier “Canned Smiles” series. He said, “Miami is a gateway to the Caribbean, but it also has pathways leading back to New York. A few years ago, a naive collector said my work did not seem Jamaican because it was not happy. Everywhere I looked, I saw this myth of the happy Jamaican. The collector’s words haunted me, triggered me to collect smiles.”
Marica Vilcek, the vice chairman of the Vilcek Foundation, said, “These immigrant artists are explorers and philosophers. They seek answers to questions about the nature of power, politics, and the relationship between the individual and the collective, and they do so with originality, imagination, and a strong sense of justice.”
The jury that selected Ward included Brooke Davis Anderson, executive director of Prospect New Orleans; Deborah Cullen, director of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University; artist Coco Fusco; Massimiliano Gioni, artistic director of the New Museum; Paul C. Ha, MIT List Visual Art Center director; and Sara Raza, curator of the Middle East and North Africa for the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative.
