Theaster Gates. Courtesy of the Nasher Sculpture Center.
On Tuesday the Nasher Sculpture Center announced Theaster Gates as the winner of this year’s $100,000 Nasher Prize for Sculpture. This is the third year of the prize, and we’re mighty proud that both of the previous recipients—Pierre Huyghe and Doris Salcedo—are Art21 roster artists too. Also this week:
- Kara Walker will be awarded the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal during next month’s annual ceremony at Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, alongside rapper LL Cool J, filmmaker Ava DuVernay, and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.
- The first phase of Cornell Tech’s 5-acre campus opened last week on Roosevelt Island. The campus’ Bloomberg Center features a new commissioned work by Matthew Ritchie entitled Everything that Rises Must Converge, which rises four stories through the building’s atrium.
- Kerry James Marshall is painting a new mural in Chicago honoring the cultural achievements of 20 Black women, among them Oprah Winfrey and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Achy Obejas. Painted on the Garland Court façade of the Chicago Cultural Center, the work is described by the artist as a kind of “Forest Rushmore,” offering a “park-like view…[that] honors the mission of the building as the hub of artistic activity in Chicago.”
Events & exhibitions
Middletown, CT
- Wesleyan University’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery just opened a new exhibition, Black Pulp!, which features work by Kerry James Marshall, Kara Walker, Laylah Ali, Ellen Gallagher, Trenton Doyle Hancock, and Fred Wilson among others. On view through December 10. [Read a preview of the show in The Middletown Press.]
Stowe, VT
- Art of the Selfie, a new exhibition at the Helen Day Art Center, features the work of Carrie Mae Weems, Cindy Sherman, and Marina Abramović among others, and is on view through November 11.
Johnson City, TN
- East Tennessee State University’s Slocumb Galleries just opened a solo exhibition by John Feodorov entitled Absurdity of Truth. On view through October 14, the show features a selection of Feodorov’s prints, fiber, sculptural installation and video work.
Houston
- Trenton Doyle Hancock is being celebrated by Art League Houston as the 2017 Texas Artist of the Year with a solo exhibition, Texas: 1997-2017. The show opens Friday, September 29 and will remain on view through November 17.
Las Vegas
- MCQ Fine Art is currently hosting a Raymond Pettibon retrospective through November 3.
Toronto
- Saturday, September 30, from 7 – 8 pm—Shahzia Sikander is giving a talk at the Ismaili Centre as part of the annual all-night arts festival Nuit Blanche. She’ll discuss her installation for the festival, Disruption as Rapture 2016, which animates the 18th-century Gulshan-i lsquo (“Rose Garden of Love”) manuscript.
London
- Katharina Grosse’s latest solo exhibition, This Drove my Mother up the Wall is opening on Thursday at South London Gallery. A new immersive work painted in situ in the gallery space, the installation will be open through December 3.
Stockholm
- Bonniers Konsthall’s new exhibition The Image of War explores visual violence and features work by Alfredo Jaar, Trevor Paglen, and Martha Rosler among others. On view through January 14, 2018.
Timișoara & Arad, Romania
- The second edition of Art Encounters 2017—an experimental art festival and contemporary art biennial—opens Saturday in multiple locations throughout the cities of Timișoara and Arad. Mary Reid Kelley’s work is featured in the exhibition The Catcher in the Mirror at the Arad Art Museum as part of the festival.
Seoul
- Topology of Generosity, solo exhibition by El Anatsui, opens Wednesday at Barakat Seoul Gallery, where it will remain on view through November 26.