Artadia is pleased to announce the 2021 New York Artadia Awardees:
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou- Rahme (Basel and Ruanne), Caroline Garcia, and Miatta Kawinzi will receive $10,000 in unrestricted funds, as well as access to the ongoing benefits of the Artadia Award program. The decision followed an extensive jury process, culminating in a virtual studio visit with Jurors Marcela Guerrero, Jennifer Rubio Associate Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Makeda Best, Curator of Photography, Harvard Art Museums.
Of the process, Marcela notes, “Miatta, Caroline and Basel and Ruanne were ultimately selected as the New York Artadia Awardees as they showed rigor while also making space for experimentality. If the art practice of these three is an indication of where the field of contemporary art is going, I feel both at ease and excited.”
Of the Awardees, Makeda states, “Overall, I was impressed by the deep and ethical commitments to new forms of collaboration and engagements with audiences. The destabilized notions of identity, language, and space that is proposed, embodied, politicized, and empowered by the work Basel and Ruanne is captivating and prophetic. Through spare means, Miatta Kawinzi captivatingly evokes the sound- and textscapes of the black experience that span time and geography. I was moved by the aesthetics of Caroline Garcia’s work – which draws on her nuanced sense of timing, eye for cultural details, understanding of corporally based modes of communication, and exploitation of the technological glitch.”
The 2021 New York Artadia Award application was open to visual artists working in any visual media, at any stage in their career, who have been living and working within the five boroughs: Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island and for a minimum of two years. This year’s Finalists for the Award included Lizania Cruz, Mo Kong and Maia Palileo selected by Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba, Francois Billion Richardson curator of African Art, New Orleans Museum of Art; and Marcela Guerrero, Jennifer Rubio Associate Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Kim Nguyen, Curator, CCA Wattis, San Francisco.
The 2021 New York Artadia Awards are generously supported by the Cowles Charitable Trust, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The Willem de Kooning Foundation, as well as the Artadia Board of Directors, Artadia Council Members, and individual donors across the country.