Lorraine O’Grady and Nicholas Galanin Named Guggenheim Fellows
By Rhea Nayyar
April 11, 2024
The two are among 68 visual artists, photographers, filmmakers, and art scholars receiving the prestigious prize.
Nicholas Galanin and Lorraine O’Grady are among 28 visual artists to receive the 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship. In its 99th year, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has tapped 188 individuals for this year’s cohort, 68 of whom are visual artists, photographers, filmmakers, architects, or fine arts and new media researchers. The fellows were selected from a pool of nearly 3,000 applicants whose submissions were peer-reviewed. The fellowships come with cash prizes usually ranging between $40,000 and $55,000.
Born in Boston and based in New York, 89-year-old artist, writer, and critic O’Grady left her career in translation to pursue art at the age of 45. O’Grady’s text-and-time-based practice examines Black female subjectivity and diaspora, and she will be reviving an old persona of hers in a new body of performance work. O’Grady’s first retrospective took place in 2021 at the Brooklyn Museum, and her solo exhibition at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery in Chicago, Illinois, is on view through May 25.
Based in Sitka, Alaska, Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂) intends to develop workshops and further his artistic practice rooted in cultural connections and the notions of land ownership in order to “create a greater discourse on Indigenous art,” per a statement from the foundation. Last year, Galanin received recognition for an outdoor sculpture at Brooklyn Bridge Park — his first public artwork in New York City orchestrated through the Public Art Fund. The artist was also recently celebrated in a solo retrospective of new and existing work at SITE in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Launched in 1925, the Guggenheim Fellowship is intended for mid-career professionals who have already demonstrated “exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts” with promise for equally impactful future endeavors. Former United States Senator and philanthropist John Simon Guggenheim and his wife Olga created the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1922 in honor of their late son who died at age 17 before he began college.
Additional fellows of note include Atlanta-based artist Jessica Blinkhorn, whose upcoming project examines the intersection of disability, desirability, and sexuality, and photographer Sara Bennett, a former public defender who captures currently and formerly incarcerated women and their stories. Critic Christina Sharpe and scholar Tavia Nyong’o, who has contributed to Hyperallergic, were also awarded general nonfiction and theatre arts and performance studies fellowships, respectively.
Below is the full list of arts and film Guggenheim fellows:
Architecture, Planning, & Design
Paul Hardin Kapp
Film-Video
Itziar Barrio
Jessica Beshir
Garrett Bradley
Lilli Carré
Jude Chehab
Ariana Gerstein
Juan Pablo González
Ben Hagari
Shadi Harouni
Baba Hillman
Crystal Kayiza
Won Ju Lim
Loira Limbal
Raúl O. Paz-Pastrana
Jennifer Redfearn
Shengze Zhu
Film, Video, and New Media Studies
Jonathan Sterne
Fine Arts
Sónia Almeida
Kim Anno
Anna Betbeze
Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn
Rebeca Bollinger
Ben Thorp Brown
Mike Cloud
Lewis deSoto
Adama Delphine Fawundu
Nicholas Galanin
Guillermo Galindo
Antonietta Grassi
Léonie Guyer
Bang Geul Han
Lotus L. Kang
Nicola López
Park McArthur
Harold Mendez
Taji Ra’oof Nahl
Lorraine O’Grady
Lamar Peterson
Anders Herwald Ruhwald
Carrie Schneider
Jennifer Sirey
Arvie Smith
Jackie Sumell
Dyani White Hawk
Susan York
Fine Arts Research
Claire Bishop
Laura U. Marks
Alexander Nagel
Amara Solari
Krista Thompson
Photography
Sara Bennett
Matthew Brandt
Carlos Diaz
Joanne Dugan
Lisa Elmaleh
Lucas Foglia
Dylan Hausthor
Katherine Hubbard
Tarrah Krajnak
Rachelle Mozman Solano
Gina Osterloh
Arthur Ou
Ahndraya Parlato
Greta Pratt
Margaret Mary Stratton
Leonard Suryajaya
Ada Trillo