COURTESY THE ARTIST
Artadia, the nonprofit that recognizes artists around the United States with various prizes, has named Rashayla Marie Brown and Claire Pentecost the winners of its Chicago Awards. The artists will each receive $10,000 and, in a public presentation coinciding with the announcement, are both showing work in the Artadia booth at this year’s Expo Chicago, which opens today and runs through Sunday.
Both artists draw on popular culture and ready-made imagery. Brown, who often goes by the name RMB, explores power dynamics in her photographs, performances, videos, and installations. Pentecost often looks at how people shape their environments and vice versa.
The winners were selected by the artist Rashid Johnson, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s senior curator and director of global initiatives, Omar Kholeif, and the Guggenheim Museum’s assistant curator, Susan Thompson, with Megha Ralapati, the residency and special projects manager at the Hyde Park Art Center, joining for a second round of evaluations. The other finalists were Alex Chitty, Cameron Clayborn, and Faheem Majeed.