The Toronto Biennial of Art in Canada, which opened to the public over the weekend, has named the two artists who have won prizes for their contributions to this year’s exhibition. They are Camille Turner, who won the Artist Prize, and Aycoobo / Wilson Rodríguez, who won the Emerging Artist Prize. Each winner will receive CAD$10,000 ($8,000). In June, the Biennial will also award two new prizes: Audience Artist Prize and Programs Prize, both selected by online voting.
At the exhibition, which runs through June 5, Turner is showing a three-channel video installation, Nave, that reflects on Canada’s underknown historical involvement with the trans-Atlantic slave trade, while Aycoobo is showing a series of drawings that depict the creation stories of the Nonuya people of the Amazon and are related to the botanical drawings of plants sacred to the Nonuya by his father, Abel Rodríguez, which also included in the show.
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Artist Lisa Steele, who was on the jury, said in a statement, “With such a broad range of artists from so many different locations, the prizes offered by the Toronto Biennial of Art are important to identify works that resonate profoundly. For me, that means they are deeply engaging in terms of content, are beautifully crafted—and come from the heart of the artist, because it is this openness and vulnerability that speak most directly to me.”
The Asia Society and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, both based in New York, have announced the three emerging artists that have won the Frankenthaler Climate Art Awards, which are given to MFA students or recent graduates in U.S. “to encourage action on climate change amongst the next generation of visual artists.” The winners are Maurício Chades (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Douglas Tolman (University of Utah), and Alexa Velez (Washington University in St. Louis). The winners will each receive $15,000, and were selected from a shortlist of 13 artists.
In a statement, Frankenthaler Foundation executive director Elizabeth Smith said “The Foundation believes in the power of art and artists to inspire change. The innovative work of the winners and finalists for the Frankenthaler Climate Art Awards demonstrate this perfectly, underscoring the crucial role that artists can play in expanding our understanding of how human activity impacts climate change. The response truly exceeded our expectations.”
Similarly, Anonymous Was A Woman, the organization that has provided over 600 mid-career women artists unrestricted grants of $25,000 since 1996, announced that it will launch a new program. The Environmental Art Grants will distribute a total of $250,000 to “support environmental art projects led by women-identifying artists in the United States and U.S. Territories.” Artists can apply for these one-time grants, for up to $20,000 each, between April 12 and June 14. Each project is to have a public component that is to be completed by June 2023. Topics that artists can address include ecofeminism, decarbonization as decolonization, climate collapse, and interspecies relationships, among others. (Applications can be submitted through the website for the New York Foundation for the Arts, which is administering the grant.)
“Throughout history, and particularly in the past century, artists have been able to bring attention to urgent issues through their work,” AWAW founder Susan Unterberg, said in a statement. “Now, we are expanding our impact to fund work that addresses the climate crisis—and, crucially, inspires action. Through the projects created by the recipients of this grant, we hope to contribute to a more positive and hopeful future.”
Five artists have won this year’s Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, and will each receive a $50,000 unrestricted grant. The winners are Complex Movements (based in Detroit), Mother Cyborg (Detroit), Mary Maggic (Los Angeles), Ryan Kuo (Brooklyn), and James Allister Sprang (Philadelphia). (Disclosure: Sprang recently worked as a photo editor for ARTnews and our sister publication Art in America.)
“Artists push us to think differently about technology–how it can be used to create new forms, and new ways of interacting and thinking,” Koven Smith, Knight’s senior director of Arts, said in a statement. “The 2022 Arts and Tech fellows show how, even in times that require rapid adaptation, artists can point the way forward by using technology in expressive, ethical and innovative ways.”
Acclaimed performance artist Anne Imhof, who in 2017 took home the Venice Biennial’s Golden Lion for best national participation for her work at the German Pavilion, has been awarded the Binding Culture Prize 2022 by the Binding Cultural Foundation in Frankfurt. The prize, which comes with €50,000 ($56,000) will be awarded in July. In a statement, the foundation said Imhof is an artist “who, with her collaboratively developed performances, has created a new format of dance, sound and spatial installation that dissolves media boundaries.”
New York–based photographer Jamel Shabazz has won this year’s Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book Prize, the second time the award has been given. The prize comes the opportunity to make a publication with Steidl and is given to an artist “whose practice reflects and extends Gordon Parks’ legacy,” according to a release. Coming out this fall, Shabazz’s publication, titled Albums, will focus on his influential street photography from the 1970s through the ’90s, spanning Brooklyn, Queens, the West Village, and Harlem. Also included will be portraits Shabazz made of inmates at Rikers Island, where the artist worked as an officer in the ’80s.
Earlier this month, the Brooklyn Arts Council announced that it would give $1.32 million to 238 Brooklyn-based artists and cultural organizations as part of its 2022 Community Arts Grants, Creative Equations Fund, and SU-CASA programs. The full list of grantees can be found here. In a statement, BAC executive director, Charlotte A. Cohen said, “As Brooklyn recovers from the effects of the pandemic, we see the strength and resilience of artists in our borough. Their spirits invigorate and lift up communities and remind us of the diversity and vibrancy that are deeply rooted in Brooklyn.”
The Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco has named the five winners of its 2022 Threshold Fellowship, which is designed to bring artists with experts in various fields to “investigate climate solutions at the intersection of science, policy, culture, and justice,” according to a release. The recipients, who will each receive a stipend of $10,000, are poet, performer, and educator Denice Frohman, visual artist Erica Deeman, visual artist and architect Olalekan Jeyifous, and artist, performer, and storyteller Sheldon Scott. They will work with this year’s lead fellow Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist and policy expert.
In January, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, awarded the inaugural Ree Kaneko Award, which is named after the organization’s cofounder and first executive director. The $25,000 prize, which is for artists who have previously completed an artist residency at the Bemis Center, was given to artist Raven Chacon (Diné), who is one of the standouts at the 2022 Whitney Biennial. Chacon was the Bemis Center’s first Sound Art and Experimental Music Artist-in-Residence in 2019.
In a statement, Bemis Center executive director, Chris Cook said, “Over the past few years, Raven Chacon’s authentic artistic voice and expertise has profoundly influenced Bemis’s programs, especially with his involvement in launching our sound art program.”