The 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship was announced this week, and awarded to 171 scholars and artists in various domains.
Awarded by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the fellowship is given to 48 disciplines divided into 4 broad categories: Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Creative Arts. The winners were chosen from a pool of 2500 applicants by a large team of experts. In the Fine Arts category, the winners were Pamela Council, Jamal Cyrus, Kapwani Kiwanga, Diane Severin Nguyen, Tammy Nguyen, Samantha Nye, Evita Tezeno, and Lavar Munroe.
Lavar Munroe was the standout winner of the lot, also bagging a representation by the Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago. This was part of a fellowship granted under the name of Robert De Niro Sr., father of actor Robert De Niro and a Guggenheim fellow of 1968. Kapwani Kiwanga is one of the most closely watched emerging artists in the landscape. She was recently in the news for being chosen to represent Canada at the 2024 Venice Biennale.
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Pamela Council was behind the memorable public sculpture A Foundation for Survivors in Times Square in New York. In the December 2022 issue of Art In America, titled ‘The Religion Issue’, the cover featured artwork by Tommy Nguyen. On the other hand, Bridget Alsdorf, Roland Betancourt, and Arlene Dávila were awarded fellowships in the field of fine art research. Speaking of the award, the Guggenheim Foundation said: “The new class of Fellows has followed their calling to enhance all of our lives, to provide greater human knowledge and deeper understanding. We’re lucky to look to them to bring us into the future.”
