Art World
Here Are the Winners of the $625,000 MacArthur Fellowships
This year's Genius Grants have been allocated. See who made the list.
Amah-Rose Abrams
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The 2016 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowships have been announced and this year’s recipients include sculptor Vincent Fecteau, curator Kellie Jones, and video artist Mary Reid Kelley.
The $625,000 MacArthur Fellowship is awarded to 23 American artists, academics, writers, scientists based on a recipient’s promise rather than achievement. Fellows are selected on three criteria: exceptional creativity; promise for important future advances, based on a track record of significant accomplishment; and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.
“While our communities, our nation, and our world face both historic and emerging challenges, these 23 extraordinary individuals give us ample reason for hope,” Julia Stasch, president of the MacArthur Foundation said in a statement. “They are breaking new ground in areas of public concern, in the arts, and in the sciences, often in unexpected ways. Their creativity, dedication, and impact inspire us all.”
Fellows this year include those from the worlds of science, academia, journalism, as well as the arts. Alongside Fecteau and Kelley, artist Joyce J. Scott, and writers Maggie Nelson and Claudia Rankine are also among the recipients.
Kellie Jones, 2016 MacArthur Fellow. Courtesy of John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Scott is a sculptor and jewelry maker, who tackles women’s issues and racism, while Kelley creates video works based on her scripts which are often poetic in structure, combining events from history and ideas of the present.
Each of the 23 fellows will receive the “no-strings” grant of $625,000 paid to them over the course of five years. The MacArthur Fellowship, or “Genius Grant” was started in 1981 and prior recipients include Peter Sellars, Merce Cunningham, Meyer Schapiro, Bill Viola, Susan Sontag, Susan Meiselas, Ornette Coleman, and Cindy Sherman.
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