Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu is being honored with the National Artist Award from the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen, Colorado, to be presented at the institution’s 21st Annual Recognition Dinner on July 20, 2017.

“Art is my way of speaking about things that are unspeakable, it is my truest voice and my strongest form of resistance,” said Mutu in a statement. “It is such a privilege to be recognized in these times for doing what I most love doing, it gives my work more urgency. I know we can do better for one another and for our earth, and I am deeply committed to using creative means to bring attention to violence and inequality against women and to the parallel destruction of our Earth.”

A participant in the 2015 Venice Biennale, Mutu has had solo shows at the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum, Berlin; Musée D’art Contemporain de Montréal; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the Brooklyn Museum; and the Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina.

Ann Korologos. Courtesy of the Anderson Ranch.

Anderson Ranch will also honor Jan and Ronnie Greenberg with the Service to the Arts Award. Ronnie Greenberg is the founder and owner of Greenberg Gallery and a founding member of the Laumeier Sculpture Park, both in St. Louis. Jan Greenberg has written numerous books about art history for children, and was the director of the aesthetic education program at Missouri’s Webster University.

Art collector Ann Korologos, chairman emeritus of the Apsen Insitute, will receive the Extraordinary Leadership Award. The arts center, which offers artist residencies and art classes for artists at all levels, was founded in 1966.

The honorees will be feted at the Recognition Dinner, an annual fundraising event featuring a live auction of works by contemporary artists organized by Sotheby’s. The expected crowd of art world luminaries will enjoy cocktails and dinner amid an environment created by design team Snarkitecture at Aspen’s historic Hotel Jerome.