Figurative Painter and daughter of late Dora Akunyili,
Njideka Akunyili Crosby is among the 24 winners of the 2017 MacArthur “Genius”
Fellowship.
Typically awarded
to around 20 American artists, academics, writers, and scientists each year,
the grant is given to “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary
originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for
self-direction,” according to the foundation. Each each will receive a $625,000
award from the foundation "as an investment in their potential," paid
out over five years with no strings attached.
34-year-old Los
Angeles-based Akunyili Crosby was praised by the foundation for her large-scale
works that “express the hybridity characteristics of transnational experience
through choices of subject matter, materials, and techniques.” Crosby’s solo
exhibition at the Tang Museum in upstate New York opens this week (October 14–December
31); the Baltimore Museum will present a suite of new paintings on October
25.
The American,
Berlin-based artist Paglen—who has launched a disc of images into space and
investigated top-secret CIA programs—was lauded for “documenting the hidden
operations of covert government projects and examining the ways that human
rights are threatened in an era of mass surveillance.” Chicago-based, New
York-born Bey, a major figure in the history of African-American photography,
was described as “a photographer and educator whose portraits of people, many
from marginalized communities, compel viewers to consider the reality of the
subjects’ own social presence and histories.”
Other fellows this year include journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones,
mathematician Emmanuel Candès, opera director Yuval Sharon, gender bending
performer Taylor Mac, and immigration reform advocate Cristina Jiménez Moreta
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