ARTnews Announces Nominees for Third Annual ARTnews Awards

ARTnews has revealed the nominees for the 2026 ARTnews Awards, which honor excellence in art at US institutions and galleries.

Launched in 2024, the ARTnews Awards will reprise its awards in six categories: Emerging Artist of the Year, Established Artist of the Year, Lifetime Achievement, Historical Artist of the Year, Best Thematic Museum Exhibition, and Best Gallery Group Show. The nominees represent a range of exhibitions, artists, and curatorial approaches, surveying the best in the art world during the eligibility cycle of August 1, 2025–July 31, 2026.

The awards were juried this year by five of the US’s top curators, as well as two ARTnews editors. They are Giampaolo Bianconi, Dittmer Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, Art Institute of Chicago; Jordan Carter, Curator, Dia Art Foundation; Lauren Cornell, Artistic Director, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College; Miranda Lash, Ellen Bruss Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver; and Diana Nawi, Curator of Special Projects, Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as ARTnews Senior Editor Maximilíano Durón and Deputy Editor Alex Greenberger.

“It’s such an honor to, for the third time, reveal the nominees for the ARTnews Awards,” ARTnews Editor in Chief Sarah Douglas said. “It’s so easy for a season of amazing exhibitions to go by without truly recognizing the talent that goes into creating them: the artists, the curators, and the institutions. These awards are a way of pausing for a moment, and giving people the accolades they deserve, and it feels right that ARTnews, with its nearly 125 years of criticism and journalism, is the one to do so.”

The full nominee list follows below.

Emerging Artist of the Year
Recognizing an artist who is having their first significant gallery or small nonprofit solo show or has made an important contribution to a biennial.

Eric Gyamfi
for “Eric Gyamfi: Exposure: Black Queer Visual Constellations” at Brown Arts Institute, Providence, Rhode Island (April 16 – June 15, 2026) and contributions to “If the word we: 59th Carnegie International” (May 2, 2026–January 3, 2027)

Blas Isasi
for “Currents 125: Blas Isasi” at Saint Louis Art Museum (February 6–August 9, 2026)

Coco Klockner
for “In Practice: Coco Klockner” at SculptureCenter, New York (October 18, 2025–December 22, 2025)

Emma McCormick Goodhart
for “sottobosco (climate remix): CAVE 0 by Emma McCormick Goodhart” at SculptureCenter, New York (December 11–22, 2025)

Christelle Oyiri
for “Christelle Oyiri: Belief May Vary” at Amant, New York (March 19, 2026–August 19, 2026)

Established Artist of the Year
Recognizing an artist with more than a decade’s worth of exhibition history whose latest exhibition comes at a pivotal moment in their career.

Raven Chacon
for “Raven Chacon: Tiguex,” made in collaboration with the Tamarind Institute, the City of Albuquerque’s Department of Arts and Culture, and the University of New Mexico Department of Music (September 27, 2025)

Mike Cloud
for “Mike Cloud: Worldless Obstruction” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (May 2, 2026–February 7, 2027)

Vaginal Davis
for “Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product” at MoMA PS1, New York (October 9, 2025–March 2, 2026, US debut)

Jacqueline Humphries
for “Jacqueline Humphries” at the Aspen Art Museum (December 12, 2025–April 5, 2026)

Saodat Ismailova
for “Saodat Ismailova: Amanat” at Swiss Institute, New York (January 21, 2026–April 12, 2026)

Lifetime Achievement
Recognizing an influential living artist having a retrospective or survey exhibition at a major US museum.

Coco Fusco
for “Coco Fusco: Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island” at El Museo del Barrio, New York (September 18, 2025–March 1, 2026)

Maren Hassinger
for “Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing” at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (June 6–November 29, 2026)

Suzanne Jackson
for “Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (September 27, 2025–March 1, 2026); traveled to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (May 14–August 23, 2026) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (September 26, 2026–January 18, 2027)

David Lamelas
for “David Lamelas: The Machine” at Dia Chelsea, New York (March 6, 2026–January 16, 2027)

Martin Puryear
for “Martin Puryear: Nexus” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (September 27, 2025–February 8, 2026); traveled to the Cleveland Museum of Art (April 12,2026–August 9, 2026)

Historical Artist of the Year
Honoring a deceased artist who is the subject of a major museum survey that offers a new lens with which to examine their work.

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
for “Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings” at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (January 24–April 19, 2026)

Wifredo Lam
for “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (November 10, 2025–April 11, 2026)

Tom Lloyd
for “Tom Lloyd” at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (November 15, 2025–March 22, 2026); traveled to the Frye Art Museum, Seattle (May 16–September 20, 2026)

Ceija Stojka
for “Ceija Stojka: Making Visible” at The Drawing Center, New York (February 20–June 7, 2026)

Betty Parsons
for “Betty Parsons: An World Expanded” at CCS Bard’s Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (June 27–October 18, 2026)

Best Thematic Museum Exhibition
Recognizing a group show at a museum or nonprofit institution with a strong curatorial point of view or focused on a significant historical period.

“Into the Time Horizon”
at the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno (November 15, 2025 – January 3, 2027)
Curators: Apsara DiQuinzio, with Kolin Perry

“If the word we: 59th Carnegie International”
at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (May 2, 2026–January 3, 2027)
Curators: Ryan Inouye, Danielle A. Jackson, and Liz Park

“Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way”
at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (March 6–September 6, 2026)
Curator: Andrea Alvarez

“MONUMENTS”
at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and The Brick, Los Angeles (October 23, 2025–May 3, 2026)
Curators: Hamza Walker, Kara Walker, and Bennett Simpson, with Hannah Burstein and Paula Kroll

“Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials”
at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (April 5, 2026–August 23, 2026)
Curators: Pablo José Ramírez, with Jessi DiTillio

Best Gallery Group Show
Recognizing a group show at a commercial gallery or an untraditional venue as part of an artist-initiated project that has an intriguing selection of artists and a unique perspective.

“Horror”
at Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles (November 21, 2025–February 14, 2026)
Curator: Jill Mulleady

“How Beautiful This Living Thing Is”
at Ortuzar, New York (April 22–May 30, 2026)
Curator: Andrew Durbin

“Snake, Turtle, Alligator: The Atomic Archive of Bryan LaPlante, Gregg Bordowitz, Nina
Katchadourian, Lucy Raven, Elaine Reichek, Turquoise, Bruno Zhu”
at David Peter Francis, New York, co-organized with Interrobang (January 10–February 7, 2026)

“Statics of an Egg”
at David Zwirner, New York (May 8–June 27, 2026)
Curator: Martin Germann

“What We Hold On To”
at Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum, Englewood, Colorado (September 5—December 12, 2025)