Sharif Bey Wins Inaugural Spector Craft Prize

The newly launched Spector Craft Prize has announced its inaugural winner: Sharif Bey, an artist and educator based in Syracuse, New York.

The Spector Craft Prize was established last year by the Spector Family Foundation to “reinforce American craft as a vital and enduring art form while creating new pathways for artists at every stage of their careers,” according to a release. It is being awarded in collaboration with Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas. Curator and craft scholar Glenn Adamson served as an adviser on the prize.

“It is encouraging that there is now a prestigious award dedicated to the impact of American craft, and I am honored to be [the] inaugural winner of the Spector Craft Prize,” Bey told ARTnews by email. “While contemporary craft is not always distinct from the evocative works we encounter in the world of contemporary art, innovative works grounded in material histories, as well as traditions of making and using objects, can emerge from a wide range of cultural, political, and geographical contexts.”

Bey was chosen as the winner for the ways in which his “ceramic sculptures investigate the cultural and political significance of adornment, identity, and material history,” per a release. He is currently the subject of solo exhibition, titled “Homecoming,” at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, where he was born. His work is also in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

In an email, Abigail Klem Spector, the prize’s cofounder, said Bey’s “work shows just how expansive craft can be—drawing on traditions of ceramics, vessels, and adornment and is transforming them into something bold, monumental and entirely his own. Challenging the boundaries between craft and fine art, he invites us to reconsider our expectations of both.”

After a nomination process by an advisory board, Bey was selected by the Spector Family Foundation, Crystal Bridges, and Adamson. For winning the prize, Bey will have his work, Raptor Return, acquired by Crystal Bridges with funding by the Spector Family Foundation. (Each future edition of the Spector Craft Prize will tap a different US museum as its institutional partner, who will acquire a piece by the winning artist.)

The partnership with the Spector Craft Prize also reflects Crystal Bridges’s focus on growing its collection of American craft, which includes the acquisition last year of a Tiffany Studios stained-glass window.

“Bey’s work Raptor Return speaks to the extraordinary power of contemporary craft to engage questions of identity, history, and community,” Crystal Bridges craft curator Jen Padgett said in a statement. “We are honored to welcome Sharif Bey’s work into the collection and to celebrate this remarkable group of artists whose practices reflect the vitality and future of the field.”

In addition to the main prize, the Spector Family Foundation has also established the Spector Craft Prize for Emerging Artists, which will go to five artists who will receive $10,000 each. The inaugural recipients, who will also receive mentorship and professional development, are Merryn Omotayo Alaka, Japheth Asiedu-Kwarteng, Demetri Broxton, Vivian Chiu, and Luke-Thomas Tokimasa Henderson. They were chosen by a seven-person jury that included artist Roberto Lugo, the Spectors, Padgett, and Adamson, who served as chair. (Next year, Bey will sit on the emerging artist jury.)

All six winners will be recognized at the inaugural Spector Craft Summit, which will take place November 10–12 at Crystal Bridges. Bey will give the keynote speech, while the emerging artist winners will participate in a panel together. Other artists who will participate include Raven Halfmoon, Liza Lou, and Jeremy Frey.

“The Spector Craft Prize initiative was created to strengthen the entire ecosystem of American craft,” cofounder Warren Spector said in a statement. “By recognizing established artists through museum acquisitions, supporting emerging makers at pivotal moments in their careers, and bringing the community together through the annual Summit, we hope to help ensure that craft receives the institutional recognition and sustained investment it deserves.”