ARTnews Announces ARTnews Awards

ARTnews is pleased to announce the ARTnews Awards, a new editorial project honoring excellence in art achievements at US arts institutions. Winners will be announced online on December 4, and celebrated during a cocktail reception that evening in Miami.

Over the course of the past several months, ARTnews convened a world-class jury to determine the best exhibitions that opened in the US during the 2023–24 season (September 1, 2023–August 31, 2024). For its inaugural year, ARTnews will honor museum, gallery, and nonprofit exhibitions in five categories, three for artists and two for group exhibitions.

The categories are Emerging Artist of the Year, Established Artist of the Year, Lifetime Achievement, Best Thematic Museum Show, and Best Gallery Group Show. In selecting these categories, ARTnews celebrates artists at all stages of their careers and the curatorial experimentation happening in museums and galleries.

The nominations have been selected by an eight-person jury made up of six of today’s most closely watched curators, along with two ARTnews senior editors. The same group will choose the eventual winners. To select the nominees, each juror submitted one to three candidates per category, with the full jury voting to select the five final nominees per category. A second meeting was conducted to select the winners for each category.

The jury includes Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator, High Line Art; Naomi Beckwith, Deputy Director & Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation), Executive Director & Chief Curator, Forge Project; Tina Kukielski, Susan Sollins Executive Director & Chief Curator, Art21; María Elena Ortiz, Curator, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, Chief Curator & Deputy Director, Curatorial & Collections, Lucas Museum of Narrative Art; as well as ARTnews’s Maximilíano Durón and ​Alex Greenberger. ​

The full list of nominees follows below.

Emerging Artist of the Year

For an artist with less than a decade’s worth of exhibition history who is having their first significant gallery, nonprofit, or museum solo show.

Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio
“MOCA Focus: Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio”
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
November 12, 2023–June 16, 2024

Sasha Gordon
“Sasha Gordon: Surrogate Self”
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
December 5, 2023–March 10, 2024

Char Jeré
“Char Jeré: Zoo or an Orchestra”
Artists Space, New York
December 13, 2023–February 17, 2024

Leslie Martinez
“Leslie Martinez: The Fault of Formation”
MoMA PS1, New York
November 16, 2023–April 8, 2024

Bárbara Sánchez-Kane
“Bárbara Sánchez-Kane: New Lexicons for Embodiment”
Kurimanzutto, New York
September 14–October 21, 2023

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

Firelei Báez
“Firelei Báez”
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
April 4–September 2, 2024
Additional venue: Vancouver Art Gallery

Hugh Hayden
“Hugh Hayden: Hughmans”
Lisson Gallery, Los Angeles
November 18, 2023–January 13, 2024
Additional venue: Lisson Gallery, New York

Lubaina Himid
“Lubaina Himid: Make Do and Mend”
The Contemporary Austin, Texas
March 1–July 21, 2024
Additional venue: The FLAG Art Foundation, New York

Delcy Morelos
“Delcy Morelos: El abrazo”
Dia Chelsea, New York
October 5, 2023–July 20, 2024

Paul Pfeiffer
“Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom”
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
November 12, 2023–June 16, 2024
Additional venue: Guggenheim Bilbao

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

Judith F. Baca
“Painting in the River of Angels: Judy Baca and The Great Wall”
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
October 26, 2023–July 21, 2024

María Magdalena Campos-Pons
“María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold”
Brooklyn Museum, New York
September 15, 2023–January 14, 2024
Additional venues: Frist Art Museum, Nashville; Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Charles Gaines
“Charles Gaines: 1992–2023”
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
November 16, 2023–March 17, 2024
Additional venue: Phoenix Art Museum

Joan Jonas
“Joan Jonas: Good Night Good Morning”
Museum of Modern Art, New York
March 17–July 6, 2024

Kay WalkingStick
“Kay WalkingStick / Hudson River School”
The New York Historical
October 20, 2023–April 14, 2024
Additional venue: Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts

Best Thematic Museum Show
For a group show with a strong curatorial point of view.

“The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans”
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Curator: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
September 22, 2023–January 15, 2024
Additional venue: New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut

“Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living”
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Curators: Diana Nawi and Pablo José Ramírez
October 1–December 31, 2023

“Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage”
Frist Art Museum, Nashville
Curator: Katie Delmez
September 15–December 31, 2023
Additional venues: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.         

“Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s”
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Curator: Hui Kyung An
September 1, 2023–January 7, 2024
Additional venues: National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

“Scratching at the Moon”
Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles                
Curators: Anna Sew Hoy and Anne Ellegood
February 10–July 28, 2024

Best Gallery Group Show
A commercial gallery group show that has an intriguing selection of artists and a unique perspective.

“At the Edge of the Sun”
Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles
February 24–June 1, 2024

“Five Women Artists in 1970s Los Angeles”
Ortuzar Projects, New York
Curator: Tom Jimmerson
June 21–August 9, 2024

“2024 Inaugural Exhibition”
The Campus, Hudson, New York
Curator: Timo Kappeller, in partnership with NXTHVN
June 29–October 27, 2024

“Jamal Cyrus + Harold Mendez: On turning ground”
Patron Gallery, Chicago
April 10–June 1, 2024

“Means of Production”
Curators: Lunch Hour Collective (Do Tuong Linh, Lily Jue Sheng, Serena Chang)
Venue: Sheerly Touch-Ya/Shisanwu LLC warehouse, Queens, New York
May 18–July 31, 2024