Ruth Foundation for the Arts Names Winners of Inaugural $100,000 Ruth Awards

The Ruth Foundation for the Arts on February 1 revealed four winners of its newly established Ruth Award: Kite, Candice Lin, Joe Minter, and Rose B. Simpson. Given in recognition of “extraordinary, critically engaged artists who approach their practices with continuous inquiry, imagination, and rigor, and who are deserving of greater recognition for the fullness of their practice,” the $100,000 contemporary art prize comes with no strings attached. Whereas the Artist Choice prize administered by the foundation honors organizations nominated by artists, the Ruth Award turns the tables, with a panel of twelve curators nominating artists.RelatedEXPO CHICAGO ANNOUNCES PARTICIPANTS FOR 2024 EDITIONTITLE, THEME ANNOUNCED FOR SIXTH AICHI TRIENNALE The nominating curators this year were Dan Byers, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University; Ryan N. Dennis, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Adrienne Edwards, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Lauren Haynes, Queens Museum, New York; Katherine Jentleson, High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Bana Kattan, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Wanda Nanibush, independent curator; Sara Raza, independent curator; Reuben Roqueñi, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Maine; Victoria Sung, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California; Gaëtane Verna, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; and Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy, independent curator and writer.

“We received an impressive list of nominations from the curators this year, replete with thoughtful, engaged artists working across geographies and in distinctive forms,” said program director Kim Nguyen in a statement. “Their nomination descriptions were tremendously moving—a testament to the meaningful relationships formed between artists and curators. The inaugural awardees teach us that operating with mutual respect, trust, and care is perpetually rewarding, and that navigating the complexities of this world requires a dedication to making, being in relation with one another, and endless imagination.” Kite, an Oglála Lakȟóta artist, academic, and composer, investigates Lakȟóta mythologies, ontologies, and philosophies as well as computational systems, machine learning, and AI, exploring the dynamics between the individual and technology through a practice incorporating sound, video, sculpture, performance, installation, and writing. Working across multiple practices, Lin places organic and synthetic materials in the service of elaborate installations that probe subjects ranging from the consequences of colonization to fictions of authenticity and value systems established by global trade. Minter is a sculptor and installation artist with a background in the trades, which he brings to bear in sculptures, made of scrap metal and other discarded waste, that evoke complex histories of his family’s African ancestry.

Simpson, whose practice embraces ceramic sculpture, metalwork, performance, music, installation, writing, and car design, examines individual and sociopolitical impacts of a postmodern and postcolonial world. “Artists are makers, thinkers, teachers, neighbors, and organizers working across material intersections and through the most complex ideas,” said Ruth Foundation executive director Karen Patterson in a statement. “Artists have the capacity to reveal who we are as a people: past, present, and future, and we’re so proud to support these four artists who are rigorous in practice and thought, while epitomizing the broad impact artists have on our lives.”.