ArtNet

The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas announced today that Michael Rakowitz has been awarded the 2020 Nasher Prize. With the award, which is given annually to a living artist whose work pushes the limits of sculpture, the Chicago-based artist will take home $100,000 to be put toward future projects. 

Rakowitz’s heavily research-based work straddles sculpture and installation and contends with contentious historical legacies, from the US invasion of Iraq to the shooting of Tamir Rice by police in Cleveland, Ohio. He made headlines this year when he withdrew from the 2019 Whitney Biennial months before it even opened, making him the first artist to speak out again what he called the “toxic philanthropy” of the museum’s then-vice chair, Warren Kanders.

“Michael Rakowitz’s work bridges, on the one hand, social sculpture—what we’ve come to call relational aesthetics—and embodied material work on sculpture, with a great sense of humor and a great sense of empathy,” Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, a juror on the prize’s awarding committee, said in a statement. “Michael’s work is about healing and about how to take the problem of cultural destruction and transform that into a resource for a very optimistic vision of the reconstruction of our society.”