The Guggenheim Foundation has announced the 171 recipients of its 2023 fellowships. Recipients of this sought-after honor include painters, filmmakers, photographers, writers, architects, scientists, anthropologists, engineers, historians and mathematicians. . Forty-two disciplines and areas of interest are represented this year, with recipients spanning twenty-four states, the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces. A number of fellows are working on projects addressing issues such as the lasting effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, democracy and policing, scientific innovation, climate change and identity. Each scholarship comes with funds: since the amount awarded varies from recipient to recipient, the foundation does not disclose individual funding.
“Like Emerson, I believe that fulfillment in life comes from following our calling,” Guggenheim Foundation President Edward Hirsch, himself a poetry scholar in 1985, said in a statement. The new class of Fellows has followed their call to improve all of our lives, to provide greater human knowledge and deeper understanding. We are lucky to count on them to lead us into the future.
Among the winners in artistic and cultural disciplines is Lavar Munroe, whose Fine Arts Fellowship was underwritten by Robert De Niro in honor of the actor, painter and Guggenheim Fellow’s father in 1968. Munroe’s work is centered on his upbringing in the Bahamas and explores themes of resilience, memory, ancestry and fantasy. Other new fellows include Kapwani Kiwanga, a Paris-based anthropologist and social scientist who examines themes of mutation, Afrofuturism, belief systems and popular culture through installation, sound , video and performance; Jiwa Moon, born in Daegu, South Korea, who through gesture paintings, mixed media, ceramic sculptures and installations investigates issues of identity and the global movement of people and cultures; and Tokyo-born, Minneapolis-based ceramic artist Tetsuya Yamada, who explores concepts such as rhythm, memory, and the human connection to the natural world.
A complete list of recipients is available on the the foundation’s website.
