The Dia Art Foundation in New York has announced that Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama has won the inaugural Sam Gilliam Prize, along with $75,000 and a public program at one of Dia’s residences.
The Sam Gilliam Award was established last year by the late artist’s foundation and his widow, Annie Gawla, as foundation president. Planned to award the award annually for the next decade, the award will be given to “an artist who has made a significant contribution in any medium and works anywhere in the world for whom the award would be transformative,” according to a statement.
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This distinction is intended to honor Gilliam’s legacy in many ways. Beginning in the 1960s, Gilliam spread the canvases out of their spaces and hung his abstractions loosely, often covering the center of the room. Gilliam, who died in 2022 at the age of 88, is now the XX. He is considered one of the most significant artists working in the last part of the 20th century.
Gilliam’s work has enjoyed an institutional revival in recent years, with Dia exhibiting Gilliam’s major works at its Beacon residence from 2019 to 2022. After all, the foundation bought it together. Double addition (1968) for its permanent collection with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
In a statement, Gawlak said: “Sam’s role as an educator and advocate for other artists, especially young and emerging ones, was of the utmost importance to him and was a critical component of his life’s work, and we are honored to enhance his legacy. with following artists. Dia is the perfect partner to carry Sam’s vision forward.”
Mahama is known for his use of jute sacks which he has turned into monumental installations, as he did at the 2015 Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui Enwezor. Mahama sews these commonly found jute sacks and drapes them over various architectural structures, as he has done in various cities in Ghana. Mahama also works collaboratively, as her materials are sourced in the community, and she uses the money she earns from her artwork to support the economy and organizations in Tamale, Ghana, where she was born.
Mahama said in a statement that since his mentor Kąrî’káchä Seid’ou introduced Gilliam’s work, “he has had a profound influence on me ever since. The most important aspect of any community is the sharing of their many gifts, even if they are born out of precarity, at that point because within it we extend freedom to all forms of life.”
Gawla was elected by a five-member board; Jordan Carter, Dia curator and department head; Emiliano Valdés, chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Medellín, Colombia; Zoé Whitley, director of Chisenhale Gallery, London; and Courtney J. Martin, newly appointed director of the Rauschenberg Foundation and former chief curator and deputy director of Dia.
The jury selected Mahama from a group of artists “in response to his continued growth as an artist, in terms of complexity, scale and responsiveness to the site for his diverse material practices, as well as the significant impact of his ambitious work as a community-oriented practitioner,” according to a statement.
In a statement, Dia director Jessica Morgan said: “Mahama champions collaboration in her work; Just as he gives renewed purpose to the materials he collects and recycles into artworks, he revitalizes his communities by turning discarded structures into institutions for gathering, learning, art-making and collective growth. This award rewards both sides of his sophisticated practice.’
