Art Movements: And the $100K Rauschenberg Award Goes to...
Winners of the Rauschenberg Centennial Award, Madeleine Grynsztejn leaves MCA Chicago, Banksy is (maybe) unmasked, and other industry news this week.
Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other happenings in today’s chaotic art world.
A Birthday Present From Rauschenberg
In honor of the 100th anniversary of the painter and multimedia artist's birth, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is presenting a one-time award of $100,000 to four artists. Senga Nengudi won the Rauschenberg Centennial Award for visual art, David Thomson for performance, Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun for photography, and Patricia Spears Jones for writing.
What Else Happened?
- Emerson Bowyer was named chief curator of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.
- Julian Cox will step down as deputy director and chief curator of the Art Gallery of Ontario next month, after controversy over a halted plan to acquire a Nan Goldin work.
- Madeleine Grynsztejn will depart from her post as director of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art at the end of the year.
- The Frick Collection has a new chief librarian! Luciano Johnson, whose accomplishments include leading the Mellon Foundation-funded digitization of over 1.5 million pages of archival materials at the museum, begins his new role next week.
- Jitish Kallat will be the next president of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2027.
- Helen Legg, the current director of the Tate Liverpool, was named artistic director of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
- Jac Leirner is now represented by Nara Roesler gallery.
- Liz Munsell was named Powerhouse Arts’ new vice president of Curatorial and Arts Programs, and Constanza Valenzuela was named associate curator at the Brooklyn organization. The appointments come as Powerhouse Arts prepares to launch the inaugural edition of its art fair, Conductor, in April.
- Trevor Paglen is the recipient of the 2026 LG Guggenheim Award.
- Smiljan Radić was awarded the Pritzker Prize in architecture, which was delayed this year following revelations about sponsor Tom Pritzker’s ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
- Alissa Schapiro was named senior curator of the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley.
- James Taylor-Foster was named executive director of Para Site in Hong Kong.
- Toleen Touq was appointed curator for MOMENTA 2027 in Montreal, Canada.
Wildcard
Banksy's been unmasked ... maybe? Reuters claims to have identified the elusive graffiti artist as a man once known as Robin Gunningham, now reportedly going by "David Jones." I think "Banksy" has a better ring to it, personally — some things might be better left a mystery. The artist's lawyer, for the record, has fiercely denied the claims.
