The newly established Serpentine x The FLAG Art Foundation Prize has revealed the international selection committee that will choose its inaugural winner — and it’s a serious line-up of curatorial and artistic heavyweights.
Tasked with selecting the first recipient of what is the largest contemporary art prize in the UK awarded to a single artist, the jury brings together museum leaders, influential curators and one of contemporary art’s most important artists. The committee includes Michelle Kuo, Chief Curator at Large and Publisher at The Museum of Modern Art; Venus Lau, director of Museum MACAN; Hans Ulrich Obrist; Jon Rider; and artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, whose participatory practice has helped redefine contemporary art over the past three decades.
Together, the five-person panel represents a genuinely international view of contemporary practice — spanning institutional leadership, curatorial innovation and artist-led thinking — setting a high bar for what the prize intends to champion.
The inaugural jury convened in London on 23rd April to make its selection, with the first recipient set to be announced on 12th May.
Awarding £200,000 biennially over the next decade — totalling £1 million across five artists — the prize is designed to give artists the rarest commodity in today’s art world: time, freedom and meaningful financial support. Each recipient will be given the resources to develop a substantial new body of work, culminating in a major exhibition at Serpentine in London before travelling to The FLAG Art Foundation in New York.
But for now, attention turns to the selectors — a committee whose collective experience spans global museums, major biennials, critical publishing and groundbreaking artistic practice.
Who they choose first will say a great deal about where contemporary art is heading next.
About
The FLAG Art Foundation is a non-collecting, nonprofit exhibition space that mounts solo, two-person, and thematic group exhibitions centering on emerging and established artists from around the globe. Organized by a diverse community of curators and thinkers within and beyond the art world, FLAG opened to the public in 2008 and has staged over 100 exhibitions celebrating the work of nearly 1,000 artists. Committed to providing education and resources for its surrounding community, and across New York City, all exhibitions and programs—including artist talks, artist-led workshops, and guided tours for school and museum groups—are free and open to the public.
The FLAG Art Foundation was founded by Glenn Fuhrman, an art patron and philanthropist, and alongside his wife Amanda, a Co-Founder of The Fuhrman Family Foundation. During his undergraduate studies, he studied Art History in London at University College London (UCL). Fuhrman is a Trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, The Tate Americas Foundation, New York, NY, and is a Board Member of The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, PA. He is also a Board Member of the 92nd Street Y, New York, and The Central Park Conservancy, New York, NY. @flagartfoundation
