New York–based nonprofit Unbiased Curators Worldwide (ICI) has introduced Candice Hopkins as the winner of its 2022 Leo Award. Hopkins, a Carcross/Tagish 1st Nation citizen, is the 1st director and chief curator of Taghkanic, New York’s Forge Challenge, a Native-led initiative released in 2021 and concentrating on “Indigenous artwork, decolonial instruction, and supporting leaders in lifestyle, meals protection, and land justice.” She will share the prize with the nonprofit American Indian Neighborhood House, a New York nonprofit that assists Native People residing in the metropolitan location and runs the exhibition house AICH Gallery.
“All of us at ICI are so deeply grateful to Candice for the chance to do the job with her,” mentioned ICI government and artistic director Renaud Proch, “and we are proud to recognize her alongside the American Indian Local community House—and so quite a few persons who have accompanied them along the way—for their tireless operate to market Native American present-day artwork. This year’s honorees characterize the likely of curatorial perform to make heritage each and every day to create spaces for artists who open our eyes to a advanced being familiar with of the environment and to put people today in connection to just one yet another, strengthening communities via artwork.”
Hopkins is perfectly recognised for elevating the get the job done of Indigenous artists. She was senior curator of the two the inaugural Toronto Biennial of Artwork, in 2019, and its next iteration, which took put this 12 months. She served as a member of the curatorial teams arranging, respectively, the Canadian Pavilion at the Fifty-Eighth Venice Biennale, in 2019, and Documenta 14, in 2017. Hopkins has in addition cocurated a range of pathbreaking group exhibitions centered on Indigenous artists, which includes, for ICI, “Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Areas,” which has traveled to 7 venues considering that opening in 2019 “Art for a New Comprehending: Native Voices, 1950s to Now,” at Crystal Bridges Museum for American Artwork in Bentonville, Arkansas (2018) “Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art” at the Countrywide Gallery of Canada, Ontario (2013) and the multi-venue “Close Encounters: The Upcoming 500 Years” in Winnipeg (2009).
Named for famous artwork supplier Leo Castelli, the Leo Award is given in recognition of an exceptional contribution to the discipline of up to date art. Previous recipients of the prize incorporate collector Dimitris Daskalopoulos, gallerist Marian Goodman, Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan, filmmaker Steve McQueen, vogue designer Miuccia Prada, and collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.