The prize, established by Dia Art Foundation and the Sam Gilliam Foundation, comes with a $75,000 gift and public programme at Dia.
The Ghanaian sculptor, textile and installation artist Ibrahim Mahama has won the inaugural Sam Gilliam Award, a prize created last year by Dia Art Foundation and the Sam Gilliam Foundation in honour of the late artist’s legacy.
Mahama will receive $75,000 and be featured in a public programme at Dia in autumn of this year. The award will be given out annually through 2033.
“I was first introduced to Gilliam’s important work as a student by my mentor Kąrî’kạchä Seid’ou, and it has been greatly influential on me ever since,” Mahama said in a statement.
“The most important aspect of any community is to share their many gifts, even if they are born out of precarity, for within that point do we expand freedom for all life forms.”
