Aspen/Snowmass, Colo. (April 11, 2017) — Anderson Ranch Arts Center, a premier destination in America for art making and critical dialogue, celebrates creativity and service to the arts by recognising the accomplishments and contributions of key figures in the art world. This summer Anderson Ranch will honour Wangechi Mutu with the National Artist Award, Jan and Ronnie Greenberg with the Service to the Arts Award and Ann Korologos with the Extraordinary Leadership Award at its 21st Annual Recognition Dinner. The gala evening will take place on July 20, 2017.
Wangechi Mutu – Credit Jennifer Trahan.
ABOUT THE AWARDS
The National Artist Award is given to nationally or internationally recognised artists who have created innovations in art education, and whose careers have set an example and a direction for other artists. Past recipients include Carrie Mae Weems, Frank Stella, Theaster Gates, Bill Viola, Cindy Sherman, Vik Muniz, Laurie Anderson, Christo and Jeanne-Claude and others.
The Service to the Arts Award is given to locally and nationally recognized arts advocates whose efforts have supported artists and arts institutions and who have made contributions to the cultural and social life of our country, representing the highest level of leadership, integrity and vision. Prior recipients include Eleanore and Domenico De Sole, Jennifer and David Stockman, Debra and Dennis Scholl, Jane and Marc Nathanson and Soledad and Robert Hurst, among others.
The Extraordinary Leadership Award is given to longtime patrons of Anderson Ranch who have distinguished themselves through their outstanding leadership and significant sustained efforts to the advancement of the Ranch and its mission.
Wangechi Mutu, Rose Quartz, 2016. Red soil, paper pulp, wood glue, wood, (Croton Megalocarpus, Rhus Natalensis), rose quartz, 25 x 11 x 13 in. Courtesy of the Artist and Gladstone Gallery. Photo Credit: David Regen
ABOUT THE HONOUREES
Wangechi Mutu
Wangechi Mutu is a Kenyan Artist who works in New York and Nairobi. She studied at The Cooper Union and received her M.A. from Yale University School of Art. Mutu most recently participated in 56th International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Venice Biennale (2015). She has exhibited in solo shows worldwide including the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum, Berlin; Musée D’art Contemporain de Montréal; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the Brooklyn Museum and the Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC., among others. Upcoming Mutu will present solo exhibitions at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium and The Contemporary Austin, TX. She is the recipient of the American Foundation of Arts Cultural Leadership Award (2016), United States Artist Grant (2014) and both the Brooklyn Museum (2013) and the Deutsche Guggenheim (2010) Artist of the Year Award. Through a variety of media, including painting, collage, sculpture, installation and video, her work explores questions about self-image, gender constructs, cultural trauma and environmental destruction. With hybrid, morphed and organic forms, Mutu arouses the consciousness of inherent alienations, and proposes the position of identity as performative, in order to withstand social norms and rewrite the rules that bind our imagination. In Mutu’s worlds, the body is a contested space and a testing ground for both the making and the reimagining our relationship with the natural world and with social forces. Her work presents a visceral and compelling alternative to the traditional and dominant modes of representation.
Wangechi Mutu, The End of eating Everything, 2013. Animated video (color, sound), 8 minutes, 10 seconds. Edition of 6, Courtesy of the artist, Gladstone Gallery and Victoria Miro Gallery. Commissioned by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC.
“Art is my way of speaking about things that are unspeakable, it is my truest voice and my strongest form of resistance,” said Mutu in a statement. “It is such a privilege to be recognised in these times for doing what I most love doing, it gives my work more urgency. I know we can do better for one another and for our earth, and I am deeply committed to using creative means to bring attention to violence and inequality against women and to the parallel destruction of our Earth.”
Jan Greenberg
Jan Greenberg is a graduate of Washington University (B.A. in English Literature) and Webster University (M.A.). She served as director of the Aesthetic Education Program at Webster University and is also a frequent guest author and lecturer at literature festivals and art museums. In addition to short stories and articles, Greenberg has written 23 books of fiction and nonfiction for young readers, including Andy Warhol, Prince of Pop; Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist and Chuck Close Up Close, and is currently working on her forthcoming book, Meet Cindy Sherman/Artist Photographer Chameleon. Greenberg has received numerous literary awards such as the New York Times Book of the Year, three Sibert Honor Awards and a Printz Honor Award. She has received many honors, including the Webster University School of Education “Outstanding Alumnus Award” in 2001 and received the Children’s Literary Guild Non-Fiction Award for her body of work in 2015. She and her husband Ronnie live in St. Louis, Missouri and Aspen, Colorado.
Ronnie Greenberg
Ronald K. Greenberg is the owner and founder of The Greenberg Gallery in St. Louis, Missouri, which opened in 1972. His mission was to bring historic contemporary art and artists to the Midwest. He continued his commitment both to the artists who first inspired him, as well as to many younger artists at his New York and St. Louis galleries. He is a founding member of Laumeier Sculpture Park, and has served on the boards of the Art Dealers Association of America and Grand Center, the art and entertainment area of St. Louis. He serves on the National Council of the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University and on the Clayton Public Art Advisory Committee. In 2008 he and his wife, Jan, received the Laumeier Sculpture Park Honorary Award, and together they received the Webster University Visionary Award in 2013.
Ann Korologos
An avid art collector, Ann McLaughlin Korologos expressed her life-long love of art by taking classes at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in the early 1990s. Her passion for art and artists has been a wonderful complement to her professional career. Korologos served as U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Ronald Reagan from 1987-1989. She is Chairman Emeritus of the RAND Board of Trustees and Chairman Emeritus of The Aspen Institute. She recently retired as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Anderson Ranch Arts Center. In 1990, she was Chairman of the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism investigating the downing of Pan Am 103. Korologos has been a member of several corporate boards and is presently a Director of Host Hotels and Resorts and Michael Kors. She serves on several non- profit boards including The Dana Foundation, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, Cristo Rey Network and Colorado Mountain College Advisory Board. She has been awarded several honorary degrees including Marymount College (Tarrytown, New York), University of Rhode Island, New England School of Law and the College of St. Elizabeth, Tri-State University and Pardee RAND Graduate School. She is a native of Chatham, N.J., and earned a B.A. degree from Marymount College and studied at the University of London and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Ann and her husband, Tom, live in Basalt, Colorado, and Washington, D.C. She is the owner of the Ann Korologos Gallery in Basalt.
ABOUT ANDERSON RANCH ARTS CENTER
Founded in 1966, Anderson Ranch Arts Center is a premier destination in America for art making and critical dialogue, bringing together aspiring and internationally renowned artists to discuss and further their work in a stimulating environment. Nestled in the Rocky Mountains of Aspen/Snowmass, Colorado, the Ranch hosts extensive workshops for aspiring, emerging and established artists in eight disciplines,
including Photography & New Media, Ceramics, Painting & Drawing, Furniture Design & Woodworking, Sculpture, Woodturning, Printmaking and Digital Fabrication. In addition to the Summer Series: Featured Artists & Conversations, the Ranch hosts engaging events throughout the year including: the Recognition Dinner, held in honor of Anderson Ranch’s National Artist Award and Service to the Arts Award honorees (July 20, 2017); the Annual Art Auction & Community Picnic (August 5, 2017), a thirty-seven-year-old tradition which features works of local, national and international artists; and a year-round Artists-in- Residence Program, fostering artistic growth for emerging and established visual artists. For over 50 years Anderson Ranch Arts Center has been working to enrich lives with art, inspiration and community. Learn more at www.andersonranch.org
