{"id":1830016,"date":"2026-03-16T14:18:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T11:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1830016"},"modified":"2026-03-16T14:18:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T11:18:00","slug":"senga-nengudi-david-thomson-win-rauschenberg-centennial-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1830016","title":{"rendered":"Senga Nengudi, David Thomson Win Rauschenberg Centennial Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/David-Thomson-Performance-from-The-Venus-Knot.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tThe Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has announced the winners of its Rauschenberg Centennial Awards, which come with unrestricted grants of $100,000 each.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Rauschenberg Centennial Awards are given in four disciplines, and their winners are as follows: Senga Nengudi for art; David Thomson for performance; Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun for photography; and Patricia Spears Jones for writing.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe awards were established to celebrate the influential postwar artist\u2019s centennial birthday, in October 2025. Winners were selected from a pool of past attendees and invitees to the foundation\u2019s Captiva Residency program in Florida, which was established in 2012 and has hosted over 500 artists.<\/p>\n

\n\tA panel of external judges in each discipline provided holistic reviews for the winners, \u201ctaking into account artistic excellence, the depth and significance of each artist\u2019s body of work, impact beyond their primary medium, community engagement, and education and mentorship,\u201d according to a release.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"View<\/div>\n<\/div>
Senga Nengudi, Detail ACQ Installation Component<\/em>, 2017.<\/span>Photo Thomas Erben<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tNengudi is among her generation\u2019s most influential artists, with a five-decade career that encompasses sculpture, installation, performance, dance, film, and photography. She is best-known for her \u201cR.S.V.P.\u201d series, soft sculptures from the 1970s in which she filled pantyhose with sand and stretched them into various compositions. Several of her works are on long-term via at Dia Beacon in Upstate New York, including her \u201cWater Compositions.\u201d A traveling retrospective of her work made stops in Munich, S\u00e3o Paulo, Denver and Philadelphia between 2019 and 2021, and she won the 2023 Nasher Prize for sculpture. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAvant garde artist Senga Nengudi is a lodestar for generations of artists who have centered questions that bridge social, political and philosophical concerns,\u201d artist Nyeema Morgan said in a statement. \u201cWhat it means to be present in one\u2019s own body and the conditions that influence our engagement with each other and the world have been central for her nearly fifty-year career. She has committed to taking bold risks in her work, eschewing categorization and prioritizing a spirit of camaraderie through her collaborations and teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThomson\u2019s practice foregrounds collaboration and stretches into multiple disciplines, including music, dance, theater, and performance. Active since the 1980s, Thomson has produced work with Yvonne Rainer, Ralph Lemon, Matthew Barney, Lee Mingwei and Bill T Jones, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Lucinda Childs, among others. He was a founding member of the Bebe Miller & Company and also performed with the Trisha Brown Company.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDavid Thomson is a singular agent for dance and performance, empowering both performers and audiences, the stage and the archive,\u201d Stuart Comer, chief curator of media and performance at the Museum of Modern Art, said in a statement. \u201cHe carries the full weight of New York\u2019s remarkable dance history in his body, as he performs at the crossroads of a singular, intergenerational network of artists, whose work he has brought to vivid life. \u2026 Thomson has routinely demonstrated the urgency of building culture, sustaining communities, and creating living archives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
Chandra McCormick, Men Going to Work in the Fields of Angola<\/em>, 2004.<\/span>Courtesy the artists<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tMcCormick and Calhoun are a husband-and-wife duo whose photographic work spans for than three decades, with a focus on their native Louisiana. Their work has been included in the 2015 Venice Biennale and the 2014 edition of Prospect New Orleans.<\/p>\n

\n\tPhotographer An-My L\u00ea said in a statement that their \u201clife\u2019s work constitutes an expansive documentation not only of the daily life in Louisiana over the past thirty-five years, but also of the criminal and environmental justice systems, the enduring legacies of slavery, and the complexities of African American experience in the American South. Their body of work reflects a sustained and deeply passionate commitment\u2014one that merits careful recognition, critical engagement, and long-term preservation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJones is a poet and educator who is the author of several collections of poetry, including The Beloved Community <\/em>(2023) and The Weather That Kills<\/em> (1995). She is co-editor of anthologies like Ordinary Women: An Anthology of New York City Women\u00a0<\/em>(1978) and\u00a0THINK: Poems for Aretha Franklin\u2019s Inauguration Day Hat\u00a0<\/em>(2009). In 2015, she was among 10 poets commissioned by MoMA to produce a new work in response to Jacob Lawrence\u2019s \u201cMigration Series.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis award celebrates the extraordinary, interdisciplinary achievements of Patricia Spears Jones, including her forward-thinking poetry, ecological stewardship, and community-oriented work on all levels,\u201d Catherine Taft, deputy director of the Brick in Los Angeles, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement, Rauschenberg Foundation executive director Courtney J. Martin said, \u201cIt is a privilege for the Foundation to recognize the work of these individuals on the occasion of the artist\u2019s centennial year. Each of them has made an extraordinary impact in his or her respective field, exemplifying Rauschenberg\u2019s collaborative spirit, social consciousness, and commitment to experimentation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/rauschenberg-centennial-award-senga-nengudi-david-thomson-1234777484\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/David-Thomson-Performance-from-The-Venus-Knot.jpg?w=1024″] The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has announced the winners of its Rauschenberg Centennial Awards, which come with unrestricted grants of $100,000 each. The Rauschenberg Centennial Awards are given in four disciplines, and their winners are as follows: Senga Nengudi for art; David Thomson for performance; Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun for photography; and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1830016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1830016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1830016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1830016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1830016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1830016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1830016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}