Alex Katz, Carrie Mae Weems Receive National Medal of the Arts

Carrie Mae Weems, Alex Katz, and Mark Bradford have been awarded the National Medal of Arts, a designation for US artists and philanthropists given out by the government. The merit is decided by the Presidentially appointed National Council on the Arts, an advisory committee overseeing public culture funding.

The artists will being recognized today during a formal White House ceremony in Washington D.C. that honors recipients from 2022 and 2023. It is the last ceremony centered around the national arts award to be led by President Biden ahead of the November presidential elections.

Weems is known for her photographic work exploring race in America and is currently the subject of a survey at CCS Bard’s museum. Katz, the subject of a 2022 Guggenheim Museum retrospective, is known for his spare portraits of people in his circle. The two artists were part of the 2022 and 2023 classes of awards recipients, respectively.

Bradford, the youngest of the three contemporary art figures to receive the designation, was also among the 2023 recipients. He is known for abstractions that allude to aspects of Black history, some of which figured in his United States Pavilion for the 2017 Venice Biennale.

Also among the awards recipients for 2022 and 2023 are filmmakers Spike Lee and Ken Burns, as well as the late sculptor Ruth Asawa. Jo Carole Lauder, a New York-based art collector active in donor circles in the Washington D.C. area, was also named a recipient.