Ebony G. Patterson. | Courtesy John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
EMPLOYING BEAUTY, BLING, brilliant color, and the symbolism of the garden, Ebony G. Patterson, makes intensely layered and embellished works that explore complex themes—many of them not so pretty—including visibility, pageantry, violence, death, mourning, and regeneration. Over the past few years, the multimedia artist has expanded her portfolio and taken her two-decade practice to new heights and major recognition has followed.
In 2022, Patterson was named co-artistic director of Prospect.6, the contemporary art triennial that opens in New Orleans, La., in a few weeks on Nov. 2. More than 50 local, national, and international artist are participating in the citywide exhibition. Patterson is the first artist ever selected for the role. In 2023, she opened a unique exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden. “Ebony Patterson: …things come to thrive…in the shedding…in the molting…” presented new sculptures, horticultural installations, and interventions with live plants. The show was the result of a years-long engagement with the 250-acre institution—a National Historic Landmark and the largest garden in any U.S. city. Patterson was the first artist to embed with the institution for an immersive residency.
Last year, she joined a pantheon of artists, curators, and scholars recognized for their “field-defining” contributions to African American art when she received the 2023 David C. Driskell Prize, a $50,000 award bestowed up her at a gala celebration at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Ga. This week, Patterson is among 22 new MacArthur fellows, pioneers and innovators in their respective fields awarded grants of $800,000 (paid over five years in equal quarterly installments). The grants are unrestricted and the recipients are free to use the funds in any way they choose.
THE JOHN D. AND CATHERINE D. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION in Chicago, Ill., announced the 2024 recipients of what have become known as “genius” grants on Tuesday. The fellows include an oceanographer, legal scholar, historian, filmmaker, children’s book author, violinist, choreographer, and disability justice activist.
Four visual artists are also being recognized: media artist Tony Cokes (left); Justin Vivian Bond, an artist and performer who uses cabaret as a political platform to address challenges facing queer communities; Wendy Red Star, an enrolled member of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Tribe whose multidisciplinary work engages with archives and challenges colonial structures and narratives; and Patterson.
IMAGE: Above left, Tony Cokes. | Courtesy John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
In a statement, MacArthur Fellows Director Marlies Carruth emphasized the dedication, ingenuity, and sense of purpose exhibited across the work of the fellows:
“The 2024 MacArthur Fellows pursue rigorous inquiry with aspiration and purpose. They expose biases built into emerging technologies and social systems and fill critical gaps in the knowledge of cycles that sustain life on Earth. Their work highlights our shared humanity, centering the agency of disabled people, the humor and histories of Indigenous communities, the emotional lives of adolescents, and perspectives of rural Americans.”
THE MACARTHUR FELLOWS program was inaugurated in 1981. Martin Puryear was the first Black visual artist to become a MacArthur Fellow in 1989. Over the years, leading Black artists have been recognized with increased regularity. In 1997, Kerry James Marshall and Kara Walker received grants. In the past decade, MacArthur fellows have included Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Dawoud Bey, LaToya Ruby Frazier, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Jordan Casteel, Titus Kaphar, Carolyn Lazard, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Cameron Rowland, Joyce J. Scott. Curators Kellie Jones and Nicole Fleetwood, and Walter Hood, the landscape architect and artist, have also been honored with ‘genius’ grants.
The practices of this year’s fellows are disparate. However, both Cokes and Patterson have developed creative ways of looking at and understanding our experiences and the realities of our culture.
Cokes lives and works in Providence, R.I. His video works combine text with images and music bringing new context to historical and cultural moments. Cokes has married text with footage of 1960s uprisings in Watts and Detroit, for example, presented text more starkly against bright monochrome backgrounds, and considered text in relationship to music.
“I began to see the differences between the world as represented, say, in television or in media in general, and the world that I lived in. I think it’s a useful and healthy thing to be aware of the contradictions under which we live.” — Tony Cokes
Recently, Cokes received the Rome Prize (2022–23); Haus der Kunst and Kunstverein in Munich jointly organized a survey of Cokes in 2022; and the Dia Art Foundation presented a solo exhibition of the artist at The Dan Flavin Art Institute in Bridgehampton, N.Y. (2023–24).
“I enjoy thinking about the political possibilities and hidden meanings, if you will, of media that we are surrounded by on a day-to-day basis. I hope to produce new conditions for reading things that we think we understand in the world,” Cokes said in a MacArthur video.
“My work tends to not be documentary nor narrative. It’s like an essay film, taking a kind of short, maybe analytic approach to commonly seen and heard other media. So, in some ways, it’s either about art or about other media and its forms. I began to see the differences between the world as represented, say, in television or in media in general, and the world that I lived in. I think it’s a useful and healthy thing to be aware of the contradictions under which we live.”
Patterson, 43, splits her time between Chicago, Ill., and Kingston, Jamaica, where she was born. Her work spans painting, sculpture, installation, textiles, photography, video, and performance. “For me, beauty is a trap. As human beings, we are attracted to beautiful things. And I recognize the power in using all of the trappings of beauty,” Patterson said in a MacArthur video.
“I even think about the garden as bling, and it becomes a metaphor for me in thinking about the hierarchical structures that we have inherited systemically as it relates to race, class, and gender. There are spaces that are offered care because of the people that live in those spaces and then spaces that are not offered care because of the people that live in those spaces. You could decide only to stay in the surface of the work, but the minute you start to look inside, looking requires introspection. It raises questions. It’s kind of hard to see the work in the same way that you did initially.” CT
SEE FULL LIST of 2024 MacArthur Fellows
FIND MORE about how the MacArthur Fellows are selected
Media artist Tony Cokes is a 2024 ‘Genius’ Grant recipient. Explaining his work, he said: “I enjoy thinking about the political possibilities and hidden meanings, if you will, of media that we are surrounded by on a day-to-day basis.” | Video by MacArthur Foundation
2024 ‘Genius’ Grant recipient Ebony G. Patterson talks about her work. “I’m a multimedia artist. I use the language of painting to explore ideas around visibility and invisibility in our postcolonial society,” she said. | Video by MacArthur Foundation
FIND MORE about Ebony G. Patterson on her website and at Monique Meloche gallery
FIND MORE about Tony Cokes on Instagram and at Greene Naftali gallery
FIND MORE coverage of artists who have received MacArthur ‘genius’ grants over the past decade on Culture Type
BOOKSHELF
“If UR Reading This It’s 2 Late: Vol. 1-3: Tony Cokes” is the first monograph of the artist. The volume was published to accompany an international travel exhibitions across three institutions. His publications also include “Broadcasting: EAI at ICA” and “In Conversation, 2020–2021: Dialogues with Artists, Curators, and Scholars,” which was published last year. “Ebony G. Patterson: …while the dew is still on the roses…” accompanied a traveling museum exhibition organized by Pérez Art Museum Miami in Florida (2018-2020). “Coffee, Rhum, Sugar & Gold: A Postcolonial Paradox” documents a group traveling exhibition that opened at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco (2020) featuring 10 Caribbean contemporary artists, including Ebony G. Patterson. Also consider, “MacArthur Fellows: The First 25 Years, 1981-2005.”
