Alfredo Jaar Recipient of the 65th Edward MacDowell Medal
Thank you for joining us on Sunday, June 29, for MacDowell’s annual Medal Day celebration honoring Chilean-born visual artist, architect, and filmmaker Alfredo Jaar with the 65th Edward MacDowell Medal.
From our generous donors and visionary artists to our dedicated board, talented chefs, gracious guests, and hardworking grounds crew, we are grateful for your presence and support, which shaped a beautiful day celebrating the remarkable Alfredo Jaar and the arts. It was a resounding success—marked by the resilience of our community, joyful reunions, and thoughtful conversations. Each year, we look forward to sharing not only the visible outcomes of our work, but also the quiet creativity that flourishes here every day.
We were delighted to welcome the public back to MacDowell for this year’s Medal Day, celebrating the presentation of the 65th Edward MacDowell Medal to acclaimed visual artist Alfredo Jaar. The day featured powerful speeches honoring Jaar’s profound impact on contemporary art. In his acceptance speech, Jaar dedicated the medal to the late visionary curator Koyo Kouoh and closed with a stirring call to action, urging the audience to stand up for the world they believe in.
After the ceremony, guests enjoyed picnics with lunches provided by Fiddleheads Cafe and spent the afternoon exploring MacDowell’s 450-acre historic campus. Visitors toured artist studios and connected with current Fellows, gaining a firsthand look at where and how art is made.
This year’s celebration also included two exciting new programs that brought the wider MacDowell community together: a literary conversation with Pulitzer-honored writers Lucy Sante and Alexandra Lange on June 26, and an afternoon of open studios spotlighting the artists and local businesses of Historic Harrisville on June 28. Learn more about these events here.
Thank you to our generous Supporters
Medal Day is made possible and remains free and open to the public thanks to the generous support of individual contributors and business sponsors.
This Medal Day, sponsors joined us for the Medal Day Benefit, held the night before the main Medal Day ceremony. The Benefit was an evening for the our community to gather in support of MacDowell and in celebration of the arts. The night featured cocktails, speeches, a stunning dinner prepared by Chef Erik Johansen and the MacDowell kitchen, remarks from award-winning author and MacDowell Fellow Roxana Robinson, live music from the Witness Matlou Trio, and dancing, all under our Medal Day tent.
If you would like to support Medal Day 2026, or make a donation to MacDowell today, please click the donation button below. For any questions, please contact events@macdowell.org.
Thank You to Our Sponsors
Alfredo Jaar, Recipient of the 65th Edward MacDowell Medal
Alfredo Jaar is an artist, photographer, architect, and filmmaker who lives and works in New York. His work has been shown extensively around the world. He has participated in the Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007, 2009, 2013), Sao Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010, 2021) as well as Documenta in Kassel (1987, 2002).
Important individual exhibitions include The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1992); Whitechapel, London (1992); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1994); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1995); and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2005). Major recent surveys of his work have taken place at Musée des Beaux Arts, Lausanne (2007); Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2008); Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlinische Galerie and Neue Gesellschaft fur bildende Kunst e.V., Berlin (2012); Rencontres d’Arles (2013); KIASMA, Helsinki (2014); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK (2017); Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa (2020); SESC Pompeia, Sao Paulo (2021), Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima (2023), and KINDL, Berlin (2024).
The artist has realized more than seventy public interventions around the world. Over eighty monographic publications have been published about his work. He became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a MacArthur Fellow in 2000. He received the Hiroshima Art Prize in 2018 and the Hasselblad Award in 2020. In 2024 he was awarded the IV Albert Camus Mediterranean Prize.
His work can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum, New York; Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MOCA and LACMA, Los Angeles; MASP, Museu de Arte de São Paulo; TATE, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centro Reina Sofia, Madrid; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; MAXXI and MACRO, Rome; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlaebeck; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art and Tokushima Modern Art Museum, Japan; M+, Hong Kong; and dozens of institutions and private collections worldwide.
About the Edward MacDowell Medal
The Edward MacDowell Medal has been awarded annually since 1960 to an individual artist who has made an outstanding contribution to their field. These artists include Leonard Bernstein, John Updike, Georgia O'Keeffe, I.M. Pei, Stephen Sondheim, and Toni Morrison. The artistic discipline in which the award is given rotates in order to celebrate all of the creative fields practiced at MacDowell. Following the ceremony, visitors enjoy a picnic lunch and tour open studios. Both the award ceremony and the open studios are free, and open to the public.
Alfredo Jaar was chosen by this year’s Medal selection panel, chaired by Sarah Arison (President, Arison Arts Foundation and Board President, MoMA) and including luminaries of the arts world including Michi Jigarjian, Connie Butler, Derrick Adams, Franklin Sirmans, the late Koyo Kouoh, Dahlia Elsayed, and José Parlá.
Medal Day Host Committee
Co-chairs:
Sarah Garland-Hoch
Monica Lehner
Jessica Quinn
Andi Axman
Ellen and Ed Bernard
Eleanor Briggs
Ellen and Thomas Draper
Amelia Dunlop
Clover Fiandaca
Frank Guerra and Scott Manning
Susie Hackler and Jason Reimers
Jeanne Henriques
Rosemary James
Emily Noelle Lambert
Mollie Miller
Jim Schachter
Jeannie Suk Gersen and Jacob Gersen
Jamie Trowbridge
Edward MacDowell Medalist
Alfredo Jaar, the 65th Edward MacDowell Medalist, is a Chilean-born artist, photographer, architect, and filmmaker who lives and works in New York. His work has been shown extensively around the world. The artist has realized more than seventy public interventions around the world. Over eighty monographic publications have been published…
Artists of Medal Day