Alfredo Jaar Recipient of the 65th Edward MacDowell Medal
Join 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.
Ceremony: 12:15 p.m.
Picnic Lunch: 1:15 p.m.
Open Studios: 2 - 4 p.m.
We are excited to welcome the public to MacDowell for this year's Medal Day, which will feature the presentation of the 65th Edward MacDowell Medal to Jaar in a ceremony featuring a presentation speech from leading curator Ned Rifkin. Following the ceremony, attendees are invited to picnic on the MacDowell grounds, with picnic lunches from Fiddleheads Cafe available for advance purchase. Guests can explore all 450 acres of MacDowell's historic grounds and visit our 31 open, working artist studios to see art being created and speak with the artists-in-residence.
Sarah Arison (President, Arison Arts Foundation and Board President, MoMA) chaired this year’s Medal selection panel, which included luminaries of the arts world including Michi Jigarjian, Connie Butler, Derrick Adams, Franklin Sirmans, Koyo Kouoh, Dahlia Elsayed, and José Parlá.
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, we invite you to become a sponsor! Sponsors are welcome to join us at the Saturday Benefit, an evening for MacDowell board, supporters, MacDowell supporters, New Hampshire community members, and artists-in-residence. The Benefit will feature cocktails, speeches, 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. A festive Saturday night followed by a leisurely Sunday stroll through the studios - we hope you'll agree that it's the perfect summer weekend to enjoy with friends and family.
Sponsorship packages and tickets for the Benefit can be purchased using the ticketing form below. For any questions regarding sponsorship, to purchase tickets for the Saturday Medal Day Benefit, or general event questions, please contact events@macdowell.org. Place your sponsorship by Friday, May 30 to appear in our printed program.
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.
Medal Day Host Committee
Co-chairs:
Sarah Garland-Hoch
Monica Lehner
Jessica Quinn
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
