New York, New York/Washington, D.C—March 28, 2024—Dia and Sam Gilliam Foundation announced today that Ibrahim Mahama has been selected to receive the inaugural Sam Gilliam Award, which includes a $75,000 gift and the presentation of a public program at a Dia location in fall 2024. Established in 2023 by a generous gift from the Sam Gilliam Foundation and Annie Gawlak, president of the foundation and Gilliam’s widow, the award will be granted annually over 10 years to an artist working anywhere in the world who has made a significant contribution in any medium and for whom the award would be transformative. Reflecting the critical support that grants provided Gilliam in developing his practice, the Sam Gilliam Award advances the foundation’s commitment to continuing his legacy as a teacher and champion of artists, and extends Dia’s mission of supporting and providing an important platform for artists.

Selected as the inaugural Sam Gilliam Award recipient by a panel of five jurors comprising Jordan Carter, curator and co–department head, Dia Art Foundation, New York; Annie Gawlak, president, Sam Gilliam Foundation, Washington, D.C.; Courtney J. Martin, director, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; Emiliano Valdés, chief curator, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Colombia; and Zoé Whitley, director, Chisenhale Gallery, London, Ibrahim Mahama was chosen from a long list of artists nominated by a group of international curators and museum directors. Mahama was selected in response to his continuous growth as an artist, in terms of the complexity, scale, and responsiveness to site in his multifaceted material practice, as well the meaningful impact of his ambitious work as a community-oriented practitioner.

Deploying patchworks of reused materials in large-scale textile and found-object installations, Mahama transforms built environments and gallery interiors into spaces for critical reflection on the social lives of objects. Collaboration is key to his practice, as materials are collectively gathered, remade, and installed. Furthering a communal approach beyond his installations, Mahama channels proceeds from his work into establishing interdisciplinary institutions in Tamale, Ghana, utilizing a circular economy to drive cultural regeneration and social transformation.

“I am deeply honored to have been selected as the recipient of the Sam Gilliam Award. I was first introduced to Gilliam’s important work as a student by my mentor Kąrî'kạchä Seid'ou, and it has been greatly influential to me ever since. The most important aspect of any community is to share their many gifts, even if they are born out of precarity, for within that point do we expand freedom to all life forms,” said Ibrahim Mahama.

“Sam’s role as an educator and advocate for other artists, especially young and emerging, was of central importance to him and a critical component of his life’s work, and we are honored to continue his legacy in championing rising artists,” said Annie Gawlak. “Dia is the ideal partner for advancing Sam’s vision, and I’d like to thank them, the rest of the selection committee, and L. Franklin Gilliam, who participated in every step of the process, for bringing the award to fruition.”

“We are so pleased to announce Ibrahim Mahama as the first recipient of the Sam Gilliam Award. Mahama champions collaboration in his work; just as he gives renewed purpose to the materials he collects and recycles into artworks, he revitalizes his communities by turning castoff structures into institutions for convening, learning, art-making, and collective growth. This award honors both sides of his sophisticated practice,” said Jessica Morgan, Dia’s Nathalie de Gunzburg Director.

The Sam Gilliam Foundation selected Dia as their partner in developing the award based on the institution’s longstanding history of providing vital support to artists in the realization of ambitious projects and in building widespread public appreciation of their work. From 2019 to 2022, Dia presented a major installation of Gilliam’s work from the 1960s and 1970s that situated Gilliam’s practice in dialogue with that of his Minimal and Postminimal peers at Dia Beacon, highlighting his career-defining innovations. The long-term display featured two drape paintings, both titled Carousel II (1968), installed together by Gilliam to form Double Merge (1968). In 2021, Dia made the historic acquisition of Double Merge, thereby enshrining Gilliam’s work—and legacy—within its collection.

About Ibrahim Mahama

Ibrahim Mahama was born in Tamale, Ghana, in 1987. Solo exhibitions include those at KNUST Museum, Kumasi, Ghana (2013); Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2016); Norval Foundation, Cape Town (2019); Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester (2019); University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor (2020); the High Line, New York (2021); Frac Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, France (2022); Oude Kerk Amsterdam (2022); and Kunsthalle Osnabrück, Germany (2023). He has participated in group exhibitions at K21, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany (2015); the 56th Venice Biennale (2015); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen and Holbæk, Denmark (2016); MSU Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing (2016); Documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017);  Ghana Pavilion, 58th Venice Biennale (2019); 6th Biennale de Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (2019); 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020); Stellenbosch Triennale (2020); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020); the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2021); 35th Bienal de São Paulo (2023); 18th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (2023); and the 15th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2023). Mahama was appointed the artistic director of the 35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, Slovenia (2023). Upcoming exhibitions include a major commission at the Barbican Centre, London, opening in April 2024, and a solo exhibition at Fruitmaket, Edinburgh, opening in July 2024. He lives in Accra, Kumasi, and Tamale, Ghana.

About Dia Art Foundation

Taking its name from the Greek word meaning “through,” Dia was established in 1974 with the mission to serve as a conduit for artists to realize ambitious new projects, unmediated by overt interpretation and uncurbed by the limitations of more traditional museums and galleries. Dia’s programming fosters contemplative and sustained consideration of a single artist’s body of work, and its collection is distinguished by the deep and longstanding relationships that the nonprofit has cultivated with artists whose work came to prominence particularly in the 1960s and ’70s. 

In addition to Dia Beacon, Dia Bridgehampton, and Dia Chelsea, Dia maintains and operates a constellation of commissions, long-term installations, and site-specific projects, notably focused on Land art, nationally and internationally. These include: 

• Walter De Maria’s The New York Earth Room (1977) and The Broken Kilometer (1979), Max Neuhaus’s Times Square (1977), and Joseph Beuys’s 7000 Eichen (7000 Oaks, inaugurated in 1982 and ongoing), all located in New York
• De Maria’s The Lightning Field (1977), in western New Mexico
• Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970), in the Great Salt Lake, Utah
• Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973–76), in the Great Basin Desert, Utah
• De Maria’s The Vertical Earth Kilometer (1977), in Kassel, Germany 
• Cameron Rowland’s Depreciation (2018) 

About the Sam Gilliam Foundation

The Sam Gilliam Foundation advances the vision and values of abstract artist Sam Gilliam by organizing and supporting significant exhibitions of the artist’s work, fostering new research and publications, and collaborating with arts organizations and institutions on initiatives that extend Gilliam’s generosity and enthusiasm for supporting emerging and longtime artists, art students, scholars, curators, and the cultural ecosystem at large. Helmed by Annie Gawlak, the Foundation serves as a primary resource on the artist and a steward of his collection and archive, with important holdings of Gilliam’s work in a variety of mediums and original papers and materials pertaining to his life and work. In 2023, the Foundation expanded its mission to champion the work of rising artists by establishing the Sam Gilliam Award in partnership with Dia Art Foundation, annually bestowing $75,000 and an opportunity to present a public program at Dia to an artist who has made significant contributions to an artistic medium and for whom the grant would be transformational.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Dia Art Foundation

(U.S. press inquiries)
Hannah Gompertz
Dia Art Foundation
hgompertz@diaart.org
212.293.5598

Melissa Parsoff
Parsoff Communications
mparsoff@parsoff-communications.com
516.445.5899

(International press inquiries)
Sam Talbot
sam@sam-talbot.com
+44 (0) 772 5184 630

Sam Gilliam Foundation
Resnicow and Associates
Sarah McNaughton / Mia Litwak / Sophie Weinstein
smcnaughton@resnicow.com / mlitwak@resnicow.com / sweinstein@resnicow.com
212.671.5161 / 5168 / 5164