Amarie Gipson Named Recipient of the 2024 Irving Sandler Award for New Voices in Art Criticism
June 03, 2024
AICA-USA is pleased to announce Amarie Gipson as the recipient of the 2024 AICA-USA Irving Sandler Award for New Voices in Art Criticism. After rigorous review by our Awards Committee, Gipson was selected to receive the award of $2,500 and is commended for the uniqueness of her critical voice and the consistency and quality of her work.
Amarie Gipson is a Houston-born critic, cultural worker and creative entrepreneur. She has held curatorial positions at various art institutions including The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Independently, her writing has been published in Artforum, ArtNews, ESSENCE, and many others. She is the first Editor-at-Large in Houston for Atlanta-based publication Burnaway and the former Arts & Culture editor of Houstonia. With nearly a decade of experience in the realms of fine art, music and media, Gipson founded The Reading Room, a Black art reference library made from her personal collection of books on Black art and cultural production.
Shortlisted and also notable candidates for this award are Daniel Felsenthal and Jameson Johnson.
Four members of the AICA-USA Awards committee participated in the nomination, reviewing, and selection of the final candidates: Ekin Erkan, John Ravenal, Maika Pollack, and Amei Wallach. The final candidate selection was by the AICA-USA Board of Directors.
AICA-USA created the award in honor of the late Irving Sandler, esteemed art critic and valued board member and friend, who tirelessly illuminated the role of art, artists and art criticism in the 20th and 21st centuries. The award includes a gift of $2,500.
A Message from the Awards Committee
Amei Wallach, Ekin Erkan, John Ravenal and myself met virtually to create a short list for the AICA-USA Irving Sandler Award, 2024. The award is for an under-recognized art writer who has been publishing regularly for 5 years or less, working within the United States. The committee reviewed 13 new candidates submitted by nomination and application. We discussed the vital importance of criteria such as voice, dedication, and (most interesting to me) “impact and contribution,” asking ourselves, “is this person writing in underrepresented areas, about underrepresented subjects, or creating original new platforms for others?” Our shortlist of three extremely talented critics and writers was: Amarie Gipson, Daniel Felsinthal, and Jameson Johnson. They write regularly for familiar venues including ArtForum, Town and Country, and The Village Voice, and also work with important original publications and spaces including The Boston Art Review, ARTS.BLACK and The Reading Room in Houston. It was a pleasure to get better acquainted with their work.
Ultimately the AICA-USA board reviewed writing by these shortlisted candidates and chose Amarie Gipson to receive the 2024 AICA-USA Irving Sandler Award for New Voices in Art Criticism for her deep commitment to engaging with American art both inside of and outside of major exhibition venues and capital cities—her career and publication history span the American South and Midwest as well as New York, and by following her smart, lyrical writing we can learn so much about the best in new art and curatorial practice today; she currently lives and works in Houston, TX.
Sincerely,
Maika Pollack, AICA-USA Board Member
About the Shortlisted Candidates
Daniel Felsenthal is a critic, fiction writer, essayist and poet whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Village Voice, Frieze, Artforum and many other publications. He helps fight for better pay and working conditions for writers with the Freelance Solidarity Project. You can read his work on danielfelsenthal.com.
Jameson Johnson is a queer writer, curator, and community organizer based in Boston. She is the Founder and Executive Director at Boston Art Review, an online and print publication committed to facilitating discourse around contemporary art in Boston and beyond. She has held positions at the MIT List Visual Arts Center and currently serves on the board of Catalyst Conversations and the Foundry Arts Consortium’s Advisory Committee as well as the MassArt Auction Committee. She has curated exhibitions at Boston Center for the Arts, Fountain Street Gallery, and Boston Cyberarts, as well as served on numerous juries across New England. Her writing has also appeared in Artsy, Artnet, and the Boston Globe among others. Born in Southern California, Johnson was a first generation college student and now lives in Cambridge, MA.