Six Light Work Artists-in-Residence and Urban Video Project Exhibiting Artists Among Guggenheim Fellows
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded two Light Work Artists-in-Residence and three former Urban Video Project (UVP) exhibiting artists 2021 Guggenheim Fellowships. The Guggenheim is one of the nation’s most prestigious honors for scholarly and artistic achievement, honoring individuals who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. Congratulations to all this year’s awardees, including Light Work and UVP family members Sama Al Shaibi, Ephraim Asili, Crystal Z. Campbell, Jill Magid, Cauleen Smith, and Rodrigo Valenzuela. The recipients are among the 184 artists, writers, scholars, and scientists Fellows selected from a pool of more than 3,000 applicants.
“I am thrilled to announce this new group of Guggenheim Fellows,” said Edward Hirsch, President of the Foundation, “especially since this has been a devastating year in so many ways. A Guggenheim Fellowship has always been meaningful, but this year we know it will be a lifeline for many of the new Fellows at a time of great hardship, a survival tool as well as a creative one. The work supported by the Fellowship will help us understand more deeply what we are enduring individually and collectively, and it is an honor for the Foundation to help the Fellows do what they were meant to do.”
We are excited to offer signed, limited edition Fine Prints and Contact Sheet volumes featuring works by this year’s Guggenheim recipients. Proceeds benefit and champion Light Work’s on-going support of emerging and under-represented artists working in photography through residencies, publications, exhibitions, educational programming, and a community-access digital lab facility. Search all our offerings at lightwork.org/shop.
Rodrigo Valenzuela
American Type 15, 2019
Archival inkjet print, 14 x 11″ image on 15 x 12″ paper
Edition of 50, signed and numbered by the artist
Rodrigo Valenzuela’s work in photography, video, and installation boldly addresses themes of labor, power, and representation. In American Type, he uses and critiques the language and history of abstraction in art, while imbuing his photographs with social and political meaning. Valenzuela participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence program in 2017.
Works from and essays about 2021 Guggenheim recipients appear in Contact Sheet Annuals 134, 190, 156, and 201. Light Work designs and prints Contact Sheet in the tradition of fine art photography monographs and is completely commercial-free. We invite you to see first-hand the innovative and creative work of artists who are making important contributions to the field of photography.
Over Light Work’s 48 year history, 42 of our Artists-in-Residence and exhibiting artists have received the Guggenheim Fellowship, including Dawoud Bey, Sandford Biggers, Eric Gottesman, John Gossage, Elijah Gowin, Leslie Hewitt, Sky Hopinka, Deana Lawson, Osamu James Nakagawa, Suzanne Opton, Christian Patterson, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Cindy Sherman, Mark Steinmetz, and Hank Willis Thomas. We are humbled to provide time, space, and resources for these artists early in and often throughout their careers. We extend our congratulations to all the 2021 award recipients on joining this illustrious Fellowship legacy.
