Graham Foundation Announces Inaugural Fellows of New Fellowship Program:

Brendan Fernandes, Torkwase Dyson, Martine Syms, Mark Wasiuta, and David Hartt

The Graham Foundation is pleased to announce its inaugural Fellows as part of the organization’s new Graham Foundation Fellowship program: Brendan Fernandes, Torkwase Dyson, Martine Syms, Mark Wasiuta, and David Hartt. Integrating the Foundation’s grantmaking and exhibition programs, the new Fellowship provides monetary support for the development and production of new and challenging works and the opportunity to present these projects in an exhibition at the Foundation’s Madlener House galleries in Chicago. Artist David Hartt piloted the new program with his new body of work in the forest, which premiered at the Graham in the fall of 2017.

The Fellowship program extends the legacy of the Foundation’s first awards, made in 1957 and 1958. These initial fellowships provided a diverse group of practitioners a platform to pursue experimental ideas in the field, and they included alumni such as Pritzker Prize winning architects Balkrishna V. Doshi and Fumihiko Maki, designer Harry Bertoia, photographer Harry M. Callahan, sculptor Eduardo Chillida, experimental architect Frederick J. Kiesler, and painter Wilfredo Lam, among others. The 2018 Fellows will continue this tradition of exploring new perspectives on spatial practices and design culture.

“As with the very first Fellows of the Graham, this new Fellowship program provides crucial direct support to individuals to make new work possible,” said Graham Foundation Director Sarah Herda, “and creates an opportunity to share this work with new publics through our exhibition program at the Madlener House in Chicago.”

Brendan Fernandes
The Master and Form
Installation in Collaboration with Norman Kelley
January 25–April 7, 2018

Torkwase Dyson
Wynter-Wells Drawing School for Environmental Liberation
May 3–July 14, 2018

Martine Syms
Incense, Sweaters, and Ice
September–December, 2018

Mark Wasiuta
The Entenza Years: the Early History of the Graham Foundation, 1960–1971

David Hartt
in the forest