The inaugural Art Basel Awards, announced today, will be presented by Boss.
The German fashion brand is lending its support to the new awards program, which aims to elevate honorees through mentorship, partnership and exhibition opportunities. The first award recipients will be announced in May.
Thirty-six medalists will be selected across nine award categories. Artists will be recognized through categories that include emerging, established and iconic creators of art, and broader art industry categories include curators, museums and institutions, patrons and media.
Recipients will be decided by a jury of nine international experts, chaired by Art Basel’s Director of Fairs and Exhibition Platforms. The jury includes: Vincenzo de Bellis, Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi, Elena Filipovic, Koyo Kouoh, Jessica Morgan, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Adriano Pedrosa, Suhanya Raffel, Franklin Sirmans and Philip Tinari. The 12 gold medalists will then be selected through a peer vote among the finalists themselves.
The first group of medalists will be announced in May and honored in June during a reception at Art Basel in Switzerland. The first Art Basel Awards ceremony, which will honor the 12 gold medalists, will be held during Art Basel Miami Beach in December.
The partnership marks a continuation of Hugo Boss Group’s commitment to supporting contemporary art. Hugo Boss previously sponsored the Hugo Boss Prize, established in 1996, in collaboration with the Guggenheim museum. The prestigious biannual prize awarded $100,000 and a solo exhibition at the museum to contemporary artists that included Matthew Barney, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Anicka Yi and Simone Leigh. The final Hugo Boss Prize was awarded in 2020 to photographer Deana Lawson.
