Awarding artists of the stature of Nairy Baghramian and Delcy Morelos is a good start for the Art Basel Awards. Of course it builds the case for later artists to win the awards and say they have the same award as…and of course Trebuchet readers know both artists well. So what does the award mean? Firstly, $50k is a good amount of money, certain to benefit both artists. But also, Baghramian is peaking with every exhibition and Morelos’ work is both monumental and inspiring. Anselm Kiefer is reigning king of the monumental work but Morelos’ work gets under skins and into the ‘soil’ of the body. Both have created impressive catalogues of work. Congratulations, laurels not to rest on but press forward.
Trebuchet: Art and Ecology (feat Delcy Morelos)
Trebuchet interview with Nairy Baghramian
Marian Goodman Competition Notes:
Marian Goodman Gallery extends our heartfelt congratulations to Nairy Baghramian and Delcy Morelos for becoming medalists in the Established Artist category of the inaugural Art Basel Awards. These awards serve as an acknowledgement of their influence in shaping the future of art. This award honors visionaries—individuals and organizations—who are defining the direction of contemporary art.
Baghramian’s formidable, elaborate sculptures, which often refer to architecture and the human body, have elegantly graced the façade of Metropolitan Museum of Art (2023) and the Sculpture Garden of MoMA, New York (2023), among many others. Her structures offer the possibility of an open and discursive dialogue in response to a site, or a freeing of the assigned relationship between an object and its meaning. In April and May of this year Baghramian was significantly recognized with two major sculptural installations, Privileged Points for Qatar Museums in Doha, and Resting Arms, her inaugural commission in Northern Europe and the newest permanent work in Kistefos Museum’s sculpture park. World-renowned for her sculptures, spatial organizations, photographs and drawings, Baghramian, who participated in WIELS’ very first exhibition in 2007, will return to its distinctive architecture with a new, previously unseen, group of works in October.
Morelos’s abstract works, with their formidable evocations, inspire rumination on the interplay between human beings and earth, the human body and materiality. Her first solo exhibition in Germany, opening in July at Hamburger Bahnhof, features a new, large-scale installation that explores themes of earth, Indigenous knowledge, regeneration, and the interconnectedness of nature and humanity. Recent solo exhibitions include Profundis, CAAC Centro Andallluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain (2024); Interwoven, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, MO (2024); El Abrazo, Dia Chelsea, New York (2023).
An esteemed international jury has chosen them for their profound impact and innovation, which was composed by: Hoor Al-Qasimi, President and Director, Sharjah Art Foundation; Elena Filipovic, Director, Kunstmuseum Basel; Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), Cape Town, and Curator, 61st International Art Exhibition (2026), La Biennale di Venezia; Jessica Morgan, Nathalie de Gunzberg Director, Dia Art Foundation, New York; Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine, London; Adriano Pedrosa, Artistic Director, Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP); Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+, Hong Kong; Franklin Sirmans, Director, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM); and Philip Tinari, Director and Chief Executive, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle
