Guggenheim Names 223 Fellows for 2026 Across the Arts
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has announced 223 recipients of its 2026 fellowship, marking the organization’s 101st class of fellows. Chosen from a pool of nearly 5,000 applicants, the new cohort spans 55 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, underscoring the breadth of the award’s reach.
The creative arts category is especially wide-ranging this year. It includes 30 fellows in fine arts, 19 in photography, 19 in film and video, 10 in fiction, and six in drama and performance art. Among the visual artists selected are sculptor John Ahearn; new media and installation artist American Artist; Kenneth Tam, who is slated to appear in the upcoming edition of “Greater New York” at MoMA PS1; Japanese German artist Kota Ezawa; fiber artist Sonya Clark; and multidisciplinary artist John Miller. Also recognized are Juana Valdes, Fia Backström, Allison Janae Hamilton, and Francis Ruyter.
The film and video list includes Steve Reinke, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, and Christopher Harris. Reinke’s work appeared in the 2014 Whitney Biennial and is held in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), while Santiago Muñoz has shown at the Whitney Biennial, El Museo del Barrio, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Harris’s films were presented at Tate Modern last year. In fiction, the fellows include novelist and Art in America contributor Lucy Ives, alongside Andre Alexis, Jessica Anthony, Marlon James, Bret Anthony Johnston, Megha Majumdar, Anders Nilsen, Maurice Ruffin, Namwali Serpell, and Madeleine Thien.
Created in 1925, the Guggenheim Fellowship has awarded nearly $450 million to more than 19,000 artists and scholars. Its scale is part of its influence: the prize is not limited to one medium or one generation, but instead maps a broad view of contemporary cultural production. This year’s class suggests that the foundation continues to favor range, rigor, and work that already carries institutional weight.
