New $100,000 award recognizes the achievements of women visual artists
Special to the Times
The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) is pleased to announce Sarah Sze (b. 1969, Boston, MA) as the inaugural recipient of its new Meraki Artist Award. Widely recognized for expanding the boundaries between painting, sculpture, video, and installation, Sze’s work blends the intimate with the monumental, precision with chaos, and the physical with the digital. Her intimate paintings and large-scale installations and public works challenge perceptions of space, time, and scale, making her one of the most compelling artists of our time.
“It’s a huge honor to be the first recipient of the Meraki Artist Award and I’m inspired by the dedication to love, care, and art that the award stands for,” said Sze.
Generously funded by Fotene Demoulas, the $100,000 award celebrates the artistic achievements of women artists and their impact on the field of contemporary visual art. Sze will accept the Meraki Artist Award at the museum’s annual Women’s Luncheon on May 5, 2025.
“I am honored to collaborate with the ICA to spotlight the passion and presence that women visual artists bring to their practice through the Meraki Artist Award,” said Demoulas. “I want to offer heartfelt congratulations to Sarah, whose innovate work inspires us to see the world in new ways.”
“In Greek, the word meraki means to pour your soul into something, and I can think of no better way to describe Fotene’s longstanding support of artists and the ICA,” said Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the ICA. “The generosity of this award is echoed in the open spirit and artistic expansiveness of Sarah’s work. We are thrilled to recognize Sarah as the inaugural recipient of the Meraki Artist Award and to celebrate her important contributions to art and culture.”
An exhibition of works promised to the ICA by Fotene and Tom Coté will go on view at the museum in January 2026. Reflecting their longtime support of artists at every stage of their career through exhibitions, publications, and museum acquisitions, the exhibition features work by 20 artists including Charlene von Heyl, Deana Lawson, Deborah Roberts, Diedrick Brackens, Laura Owens, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Mickalene Thomas, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Olga de Amaral, and Sarah Sze. The artworks reflect multiple generations, styles, media, and thematic concerns, exemplifying a sustained interest in formal and material complexity and a steadfast belief in the singular perspectives that artists contribute to the world.
Sarah Sze gleans objects and images from worlds both physical and digital, assembling them into complex multimedia works that shift scale between microscopic observation and macroscopic perspective on the infinite. A peerless bricoleur, Sze moves with a light touch across proliferating media. Her dynamic, generative body of work spans sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, video, and installation while always addressing the precarious nature of materiality and grappling with matters of entropy and temporality.
Born in Boston, Sze earned a BA from Yale University in 1991 and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 1997. While still in graduate school, she challenged the very nature of sculpture, at MoMA PS1 in New York, by burrowing into the walls of the building, creating sculptural portals