To celebrate the 15-year legacy of this distinguished national honor, the Hermitage Greenfield Prize is being awarded this year in two disciplines – one to acclaimed visual artist Sandy Rodriguez; and for the first time, the HGP is also recognizing the discipline of dance and choreography, with a special prize going to groundbreaking Hip-hop and street-dance artist Lorenzo ‘Rennie’ Harris. Each will receive a commission of $30,000 to create an original work, along with a residency on the Hermitage Artist Retreat’s historic beachfront campus in Manasota Key, Florida.
VISUAL ART
2023 Hermitage Greenfield Prize Winner: Sandy Rodriguez
2023 HGP Finalists: Maura Brewer, Azza El Siddique, Joanna Keane Lopez
2023 HGP Jurors: Allison Glenn, Christine Kuan, Anne Patterson
DANCE & CHOREOGRAPHY
2023 Hermitage Greenfield Prize Winner: Lorenzo ‘Rennie’ Harris
2023 HGP Finalists: Dormeshia, Jamar Roberts, Christopher Williams
2023 HGP Jurors: Joe Melillo, Michael Novak, Charmaine Warren
“Rennie Harris is the hip-hop master who has become one of the most exacting and exciting choreographers of his generation… It’s not just his decades-long work in hip-hop and street dance that brings such a vibrant lucidity to rhythm and the dancing body, but the way he gives virtuosity a sense of theater, of form, of feeling.”
—The New York Times
“Intriguing and intense, Harris is essentially a living history of street dance.”
—Philadelphia Tribune
“Sandy Rodriguez creates artworks that illustrate not only the political history of migration between the Americas but that also pay homage to indigenous artists.”
—Art Critique
January 10, 2023 (Sarasota County, Florida) — The Hermitage Artist Retreat (Andy Sandberg, Artistic Director and CEO), in collaboration with the Philadelphia-based Greenfield Foundation, has selected two recipients for the 2023 Hermitage Greenfield Prize, one in the discipline of visual art and one in the field of dance and choreography. The prize is awarded annually, rotating between the fields of music, theater, and visual art. This year’s recipient in visual art is Sandy Rodriguez. Raised on the US-Mexico border, Rodriguez creates poignant landscapes that weave together history, social memory, contemporary politics, and cultural production. Past winners of this distinguished honor in visual art include Sanford Biggers, Trenton Doyle Hancock, and Coco Fusco, among others.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary season of the Hermitage and the 15-year legacy of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize, the Hermitage and the Greenfield Foundation decided to present a second award in the discipline of dance and choreography. This is the first time the HGP is recognizing dance, with a special prize going to Lorenzo ‘Rennie’ Harris. Harris has been a pioneer in the street dance movement since founding Rennie Harris Puremovement in the early 90s, bringing authentic hip-hop experiences to the dance concert stage and educational spaces around the world.
Harris and Rodriguez will each receive a six-week Hermitage Fellowship and a $30,000 commission to create a new work in their respective fields, which will have their first public presentations in Sarasota County in 2025.
“Amidst a truly extraordinary field of finalists for both dance and visual art, Rennie Harris and Sandy Rodriguez are both groundbreaking generative artists who impressed the respective juries with their compelling and inspiring proposals,” says Hermitage Artistic Director Andy Sandberg. “Their dedication to their craft embodies the mission of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize — to bring into the world works of art that have a significant impact on the broad as well as the artistic culture of our society. We thank our distinguished jurors for their passion and dedication, and we congratulate all of our brilliant finalists, whom we look forward to welcoming at the Hermitage. We look forward to welcome Rennie and Sandy to Florida for the Hermitage Greenfield Prize Dinner in April, and subsequently hosting them as Hermitage Fellows and sharing the first public presentations of their new commissions in Sarasota in 2025.” The Hermitage’s presenting partners for each of their works will be announced at a later date.
Lorenzo ‘Rennie’ Harris was born and raised in an African American community in North Philadelphia. In 1992, Harris founded Rennie Harris Puremovement, a street dance theater company dedicated to preserving and disseminating hip-hop culture through workshops, classes, hip-hop history lecture demonstrations, long-term residencies, mentoring programs, and public performances. Harris founded his company based on the belief that hip-hop is the most important original expression of a new generation. His company has toured internationally performing such original works as “Rome and Jules,” a reimagining of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (2001 ‘Bessie’ award in choreography), “Lazarus” as the first choreographer in residence for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2018, and “Lifted: A Gospel House Musical” a New York Times Critics’ Pick when it premiered at the Joyce Theater in 2022, amongst many other productions and honors.
Based in Los Angeles, Sandy Rodriguez is a first-generation Chicana artist and researcher. Since receiving her BFA from the California Institute of Arts, she has exhibited her works at the Denver Art Museum, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Garden, The Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan, South Korea. Her works, such as Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón have been featured in BBC News: In The Studio, Hyperallergic, LA Weekly, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and Spectrum News/NY1, and her works are in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Garden, San Marino, CA, among others.
Hermitage Greenfield Prize recipients and finalists are nominated and selected by a jury of nationally recognized arts leaders. The 2023 jury in dance and choreography included Joseph V. Melillo (chair), BAM’s Executive Director Emeritus and the first member of the Hermitage’s National Curatorial Council; Michael Novak, Artistic Director of the acclaimed Paul Taylor Dance Company, and a longtime company member himself; and Charmaine Warren, performer, historian, consultant, dance writer, and the founding artistic director for “Black Dance Stories.”
Three finalists for the 2023 Hermitage Greenfield Prize in Dance & Choreography include Dormeshia, hailed by The New York Times as “the queen of tap” and co-director of the tap program at Jacob’s Pillow; Jamar Roberts, a Bessie Award winner for Outstanding Performance who has choreographed for such noted institutions as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet; and Christopher Williams, a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in choreography whose works have been seen all over the world including commissions from Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Joyce Theater, NYLA, Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles, and Perm Opera & Ballet Theater. All three dance finalists will receive a Hermitage Fellowship, in addition to a prize of $1,000.
“Rennie Harris belongs in the pantheon of American masters,” says Joseph Melillo. “His usage of Hip-hop techniques, styles, and vocabularies has transformed the dance genre to an artistic plateau. He has accomplished this transformative achievement with humanity, intelligence, and grace.”
“I am beyond thrilled that the prestigious Hermitage Greenfield Prize is generously supporting dance and choreographers this year, thereby reaching more audiences of all ages across our greater arts communities,” says Michael Novak. “It means a great deal to offer this prize to Rennie Harris, an icon in our industry who has not only brought Street and Hip-hop dance – in all its powerful iterations – to the front and center of the concert dance landscape, but he has done so with a powerful passion for education, hope, inclusion, and supporting the next generation of dancers and dance-lovers.”
“It makes sense that Dance Magazine long ago dubbed Rennie Harris the “high priest of hip hop,” says Charmaine Warren. “When the often-shy, Philadelphia-born choreographer founded his company Rennie Harris Puremovement in 1992, he planted a prodigious seed in the dance world. Then and now, Harris’ mission has been to examine, preserve, and share the culture of Hip-hop, decisively away from the commercially exploited view. This award from the Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Greenfield Foundation will support Rennie’s continued work in teaching the world about the American-born dance form.”
“I’m always appreciative of when I’m seen because we all move in our own worlds, just figuring things out and never knowing who is watching. This is definitely a major surprise,” said Harris upon hearing the news. “I am extremely grateful to everyone who thought of me and thinks that I’m worth the time to help support in this lifelong vision.”
Rennie Harris’ intended commission will focus on a work titled “Losing My Religion,” a personal reflection on his own journey that weaves in thoughts on the world’s collective dilemmas. Harris is known for challenging what has come to be expected of Street dance and Hip-hop culture and the degenerative social norms and beliefs that ground the struggles of our time. As a part of this new work, he plans to incorporate a reimagining of his renowned solo, “Endangered Species,” an autobiographical work recounting his experience of being chased and shot down in Kingston, Jamaica while touring as a U.S. ambassador for President Reagan’s ‘American Embassy Tour.’ The solo’s inclusion in the work completes a story of systemic racism and revolt, shifting away from what was to what is and what can be. Harris plans to debut his own acrylic and collage visuals as part of the work and hopes the work will be a vehicle for his return to the stage, setting the work on his own body. “Losing My Religion” aims to be a haunting narrative of personal and systemic struggle and transformation, symbolic of an awakening and ultimately reminding us of our humanity. Harris adds, “This work, at its core, coincides with the mission of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize, invoking and promoting voice and expression of the human spirit.”
Visual Art recipients and finalists of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize are similarly nominated and selected by a jury of nationally recognized arts leaders. The 2023 jury in Visual Art included Allison Glenn, Senior Curator at New York’s Public Art Fund and curator of Promise, Witness, Remembrance (2021) at the Speed Art Museum, which The New York Times selected as one of the “Best Art Exhibitions of 2021”; Christine Kuan, President and Executive Director of Creative Capital, and the former CEO/Director of Sotheby’s Institute of Art (NY); and Anne Patterson, acclaimed multidisciplinary visual artist and alumna Hermitage Fellow whose recent commission Ascendant Light is the anchor of Capital One’s corporate headquarters.
Three finalists for the 2023 Hermitage Greenfield Prize in Visual Art include Maura Brewer, whose work has been exhibited at MoMA, Art in General in New York, the MCA in Chicago, the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, and the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wein in Vienna, among other places; Azza El Siddique, who has exhibited work at noted intuitions such as MIT List Center, Helena Anrather (NY), Oakville Galleries (Ontario), The Gardiner Museum (Toronto), and The Museum of Contemporary Art (Toronto); and Joanna Keane Lopez, who has been supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and had work exhibited at The Momentary of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, SITE Santa Fe, the National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum, Akron Art Museum, and Sarasota Art Museum. All three visual art finalists will receive a Hermitage Fellowship, in addition to a prize of $1,000.
“Sandy Rodriquez is an artist very particular to this time,” says Anne Patterson. “Her inspired thought-provoking work reveals neglected histories that urgently need to be unveiled.” Fellow visual art jurors Allison Glenn and Christine Kuan echoed Patterson’s remarks, describing Rodriguez as “dynamic,” “remarkable,” “compelling,” and a “community builder.”
“I couldn’t be more thrilled to have this opportunity, and to think very deeply about what it means to create a site-specific installation that will engage with a range of constituents and communities to really move the field forward.” said Sandy Rodriguez upon learning of her selection. “The finalist invitation from the Hermitage gave me a moment to pause and to contemplate what might be possible – how I might take this moment of radical expansion and growth and do something experimental and site-specific to this region and this organization. I am just absolutely overjoyed.”
Sandy Rodriguez plans to use her commission to create a panoramic exhibition, the centerpiece of which will be a new large-scale map that depicts the southeastern topography and coastline marked by stories of resistance from the colonial period to the present. Created with hand-processed local mineral pigment watercolors on amate paper with an accompanying audio installation, the effect will be reminiscent of a 19th-century style panorama in the round. Rodriguez intends that the anticolonial panorama will make visible a history of the region for a wide range of contemporary audiences. Of interest at this preliminary stage are the histories of indigenous resistance after the arrival of Juan Ponce de Leon, migrations, and events drawn from contemporary news stories. The work will include depictions of endemic and endangered native plants and marine animals, and climate change as ongoing colonial aggression will also be addressed in the work.
Harris and Rodriguez will be celebrated at the Hermitage Greenfield Prize Dinner on Sunday, April 16th, at 6pm at the Ca’ d’Zan of The Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida. Capacity will be limited, so early reservations are strongly recommended. Co-Chairs for this event are Tom & Sherry Koski, with The Ringling Museum Executive Director Steven High andSarasota Art Museum Executive Director Virginia Shearer serving as Honorary Co-Chairs. Tables and sponsorships now available; additional information can be found at HermitageArtistRetreat.org.
In addition to the Hermitage Greenfield Prize Dinner on April 16th, the Hermitage Greenfield Prize Celebration will include programs and talks with current and past HGP winners and jurors throughout the weekend of April 14-16, 2023. These events will be presented on the Hermitage Beach and throughout Sarasota County with some also available online. Additional details about these programs will be announced at a later date. The Hermitage Greenfield Prize Celebration is presented in partnership with the Greenfield Foundation, with the Community Foundation of Sarasota County serving as the lead Community Sponsor.
In addition to the Hermitage Greenfield Prize, the Hermitage Artist Retreat launched the annual Hermitage Major Theater Award (HMTA) in 2021, newly established to recognize a playwright or theater artist with a $35,000 commission to create a new, original, and impactful piece of theater. Recipients of the HMTA to date include playwright Madeleine George (Only Murders in the Building on Hulu) and theater maker Shariffa Ali, both with anticipated developmental workshops in the fall of 2023, as well as the most recently announced recipient Imani Uzuri with an expected presentation of her work in the fall of 2024.
For more information about the Hermitage, the Hermitage Greenfield Prize, and upcoming Hermitage programs, visit HermitageArtistRetreat.org.
“An organization that does more for artists than any I have encountered.”
—Craig Lucas, Tony Award Nominee & Hermitage Greenfield Prize Winner
“I hope the Hermitage continues to give artists an opportunity to do things that they haven’t done before. It’s such a great and benevolent thing that the Hermitage and the Hermitage Greenfield Prize exist.”
—Trenton Doyle Hancock, Visual Artist, Hermitage Greenfield Prize Winner
“It was like someone opened the door and invited me to create a work that is responsive to this time, a work that can be reflective of this time… I am super grateful for that.”
—Aleshea Harris, Playwright and Hermitage Greenfield Prize Winner
“To have space that is for you to do your own thing on your own
terms — it’s really one of the best gifts an artist can receive.”
—Vijay Iyer, Pianist, Composer, and Hermitage Greenfield Prize Winner
The Hermitage provides a much-needed opportunity to immerse myself in creating, to share my work with the community, and above all to reconnect with nature and my surroundings. It’s impossible to not go out and watch the sunset or listen to the crashing waves – a constant reminder of what’s out there, what’s always waiting for me when I decide to pause and listen is essential.
—Angélica Negrón, Composer, Hermitage Greenfield Prize Winner
“I hope the Hermitage continues to give artists an opportunity to do things that they haven’t done before. It’s such a great and benevolent thing that the Hermitage and the Hermitage Greenfield Prize exist.”
—Trenton Doyle Hancock, Visual Artist, Hermitage Greenfield Prize Winner
About the Hermitage Greenfield Prize
The Hermitage Greenfield Prize (HGP) is a groundbreaking partnership between the Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Greenfield Foundation. Rotating between the fields of music, theater, and visual art, this prestigious national prize seeks to “bring into the world works of art that will have a significant impact on the broader or artistic culture.” The Hermitage Greenfield Prize is awarded annually and includes a Hermitage Fellowship, as well as a $30,000 commission for a new piece of work to be created within a two-year time frame. A residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Manasota Key in Englewood, Florida, ensures time and space in which to do the work. Past Hermitage Greenfield Prize winners include Angélica Negrón, Music (2022) Aleshea Harris, Theater (2021); Helga Davis, Music (2019); Martyna Majok, Theater (2018); David Burnett, Visual Photography (2017); Coco Fusco, Visual Art (2016); Bobby Previte, Music (2015); Nilo Cruz, Theater (2014); Trenton Doyle Hancock, Visual Art (2013); Vijay Iyer, Music (2012); John Guare, Theater (2011); Sanford Biggers, Visual Art (2010); Craig Lucas, Theater (2009); and Eve Beglarian, Music (2009).
The Hermitage Artist Retreat
Artistic Director and CEO: Andy Sandberg
Sarasota County, Florida
The Hermitage is a non-profit artist retreat located in Manasota Key, Florida, inviting accomplished artists across multiple disciplines for residencies on its beachfront campus, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Hermitage artists are invited to interact with the local community, reaching thousands of Gulf Coast residents and visitors each year with unique and inspiring programs. Hermitage Fellows have included 15 Pulitzer Prize winners, Poets Laureate, MacArthur ‘Genius’ Fellows, and multiple Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar winners and nominees. Works created at this beachside retreat by a diverse group of Hermitage alumni have gone on to renowned theaters, concert halls, and galleries throughout the world. Each year, the Hermitage awards the $30,000 Hermitage Greenfield Prize for a new work of art, the newly announced $35,000 Hermitage Major Theater Award for an original theater commission, and the Aspen Music Festival’s Hermitage Prize in Composition.
For more information, visit HermitageArtistRetreat.org.
The Hermitage is supported by:
Hermitage programs are supported, in part, by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax Revenues; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts; as well as the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.
BIOS:
WINNER OF THE 2023 HERMITAGE GREENFIELD PRIZE in DANCE (HGP)
Lorenzo ‘Rennie’ Harris
Lorenzo ‘Rennie’ Harris was born and raised in an African American community in North Philadelphia. In 1992, Harris founded Rennie Harris Puremovement, a street dance theater company dedicated to preserving and disseminating hip-hop culture through workshops, classes, hip-hop history lecture demonstrations, long-term residencies, mentoring programs, and public performances. Harris founded his company based on the belief that hip-hop is the most important original expression of a new generation. With its roots in the inner-city African American and Latino communities, hip-hop can be characterized as a contemporary indigenous form, one that expresses universal themes that extend beyond racial, religious, and economic boundaries, and one that can help bridge these divisions. Harris’ work encompasses the diverse and rich African American traditions of the past, while simultaneously presenting the voice of a new generation through its ever-evolving interpretations of dance. Harris is committed to providing audiences with a sincere view of the essence and spirit of hip-hop. Harris was voted one of the most influential people in the last one hundred years of Philadelphia history. Among his awards are honorary doctorates from Bates College and Columbia College. The London Times wrote of Mr. Harris that he is “the Basquiat of the U.S. contemporary dance scene.”
2023 HGP DANCE FINALISTS:
Dormeshia
Dormeshia is a dynamic tap dancer and choreographer who is known for setting high standards in the world of tap dance. Hailed as “the queen of tap” by The New York Times, Dormeshia has accumulated many accolades, including a Doris Duke Artist Award in the dance category, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award, Dance Magazine Award, a Bessie Award, and an Astaire Awardfor Best Female Performer for her featured performance in Broadway’s After Midnight. Additional Broadway credits include Black and Blue and Bring In Da’Noise, Bring In Da’Funk. Dormeshia is the creator and producer of the “Ladies in the Shoe” Tap Conference, a four-day event that takes place during Women’s History Month. She is also co-director of the Jacob’s Pillow Tap Program. Her first full length choreographic work, And Still You Must Swing, debuted to sold-out audiences at Jacob’s Pillow, and was recognized by the New York Times as the “Best of Dance for 2016” and again in 2019 after its New York debut at The Joyce Theater. Over the course of 11 years, Dormeshia was the tap dance instructor to Michael Jackson. While she is one of five dancers representing tap dance in the Forever Collection of U.S. Postage Stamps and also serves as an adjunct lecturer at Barnard University, Dormeshia continues to push tap dance forward while maintaining the integrity of the form.
Jamar Roberts
Jamar Roberts is a choreographer who has made works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Ballet, Ballet X, the Juilliard Dance Division, Ailey 2, New York City Center’s Fall For Dance, and Vail Dance Festival, among others. Mr. Roberts is a graduate of the New World School of the Arts and the Ailey School and has danced for AAADT, Ailey II, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet. Mr. Roberts won the 2016 Bessie Award for Outstanding Performer and has performed as a guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London and made multiple television performance appearances. In the fall of 2020, the March on Washington Film Festival invited Mr. Roberts to create a dance on film tribute to the Honorable John Lewis. Other highlights include “Works and Process” at the Guggenheim, where he created the acclaimed short work-on-film entitled Cooped, as well as A Chronicle of a Pivot at a Point in Time, which first premiered on film in the summer of 2021 and was restaged for a live performance world premiere in March of 2022. Jamar was a Director’s Fellow at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts in the 2020-2021 season, and he has also made a short film for the LA Opera entitled The First Bluebird in the Morning. He was most recently featured on the cover of Dance Magazine in June of 2021, having previously been on the cover in June 2013 and being named “25 to Watch” in 2007. His next work will premiere on San Francisco Ballet in the winter of 2023.
Christopher Williams
Christopher Williams, dubbed “one of the most exciting choreographic voices out there” (The New York Times), is a choreographer, dancer, and puppeteer working in NYC and abroad since 1999. His work has toured in France, Italy, Spain, England, Holland, Colombia, and Russia, and has been presented nationally and in local venues including The Joyce Theater, New York Live Arts, Lincoln Center, City Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, and P.S. 122. His commissioners include Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Joyce Theater, NYLA, Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles, Perm Opera & Ballet Theater, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Princeton University, and HERE Arts Center’s Dream Music Puppetry Program. Named a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in choreography, his awards include a 2005 New York Dance & Performance “Bessie” Award and fellowships from The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, NYFA, and Center for Ballet & the Arts. He has been awarded creative residencies via the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Watermill Center, the Bogliasco Foundation, Movement Research, Yaddo, and The Yard. He holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, and has performed for Tere O’Connor, Douglas Dunn, Peter Sellars, John Kelly, Dan Hurlin, and Basil Twist, among others.
2023 HGP DANCE JURY BIOS
Joseph V. Melillo, Chair
Joseph V. Melillo was BAM’s executive producer from 1999 to 2018. Mr. Melillo was responsible for BAM’s artistic direction, overseeing programming in all its performance spaces: the Howard Gilman Opera House, Harvey Theater, BAM Fisher and Rose Cinemas. He previously served as BAM’s producing director and founding director of the Next Wave Festival, which debuted in 1983. Spanning a 35 year-tenure at BAM, Melillo has fostered the work of emerging and established artists and forged numerous international partnerships. Awards include the Commandeur, Officier, and Chevalier de L’ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), OBE (Great Britain), Knight of the Royal Order of the Polar Star (Sweden), and Knight of the National Order of Québec (Canada). He has served as both a 2017 Gish Award panelist and a 2017 Heinz Award juror. Melillo is currently the International Artistic Advisor for Columbia Artists and the 2019 Director’s Fellow at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University. He is a lecturer at colleges and universities nationally and internationally.
Michael Novak
Michael Novak became the second Artistic Director in the history of the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation in September 2018, having been chosen by Mr. Taylor to succeed him upon his death. A critically acclaimed Taylor dancer from 2010 to 2019, Novak earned a nomination for the Clive Barnes Foundation Dance Award for his debut season. He performed in fifty Taylor dances and had roles made on him in thirteen of those dances and performed in several works by Taylor-commissioned choreographers. Under Novak’s direction, the Paul Taylor Dance Company continues to be one of the world’s premier dance companies, with robust domestic and international touring; an ever-expanding repertory that includes the Taylor canon, historical masterpieces, and works he commissions; and an annual engagement at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The New York Times hailed his inaugural season as Artistic Director as “groundbreaking and inspirational.” In 2019, Novak partnered with Orchestra of St. Luke’s Bach Festival, curating the first presentation in a single engagement of all six of Paul Taylor’s iconic dances set to the Baroque composer’s music. In memory of Mr. Taylor, he launched a multi-year international touring retrospective of the Taylor repertoire. He co-directed the Company’s first virtual live-streamed benefit. During the height of the Covid pandemic, he brought the Taylor Company to sixteen venues in eleven American cities for a total of fifty-one performances, earning the designation “Best of Dance 2021” from The Washington Post. His 2021 selection of Taylor alumna and dance educator Carolyn Adams to head the Taylor School underscored his commitment to preparing and cultivating the next generation of professional dancers and dance advocates and broadening the Foundation’s impact in arts education. In 2022, Novak selected former New York City Ballet dancer Lauren Lovette to be the Taylor Company’s first Resident Choreographer. Raised in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, Novak is an alumnus of Columbia University’s School of General Studies, where he received his BA in Dance magna cum laude with Departmental Honors and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He was the Keynote Speaker for the Class of 2020.
Charmaine Warren
Charmaine Patricia Warren, a Jamaican-born performer, historian, consultant, and dance writer, is the founder and Artistic Director for “Black Dance Stories” and “Dance on the Lawn: Montclair’s Dance Festival,” Producer of DanceAfrica, and Artistic Associate and Programming Director at BAM. She is the Director of Dance at The Wassaic Project, curated E-Moves at Harlem Stage and danced with david roussève/REALITY. Charmaine is on faculty at Empire State Colleges, a former faculty at Ailey/Fordham, Sarah Lawrence College, Hunter College, and Kean University. She writes for Amsterdam News, Dance Magazine, and The New York Times, and has served as a panelist for Robert Battle’s New Directions Choreography Lab. Charmaine holds a Ph.D. in History from Howard University, a Master’s in Dance Research from City College, and Bachelor’s Degrees in Dance and English from Montclair State College. She received the 2020 Bessie “Angel” Award and a 2017 Bessie for “Outstanding Performance” as a member of Skeleton Architecture Collective.
WINNER OF THE 2023 HERMITAGE GREENFIELD PRIZE in VISUAL ART (HGP)
Sandy Rodriguez
Sandy Rodriguez (b. 1975, National City, CA) is a Los Angeles-based artist and researcher, and first-generation Chicana raised on the US-Mexico border. Her Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón is made up of a collection of maps and paintings about the intersections of history, social memory, contemporary politics, and cultural production. Rodriguez earned her BFA from California Institute of Arts. She has exhibited her works at the Denver Art Museum, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Garden, The Amon Carter Museum of American Art and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan, South Korea. Her work is in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Garden. San Marino, CA and others. She was awarded the Caltech-Huntington Art+Research Residency, Creative Capital Award and Migrations initiative from Mellon Foundation Just Futures Initiative and Global Cornell. Rodriguez and her work have been featured in BBC News: In The Studio, Hyperallergic, LA Weekly, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Spectrum News/NY1, and on several radio programs and podcasts.
2023 HGP VISUAL ART FINALISTS:
Maura Brewer
Maura Brewer makes essay videos and performances that explore the relationship between capitalism, crime, art, and the production of identity in popular culture. Her work has been exhibited at MoMA, Art in General in New York, the MCA in Chicago, the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève in Geneva, and the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wein in Vienna, among other places. Her work has received press coverage in The Paris Review, Art Agenda, CBS News, and The Guardian. She is a recipient of a Creative Capital Award, the LENS Award at LACMA, the Fellowship for Visual Arts at CCF, and the City of Los Angeles Master Artist Fellowship. Her work is in the private collection of LACMA. She was a Whitney Independent Study Program Fellow in Studio Art in 2015, received her MFA from UC Irvine in 2011, and her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006. She lives in Los Angeles, where she works as a private investigator.
Joanna Keane Lopez
Joanna Keane Lopez is a multidisciplinary artist whose work reclaims relationships to craft architecture of land as a form of medicine, a blessing, and a spell. Her work with large scale installation, vernacular architecture and sculpture is informed through the use of the materials of adobe, alíz, clay, dyes and paper and often collaborative performance. Through the passing down of knowledge of vernacular architectural techniques of the greater Southwest, Keane Lopez creates work that seeks healing and questions land use and memory that is connected to her own multi-generational roots in New Mexico. Keane Lopez has exhibited nationally at institutions which include: The Momentary of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, SITE Santa Fe, the National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum, Akron Art Museum, Sarasota Art Museum and has been supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Azza El Siddique
Azza El Siddique (b. Khartoum, Sudan) received an MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2019 and a BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design University in 2014. She has participated in residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, Amant Foundation, NY, John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Residency, Wisconsin and Harbourfront Center, Ontario. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, Artforum, Artpapers, CanadianArt, and Border Crossings. Past exhibitions include In the place of annihilation, MIT List Center, Cambridge MA, Dampen the flame; Extinguish the fire, Helena Anrather, NY, Material Tells, Oakville Galleries, Ontario, RAW, The Gardiner Museum, Toronto, and GTA 2021, The Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto.
2023 HGP VISUAL ART JURY:
Allison Glenn
Allison Glenn is Senior Curator at New York’s Public Art Fund and co-curator of Counterpublic 2023, a St. Louis-based triennial. Deeply invested in working closely with artists to develop ideas, artworks, and exhibitions that respond to and transform our understanding of the world, Glenn’s curatorial work focuses on the intersection of art and publics, through public art, biennials, special projects, and major new commissions by leading contemporary artists. Glenn garnered critical acclaim for Promise, Witness, Remembrance (2021) at the Speed Art Museum, which The New York Times selected as one of the “Best Art Exhibitions of 2021.” She was recently listed on the 2022 “ArtNews Deciders” and on the 2021 Observer “Arts Power 50” lists. Her writing has been published by The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Prospect New Orleans, Princeton Architectural Press, California African American Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, Artforum, ART PAPERS, Hyperallergic, and ART21 Magazine, among others.
Christine Kuan
Christine Kuan is President and Executive Director of Creative Capital, a non-profit organization funding artists creating experimental and groundbreaking new work in the visual arts, performing arts, film, technology, literature, socially engaged, and multidisciplinary forms. Before joining Creative Capital, Christine Kuan was CEO & Director of Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Chief Curator and Director of Strategic Partnerships at Artsy, Chief Curatorial Officer and VP for External Affairs at Artstor, and Editor-in-Chief of Oxford Art Online/Grove Art Online at Oxford University Press. She has also worked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and taught at the University of Iowa, Peking University, Rutgers University, and Stanford University Arts Leadership program. Kuan holds an MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a BA in Art History and English Literature from Rutgers University. Kuan serves on the advisory committee at The Frick Collection in New York and The Brooklyn Rail.
Anne Patterson
Hermitage Alumna Anne Patterson is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Her body of work consists of paintings, sculptures, and large-scale multimedia installations that combine sculpture, architecture, lighting, video, music, and scent. Drawing from her background in theater and opera set design, she uses these modalities to create an artistic practice, hovering somewhere between the visual, experiential and immersive. Patterson’s large-scale installations have filled cathedrals, office buildings, and galleries across the country with miles of fabric, aluminum ribbon, and metal birds. Her most recent installation, “Ascendant Light” commissioned by Capital One as the centerpiece of their new corporate headquarters, is made of hundreds of hand plotted ribbons over six stories. Other recent commissions include “Art for Earth,” commissioned by the fashion house Ermenegildo Zegna, was made of thousands of lengths of fabric repurposed from Zegna fabrics. Anne has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at The Ringling Museum and Alfstad & Contemporary. Her work has been shown at The Trapholt Museum, Denmark; Cristina Grajales, New York; Scope Art Fair, Miami; Aqua Art Fair, Miami; Building Bridges Art Exchange, Los Angeles; Valerie Dillon Gallery, New York; Denise Bibro, New York; Cade Tompkins Projects, Providence, RI and One Twelve Gallery, Atlanta. Her paintings and sculptures are in private, public, and corporate collections across the USA (Tishman Speyer, Tribune Media, Nortek, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, Rhode Island Blue Cross) and in London. Anne’s theatrical and symphonic partnerships have included Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Arena Stage, The Wilma Theater, The Kennedy Center, Alliance Theater and prestigious symphonies throughout the country (San Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle). Patterson was the 2014 and 2016 CODAaward Winner for Liturgical Art and received a Creative Capital Award in 2008. She is a proud Fellow of the Hermitage Artist’s Retreat. In Sarasota, her work has been exhibited at The Ringling Museum and commissioned by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Patterson received her B.A. of Architecture from Yale University and her M.F.A. in Theater Design from The Slade School of Art, London UK.