The Armory Show in New York is partnering with the Paris nonprofit Archives of Women Artists: Research and Exhibitions (AWARE) on a new juried award.
The AWARE Prize will recognize the best booth dedicated to a solo presentation of a female artist, awarding $10,000 to the artist or her estate.
“The prize is a way to pay homage to the galleries that are taking the risk to show only women,” AWARE cofounder Camille Morineau told Artnet News. “Most women are less valuable today in the art market than men, so it’s kind of brave to do a solo booth with a woman artist.”
Morineau founded AWARE in 2014 as an outgrowth of her work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, where, in 2009, she curated “Elles@CentrePompidou,” a permanent collection show of only women artists.
“The discovery, which was pretty shocking at the time, was that the history of art that I knew about was completely biased. Half of it was missing,” she said.
But in the past 10 years, interest in women artists has grown. “Everyone is interested now in this hidden history of women, not only in the art world but in a lot of other territories where women have been creatives,” she said.
“There are curatorial correctives now taking place that address some of the imbalances of the past,” Armory Show deputy director Eliza Osborne said in an email to Artnet News. “We hope that these lead us to a greater understanding not only of the visual arts, but of the human condition.”
The artists up for the inaugural prize are Yuko Nasaka (1939–, Japan) with Belgium’s Axel Vervoordt Gallery; Rina Banerjee (1963–, India) with Galerie Nathalie Obadia of Paris and Brussels; Aase Texmon Rygh (1925–2019, Norway) with Oslo’s OSL Contemporary; Alexis Smith (1949–, US) with Garth Greenan Gallery in New York; and June Edmonds (1959–, US) with Luis de Jesus de Los Angeles.
Other women artists at the fair will be featured in (Un)seen Scene, a guided audio tour recorded by Morineau. Below, see a list of the artists featured in the guide.
Bice Lazzari at Richard Saltoun Gallery, London
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian at Haines Gallery, San Francisco
Aase Texmon Rygh at OSL contemporary, Oslo
Olga de Amaral at Richard Saltoun, London
Irma Blank at P420, Bologna
Yuko Nasaka at Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Antwerp
Martha Jungwirth at Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna
Fei Cui at Chambers Fine Art, New York
Claire Falkenstein at Michel Rosenfeld Gallery, New York
Simone Fattal at kaufman repetto, Milan
Ana Mendieta at Alison Jacques Gallery, London
Mariko Mori at Sean Kelly, New York
Su-Mei Tse at Peter Blum Gallery, New York
Mai-Thu Perret at Simon Lee Gallery, New York
Alicia Kwade at 303 Gallery, New York
Noémie Goudal at Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris
Betye Saar at Roberts Projects, Los Angeles
Hannah Wilke at Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York
Mary Kelly at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, New York
Susan Hefuna at Anne Mosseri-Marlio, Basel
Rina Banerjee at Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris
Alexis Smith at Garth Greenan Gallery, New York
Zanele Muholi at Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York
Nona Faustine Simmons at Two Palms, New York
Florine Demosthene at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Chicago