Reem Fadda Wins Curatorial Accolade

Middle East-based curator Reem Fadda wins the Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement

The eighth Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement has just been awarded to Reem Fadda. The mid-career curator prize includes a $20,000 stipend and the opportunity to give a lecture in autumn at the Menil Collection, an institution based in Houston, Texas. Past winners include Adam Szymczyk, Thomas J Lax, Hamza Walker and Cuauhtémoc Medina.

“Reem Fadda has an impressive record of organising groundbreaking programmes both inside and outside of conventional museums,” institution director Rebecca Rabinow said. “Her fundamental belief that contemporary art and architecture represent an ongoing engagement with the most challenging questions of our time informs every aspect of her work.” Phong Bui, cofounder of Brooklyn Rail and one of the prize jurors, continued stating, “Reem makes a political framework a throughline in her vision […] Her observation that the Third World has not yet been thoroughly anesthetised by the forces of globalisation and colonisation is prescient, and points to how much we all can learn from its artists.”

From 2010-16, Fadda was the associate curator of Middle Eastern Art at the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation Abu Dhabi. She has held positions at the Palestinian Association for Contemporary Art and the International Academy of Art Palestine, curated the 2016 Marrakech Biennale, as well as shows for the Venice Biennale, the Queens Museum and the upcoming 1 September exhibition at the Palestinian Museum in Ramallah.

For more information visit menil.org