Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other happenings in today’s chaotic art world.
Tyler Mitchell Wins Crystal Bridges’s Don Tyson Prize
The Atlanta-born, New York-based photographer, known for tender depictions of Black sitters in pastoral settings and domestic interiors — and for his Beyoncé Vogue cover — won Crystal Bridges’s Don Tyson Prize for the Advancement of American Art. The award carries a $250,000 cash award, and previous winners include Nicholas Galanin, Deborah Willis, and the nonprofit Project Row Houses. Mitchell has also shot campaigns for Loewe, Nike, Marc Jacobs, and more, so I’m not sure he really needs the extra quarter million, but, you know, maybe I’m just jealous.
National Gallery of Art Appoints Head of American Art
Virginia Anderson has been named senior curator of American Art and head of Art of the Americas at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. She comes from the Baltimore Museum of Art, where she currently helms the American Painting & Sculpture and Decorative Arts department. Anderson’s appointment comes amid turmoil at the federally funded institution, which was at the center of the recent essay “Soft Censorship,” in which scholar Steven Nelson accused the museum of canceling a symposium on race to avoid provoking Trump.
What Else Happened?
- Sharif Bey is the inaugural winner of the 2026 Spector Craft Prize! Merryn Omotayo Alaka, Japheth Asiedu-Kwarteng, Demetri Broxton, Vivian Chiu, and Luke-Thomas Tokimasa Henderson won the Spector Craft Prize for Emerging Artists.
- Steven Shearer is the 2026 recipient of the $100,000 Audain Prize for the Visual Arts, which honors contributions by artists from British Columbia.
- Cédric Fauq was named curator of contemporary international art at Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
- Yves Goldstein will step down as director of the Kanal-Centre Pompidou — set to open in Brussels on November 28 — just two days after its opening.
- Yona Lee won the 2027 Judy Wheeler Commission from the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts.
- Artist Danh Vo and fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto are the winners of the 2026 Isamu Noguchi Award.
Wildcard
Last week it was Johnny Depp’s sleep paralysis demon/sculpture of a bronze half-bunny half-human; this week, in slightly better news, it’s Solange on the High Line. Today, September 24, through this Sunday, September 27, the musician will debut her first large-scale sculpture on the Chelsea Market Passage as part of an exhibition sponsored by Google Chrome. Because the year is 2026, and every day we slide further toward an abyss where celebrity, oligopoly, and contemporary art are essentially one and the same.
