CalArtians Win National Medals of Arts, Honored in White House Ceremony

On Monday (Oct. 21), President Joseph R. Biden presented the National Medals of Arts to the 2022 and 2023 recipients at the White House during a private ceremony. Among those named for the prestigious award are CalArts alums Carrie Mae Weems (Art BFA 81) and Mark Bradford (Art BFA 95, MFA 97).

Established in 1984 by the US Congress, the National Medal of Arts is the federal government’s highest distinction for artists and arts patrons. National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD shared the following quote in the NEA’s official announcement: 

The arts enrich our lives, helping us to ask questions, imagine new possibilities, and create community. The NEA is pleased to join President Biden in congratulating the 2022 and 2023 National Medal of Arts recipients whose curiosity, creativity, hard work, and dedication have inspired and touched so many in our country and around the globe.

Weems, awarded in the 2022 cycle, is a celebrated multimedia artist whose works have exhibited internationally in various museums and galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Frist Center for Visual Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, Spain. Among her numerous accolades are a 1996 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, a 2013 MacArthur fellowship, and, recently, a 2023 Hasselblad Award Laureate.

A 2023 awardee, Bradford is an LA-based contemporary artist known for his investigation of race, class, and gender through abstract collage works fashioned from found materials. His career-long exploration of oppressive systems is evident in his works, notably his 2021 exhibition Masses and Movements, which was the inaugural show at Hauser & Wirth Menorca. Bradford was recently awarded the 2024 Getty Prize, for which he selected the Arts for Healing and Justice Network (AHJN) to receive a $500,000 grant. 

The 2022 and 2023 National Humanities Medals were also presented at the ceremony. Among the four recipients is Joy Harjo, a writer, musician, playwright, and the 2021 Katie Jacobson writer in residence in the School of Critical Studies’ Creative Writing program. Harjo also notably served three terms as the 23rd US Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2022.