The Underground Museum Announces Winners of the Inaugural Noah Davis Prize

The Underground Museum announced today the winners of their inaugural Noah Davis Prize. Named for the visionary artist and curator who co-founded the museum, the prize honors three curators who are transforming their respective fields and broadening audiences for culture.

The winners are Candice Hopkins for Art for a New Understanding: Native Voices, 1950s to Now, Jamillah James for A Shape That Stands Up, and Thomas Jean Lax for Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done. The prize, which is presented in partnership with the CHANEL Culture Fund, endows $25,000 to each winner. The Underground Museum will also present a curatorial symposium featuring the award recipients in Spring 2022.

Co-founded in 2012 by Noah Davis and his wife, the artist Karon Davis, The Underground Museum is a non-profit arts and culture space dedicated to exhibitions and cultural programming. Based in the Arlington Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, the Museum offers free classes to the local community, as well as food distribution and events for adults, children, and families in its space and garden. The Museum will reopen in January 2022 with an exhibition of paintings spanning Davis’s career, organized by Helen Molesworth.

To read more about the Prize and its 2021 recipients, visit Artnet.

Image: Noah Davis, Los Angeles, 2009. Photo by Patrick O’Brien-Smith