Black Cube is pleased to announce the 2022 Artist Fellows who will be joining the nonprofit nomadic art museum’s fellowship program. The organization is excited to welcome the following four artists: Julie Béna (Prague/Paris), Brendan Fernandes (Chicago), Rindon Johnson (Berlin), and Jordan Loeppky-Kolesnik (Los Angeles). Johnson and Loeppky-Kolesnik will be working collaboratively throughout the duration of their fellowship. Launched in 2015, Black Cube’s Artist Fellowship is an eighteen-month program that guides contemporary artists through the production of an ambitious, new, site-specific artwork, which can take place anywhere in or outside of the U.S. The fellowship serves as a critical space for artists to experiment in distinct contexts, communities, or locations, while offering the unique opportunity to realize profound ideas that reach diverse audiences.
Julie Béna (b. 1982, Paris, France) currently lives and works between Prague and Paris. Her work is made up of an eclectic set of references, combining contemporary and ancient literature, high and low art, humor and seriousness, parallel times and spaces. Comprising sculpture, installation, film, and performance, her work seems to often float in an infinite vacuum, unfolding against a fictional backdrop where everything is possible. She is a graduate of the Villa Arson, Nice, and attended the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. In 2012–13, she was part of le Pavillon, the research laboratory of the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. In 2018, she was nominated for the Prix AWARE women art prize.
Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979, Nairobi, Kenya) is an internationally recognized Canadian artist working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Currently based out of Chicago, Fernandes’ projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest and other forms of collective movement. Fernandes is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (2007) and a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Fellowship (2014). In 2010, he was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award, and is the recipient of a prestigious 2017 Canada Council New Chapters grant. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University and represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago.
Rindon Johnson (b. 1990, San Francisco, California) is an artist and writer who lives in Berlin. In 2022, Johnson was awarded the 12th Ernst Rietschel Award for Sculpture by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. In 2021, Johnson presented two pendant solo exhibitions at SculptureCenter, New York and Chisendale, London. He is the author of Nobody Sleeps Better Than White People (Inpatient, 2016), the VR book, Meet in the Corner (Publishing-House.Me, 2017), Shade the King (Capricious, 2017) and The Law of Large of Large Numbers: Black Sonic Abyss (Chisenhale, Inpatient, SculptureCenter 2021).
Jordan Loeppky-Kolesnik (b. 1988, Summerside, Canada) is an artist from Montréal living in Los Angeles. They work in video, public art, sculpture, and installation, creating experiences that tell stories about ecological survival, speculative fiction, the queer body, personal relationships, and sense of place. Recent exhibitions include SOPHIE TAPPEINER (Vienna), Titanik (Turku, Finland), ONE Archives (LA), Lantz’scher Skulpturenpark (Dusseldorf), guadalajara91210 (CDMX), and Franconia Sculpture Park (MN). They hold an MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, USA), and a BFA in Intermedia from Concordia University (Montreal).
Black Cube is a nonprofit, nomadic art museum that produces site-specific art in the public realm regionally, nationally, and internationally. The organization endeavors to nurture the sustainability of today’s artists and inspire audiences across the globe to discover contemporary art beyond the confines of traditional gallery spaces. Through its programs, Black Cube creates a critical space for contemporary artists to take risks and push the boundaries of artmaking. Founded in 2015 by Laura Merage, Black Cube is headquartered in Colorado and incubated by the David and Laura Merage Foundation. Since its inception, the museum has been W.A.G.E. certified, reinforcing its commitment to ethical labor relations with artists. Learn more here.
