Our latest roundup of Pew Fellows news includes artists receiving Guggenheim and Herb Alpert Awards, new novels and poetry books, musical collaborations, and major installations at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
News from the Center
In May, we announced the latest artist residencies awarded to four of our Pew Fellows. These opportunities for creative research and development give artists time, space, and inspiration to advance their practices. Read about the ways writer Asali Solomon (2022), performance artist Jaamil Olawale Kosoko (2020), interdisciplinary artist James Allister Sprang (2022), and filmmaker Rashid Zakat (2021) are spending their time at spaces dedicated to creative development.
We also recently shared the latest set of portraits for our 2024 class of Pew Fellows. Each year, we commission portraits of our Fellows to showcase these artists working in disciplines ranging from music and movement to soundscapes to sculptures, and more. See the full set here.
Awards & Recognition
Two Pew Fellows are among the 2025 Guggenheim Fellows, awarded to “exceptional individuals in pursuit of scholarship in any field of knowledge and creation in any art form,” according to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Choreographer Merián Soto (2015) and filmmaker Rea Tajiri (2015) were selected from a pool of nearly 3,500 applicants, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which ran a story in April on the Philadelphia-based Guggenheim Fellows.
Interdisciplinary artist Mikel Patrick Avery (2024) is one of 10 recipients of the 2025 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. The award recognizes “risk-taking mid-career artists” and is given to two winners in each of five disciplines. Avery was recognized by the award’s music panel for “the integrity, creativity, and open mind with which he creates a space of joy and fullness for his collaborators and the listeners who join him on his sonic journey.”
Sculptor and installation artist Michelle Lopez (2024) is one of five 2025 Arts + Tech Fellows, awarded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Arts + Tech Fellowships are administered by United States Artists and support artists exploring fresh approaches to technology and new media. Lopez’s work will also be on view in Philadelphia this fall when the Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design present Pandemonium, a multimedia installation that contemplates meteorological and human-created disasters.
Glass artist Judith Schaechter (1992) was profiled in the New York Times’ “Museums” special section in April. Writer Sarah Archer noted that Schaechter “sits atop the art world glass firmament in the United States.” Her dome-shaped work of stained glass, Super/Natural, is currently installed at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA. “Schaechter created the piece during her recently completed stint as an artist in residence at the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics,” reported the Times.
New in Print
Author Imani Perry (2019) has received widespread national media attention for her newest book, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People (HarperCollins). In a profile in The New York Times, Perry’s colleague, Princeton professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr., described her as “one of the most important writers of this period,” adding: “In Black in Blues, you get a sense of her capacious mind. She sees relationships that no other writer sees, and you get these extraordinary insights in this beautiful prose.” Perry also spoke with Tonya Mosley for Fresh Air, discussing the book and the cultural significance of the color blue, from Coretta Scott King's wedding dress and jazz's “blue note,” to indigo dye and cobalt mining and their historic impact on the people of West Africa.
Sculptor Kambel Smith (2021) is showcased in 80 pages of full-color photographs of his intricate cardboard sculptures of architectural landmarks in the new coffee table book Autisarian: The Monumental Art of Kambel Smith Cardboard Architecture, American Icons, and the Vision of a Self-Taught Genius.
Poet Kayleb Rae Candrilli (2021)’s fourth collection of poetry, Winter of Worship (Copper Canyon Press), explores themes of loss through family, youth, and climate change.
Interdisciplinary artist Rasheedah Phillips (2017) of Black Quantum Futurism explores time, quantum physics, and racial justice in Dismantling the Master’s Clock: On Race, Space, and Time (AK Press).
Writer Beth Kephart (2005) has released Tomorrow Will Bring Sunday’s News (Trustlowe Press). Inspired in part by Kephart's own grandmother, the novel tells the story of 1918 Philadelphia and how it intersected with the Great War, increasing racial tensions, and a global influenza outbreak.
A Hole in the Story: A Novel (Milkweed Editions) by Ken Kalfus (2009) was named a Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2025 and received a Kirkus starred review, which called the book “an edgy, discomfiting look at the alpha males of journalism in the age of #MeToo."
New in Music
Composer and pianist Sumi Tonooka’s (2023) new album, Under the Surface, is out now. Commissioned by Chamber Music America New Jazz Works, Under the Surface features Tonooka’s trio with bassist Gregg August and drummer Johnathan Blake, plus Alchemy Sound Project. The album is inspired by the roots and fungi networks that support the survival of trees.
Interdisciplinary artist and musician Moor Mother (2017) has released a joint album, The Film (Thrill Jockey), with experimental metal trio SUMAC. FLOOD Magazine wrote that the album “showcases the best of [the musicians’] shared style, stitching Moor Mother’s potent oratory chops through SUMAC’s free-form approach to metallic sonic spaces.”
Composer and drummer Chad E. Taylor (2024) has announced a new album with his Chicago Underground Duo, titled Hyperglyph (International Anthem). The duo, consisting of Taylor and composer, trumpeter, and synthesist Rob Mazurek, have been longtime collaborators in various formations for over three decades. Taylor also appears on the recently released Live in Philadelphia (Otherly Love Records) with Pew Fellow Marshall Allen’s (2012) Ghost Horizons.
New in Galleries & Museums
Painter Odili Donald Odita (2022) has created a new large-scale work for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. On view through April 2026, Songs from Life was painted over the course of six weeks, with visitors able to see the site-specific, floor-to-ceiling work emerging across the walls and columns of MoMA’s lobby. Music serves as the primary source of inspiration for the mural’s bright colors and abstract patterns.
A solo exhibition of the work of visual artist Jesse Krimes (2022) is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through July 13, 2025. Jesse Krimes: Corrections features works made during the artist’s six years in incarceration, presented alongside photographs from the Met’s permanent collection by the 19th century French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon, who developed the first modern system of criminal identification.
Jonathan Lyndon Chase (2019) and Acne Studios continue their collaboration with the Acne Studios Loves Jonathan Lyndon Chase capsule collection, which features the artist’s illustrations across clothing, denim, and homeware. The collection release coincided with an exhibition, Heart Beat Rose, for Frieze New York 2025.
Also a part of Frieze New York 2025, artist Sharon Hayes (2016) collaborated with theater director Brooke O’Harra on a live performance and installation, Echo Chamber, at Artists Space. The work featured five performers and an installation of audio cassette players and microphones, drawing from the artists’ archive of cassette recordings, including Hayes’s 1987 conversations with lesbians across the US. Footage from the performance is available on the Frieze website.
In Memoriam
We were saddened by the passing of Pew Fellow Francis Davis, who died at the age of 78 on April 14, 2025, at his home in Philadelphia. Over five decades, the influential writer and jazz critic shaped the way readers and listeners engage with music, contributing to outlets including The Atlantic, The Village Voice, The Philadelphia Inquirer, NPR Music, and Fresh Air, among others.
