DALLAS, TX.- The Nasher Sculpture Center announced today that Colombian artist Doris Salcedo will be the first recipient of the Nasher Prize, an annual international award presented to a living artist who has had an extraordinary impact on the field of sculpture. Salcedo was selected by an international jury and will receive the $100,000 prize, along with a commemorative award designed by architect Renzo Piano, at a gala dinner at the Nasher Sculpture Center on April 2, 2016.

Salcedo is a Bogotá-based sculptor and installation artist who, for the past three decades, has addressed the human toll of civil and political conflict and acts of war through works that variously commemorate, memorialize, and investigate personal, social, and historical traumas. Turning her attention both towards the struggles within her own homeland, which has had the longest-lasting civil conflict in the Western Hemisphere, as well as to political turmoil internationally, she addresses the persistent issues of colonialism, racism, and social injustice, and the need to mourn the deaths that follow in their wake.

As one of a few institutions worldwide dedicated exclusively to the study and appreciation of modern and contemporary sculpture, the Nasher Sculpture Center established the Nasher Prize to extend that mission and commitment by recognizing artists who have had a significant impact on the understanding of the art form.

"We created the Nasher Prize in order to recognize an artist whose work has enriched our vision of what sculpture can be,” said Nasher Sculpture Center Director Jeremy Strick. “Over the course of the past 30 years, through her use of meaningful, everyday materials, often in unexpected and socially-charged public spaces in her native Colombia and elsewhere around the world, Doris Salcedo has created a body of work that is both aesthetically striking and politically resonant. With this subtle and deeply evocative work, she has bravely challenged us to consider more fully the deep connections between place, history, and objects that carry the weight of collective memory, suggesting avenues of thinking that tie together object-making and potent social action. Our mission at the Nasher is to support the creation of new sculpture and to expand our understanding of what sculpture is, and Doris Salcedo continues to powerfully point the art form in ever-more provocative and insightful directions.”

“The Prize is very meaningful to me because I believe my task as an artist is to make connections—to connect worlds that normally are unconnected, like art and politics, like the experience of the lost lives of victims of political violence with the experience and memories of the viewers who approach or contemplate the work—and I think the Prize will widen this audience,” said Doris Salcedo. “The prize helps to acknowledge that in the midst of violence, in the midst of political conflict, there is room for thought and room for producing art that is meaningful to all of us.”

Salcedo was selected by an international jury of museum directors, curators, artists, and art historians who have an expertise in the field of sculpture. The 2016 Nasher Prize jurors were: Phyllida Barlow, artist; Lynne Cooke, Senior Curator of Special Projects in Modern Art, National Gallery of Art; Okwui Enwezor, Director, Haus der Kunst; Yuko Hasegawa, Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT); Steven Nash, founding Director of the Nasher Sculpture Center and Director Emeritus of the Palm Springs Art Museum; Alexander Potts, art historian; and Sir Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate.

“It is a great responsibility to select the first winner of a new prize, as it sets the tone for what the prize can and is willing to achieve,” said Tate Director Sir Nicholas Serota. “In selecting a winner, we wanted to choose someone whose work was not only innovative, challenging, and significant, but also someone whose work continues to take risks, and address the changing contemporary conditions. From the outset, Doris Salcedo has created memorable work that deals with conflict. Most importantly, her work continues to evolve and change, both conceptually and aesthetically, as it addresses those social and political issues most relevant to us today.”