Biography

John Grade (American, born 1970 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) lives and works in Seattle. Grade creates large-scale sculptures that are exhibited internationally in museums, galleries, and outdoors in nature. His projects are designed to change over time and often involve collaboration with large groups of people to build and install. The artist is the recipient of the 2010 Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Tiffany Foundation Award, an Andy Warhol Foundation Award, two Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants, and the 2011 Arlene Schnitzer Prize from the Portland Art Museum. Past exhibitions include the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Emory University, Atlanta; Bellevue Arts Museum, Washington; and the Seattle Art Museum. Grade’s 65-foot sculpture Wawona is permanently installed at the Museum of History & Industry, Seattle, where it breaks through the floor and ceiling of the building, bridging the water and sky. The artist is currently working on a three-year project documenting and modeling changing landforms above the arctic circle, including sites in northern Iceland, Siberia, Greenland, and arctic Alaska.

At The Contemporary