IMAGE: Sable Elyse Smith, A Clockwork, 2021. Aluminum, steel, motor. 175 1/2 x 165 x 98 inches. Installation view, Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet As It's Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2022. Artwork © Sable Elyse Smith. Image courtesy the artist. Photograph by Charles Benton.
Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize 2026
Sable Elyse Smith has been named the 2026 recipient of the Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize.
Smith will present a solo exhibition at The Contemporary Austin – Jones Center in spring 2026. Following its premiere in Austin, the exhibition will travel to The FLAG Art Foundation in New York. As a part of the prize, Smith will also receive a $200,000 award, an accompanying publication, and related public programming at both venues.
About the 2026 Recipient: Sable Elyse Smith
Sable Elyse Smith (b. 1986, Los Angeles, CA; lives and works in New York, NY) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. Using video, sculpture, photography, and text, she points to the carceral, the personal, the political, and the quotidian to speak about a violence that is largely unseen, and potentially imperceptible.
Her work has been featured at MoMA Ps1, New Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Guggenheim Museum, ICA Boston, and numerous others. In 2022, she participated in the Whitney Biennial and the 59th Venice Biennale. Smith has received awards from Creative Capital, Fine Arts Work Center, the Queens Museum, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, the Franklin Furnace Fund, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and Art Matters. She is currently Assistant Professor of Visual Art at Columbia University. Publications include And Blue In A Decade Where It Finally Means Sky (JTT and Regen Projects, 2022), Ordinary Violence (Haggerty Museum, 2018), and LANDSCAPES & PLAYGROUNDS (Sming Sming Books, 2017).
Artist Image: Portrait of Sable Elyse Smith. Photograph by Tommy Kha.
Advisory Committee for 2026 Prize
Sable Elyse Smith was selected by an independent jury comprising renowned curators and art historians. Led by Alex Klein, Head Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at The Contemporary Austin, the 2026 advisory committee included Dan Byers, John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Director, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University; Valerie Cassel Oliver, Sydney and Frances Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, former Director of the Kunstinstiuut Melly; and Christine Y. Kim, Britton Family Curator-at-Large, North American Art, Tate Modern, along with institutional advisor Jonathan Rider, Director, The FLAG Art Foundation.
About the Prize
The Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize is a biennial prize that supports an artist with a $200,000 award, a solo exhibition at The Contemporary Austin and The FLAG Art Foundation in New York, an accompanying publication, and related public programming. In accordance with the mission of the prize, the winning artist is chosen based on their outstanding merit, a strong record of international exhibitions, and the transformational impact the award stands to have on their life and artistic career. A rotating, independent advisory committee, made up of renowned curators and art historians of contemporary art, selects each year’s recipient.
Smith is the fifth artist to receive the award. Past awardees include Rodney McMillian (2018), Nicole Eisenman (2020), Tarek Atoui (2022), and Lubaina Himid (2024).
About Suzanne Deal Booth
Suzanne Deal Booth has long been committed to the arts, promoting creativity and the preservation of cultural heritage. In 1998, Deal Booth founded the Friends of Heritage Preservation - a charitable group that supports cultural preservation on a global level – and has since served as director. Deal Booth attended Rice University and graduated cum laude in art history. She earned a Master of Arts in art history and art conservation from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. While at Rice and NYU, she had the opportunity to work directly under the tutelage of art patron and humanist Dominique de Menil. She assisted the artist James Turrell on Skyspace at MoMA PS1 as well as his retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and subsequently was the patron for his skyspace Twilight Epiphany at Rice University (2012). She has worked at several institutions, including: the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris); the Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth); the Menil Collection (Houston); and the J. Paul Getty Trust (Los Angeles). She currently serves on the boards of the following arts organizations: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Menil Collection; Ballroom Marfa; The Contemporary Austin; and Atelier Calder, Saché, France. With her young family, she spent a year living in Rome and later established the Suzanne Deal Booth Rome Prize Fellowship for Historic Preservation and Conservation at the American Academy in Rome. Deal Booth’s current endeavors include establishing and cultivating Bella Oaks, a certified organic vineyard and olive orchard in Napa Valley, CA, which produces celebrated Cabernet Sauvignon wine and olive oil.
About The FLAG Art Foundation
The FLAG Art Foundation is a non-collecting, nonprofit exhibition space that mounts solo, two-person, and thematic group exhibitions centering on emerging and established artists from around the globe. Organized by a diverse community of curators and thinkers within and beyond the art world, FLAG opened to the public in 2008 and has staged over 100 exhibitions celebrating the work of nearly 1,000 artists. Committed to providing education and resources for its surrounding community, and across New York City, all exhibitions and programs—including artist talks, artist-led workshops, and guided tours for school and museum groups—are free and open to the public.