About the Prize

The Contemporary Austin and The FLAG Art Foundation are pleased to announce the formation of the Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize.

Through additional funding provided by Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman, the new Prize will transform the former, $100,000 Suzanne Deal Booth Art Prize into one of the largest awards presented to an artist. The Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize will fund a $200,000 unrestricted award to an artist selected by an independent advisory committee comprising renowned curators and art historians from across the U.S. and internationally, a scholarly publication, and all production expenses for the creation of new work for a solo exhibition that will premiere at The Contemporary Austin in Texas and then be presented at The FLAG Art Foundation in New York.

Suzanne Deal Booth and Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman have committed to jointly fund four prizes biennially through 2026. Each Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize exhibition will be organized by the curatorial team at The Contemporary Austin in collaboration with the staff at The FLAG Art Foundation.

Glenn Fuhrman and Suzanne Deal Booth

Nicole Eisenman is the recipient of the 2020 prize. Eisenman was chosen by this year’s independent advisory committee, which includes: Ian Berry, Dayton Director of The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery and Professor of Liberal Arts at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY; Lauren Haynes, Curator, Contemporary Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Eungie Joo, Curator of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Helen Molesworth, critic; and Lilian Tone, Assistant Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; along with institutional advisors Heather Pesanti, Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at The Contemporary Austin, and Stephanie Roach, Director of The FLAG Art Foundation.

“Amanda and I have been interested in supporting artists through a major prize that would allow them the freedom to live and focus on creating their most ambitious work. We were inspired by what Suzanne, Louis, and the team at The Contemporary Austin accomplished with the inaugural Suzanne Deal Booth Art Prize, so rather than initiating a new award, we realized that by collaborating we could collectively create an unparalleled opportunity for the artists and institutions involved going forward,” stated Glenn Fuhrman, Founder of The FLAG Art Foundation.

“I am incredibly grateful to Suzanne Deal Booth who had the initial vision for an art prize of this significance and magnitude,” said Louis Grachos, the Ernest and Sarah Butler Executive Director and CEO of The Contemporary Austin. “We pride ourselves in being an artist-centric institution, giving artists important opportunities through commissions and organizing major exhibitions at both our downtown museum and at our lakeside sculpture park. Like Suzanne, Amanda and Glenn Fuhrman recognize the singular power of new and innovative contemporary art to cultivate ideas and deepen our connection with the global community. Their foresight in collaborating on the Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize will transform the lives of the recipient artists and will benefit all of us through the opportunities it creates for unfettered creative output by some of the most significant artists living and working today.”

The Suzanne Deal Booth Art Prize was initiated in 2016 through the generosity of Deal Booth, a trustee of The Contemporary Austin. The $100,000 Prize was awarded to Rodney McMillian, chosen by the advisory committee of Stephanie Barron, Naomi Beckwith, Peter Eleey, Heather Pesanti, Hamza Walker, and Heidi Zuckerman. McMillian’s solo exhibition, Against a Civic Death, is on view at The Contemporary’s downtown venue, the Jones Center on Congress Avenue, from February 3 through August 26, 2018, and a catalogue of the exhibition, including a history of McMillian’s performance-based work, will be co-published by The Contemporary Austin and Radius Books in the fall.

“I have been so pleased to watch the inaugural Prize take shape through the current exhibition by Rodney McMillian,” said Suzanne Deal Booth. “Rodney had the freedom to conceive and realize an exhibition without restrictions. As the resulting body of work reverberates through the art world, I can see how this rare experience may transform his practice, propelling his career in new directions and opening up new opportunities. I’m thrilled to now partner with the Fuhrmans and The FLAG Art Foundation to make the prize even more life-changing for an artist and the diverse communities involved.”

IMAGE: Photograph by Whitney Arostegui.

About Suzanne Deal Booth

Suzanne Deal Booth has long been committed to the recognition, preservation, and conservation of visual arts and cultural heritage. Deal Booth co-founded the Friends of Heritage Preservation and has served as director since its inception in 1998.

Deal Booth has a Master of Arts in art history and conservation from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and Conservation Center in New York City. While at Rice and NYU, she had the opportunity to work directly under the tutelage of art patron and humanist Dominique de Menil. She worked with her close friend, the artist James Turrell, on Skyspace at MoMA PS1 (1986), and later assisted on his retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2012, under Deal Booth’s patronage, Turrell’s permanent installation at Rice University, Twilight Epiphany, was realized. She has worked at several institutions, including les Monuments Historiques, France; the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth; the Menil Collection, Houston; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles.

Her patronage and philanthropic efforts include serving on the boards of several arts organizations, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Menil Collection, the Centre Pompidou Foundation, Ballroom Marfa, and The Contemporary Austin. She established the Booth Family Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, Italy, in 2003.

Deal Booth’s passion for conservation is further evident in the management of the family vineyard, Bella Oaks, in Rutherford, California. With a deep respect for the preservation of the land and the heritage of the Napa Valley, she aims to produce a unique wine indicative of place and nuanced by her contemporary aesthetic.

About The FLAG Art Foundation

The FLAG Art Foundation, founded in 2008 by art patron Glenn Fuhrman, is a nonprofit exhibition space that encourages the appreciation of contemporary art among a diverse audience. FLAG presents four to six exhibitions a year that include artworks by international established and emerging artists, borrowed from a variety of sources. FLAG invites a broad range of creative individuals to curate exhibitions and works in-depth with artists to provide curatorial support and a platform to realize their own solo exhibitions.

FLAG’s innovative approach to foster dialogue around contemporary art includes producing artist talks, artist-led workshops, and exhibition tours for school and museum groups. Based in the heart of Manhattan’s Chelsea art district, FLAG and all of its related programs are free and open to the public.

About Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman

Glenn Fuhrman is the Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner of MSD Capital, L.P., an investment firm formed in 1998 that exclusively manages the capital of Michael Dell, his family, and a select group of other investors. Previously, he was a Managing Director and Head of the Special Investments Group at Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Fuhrman is a Trustee of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, and the TATE Americas Foundation, and a board member of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. He is also a board member of the 92nd Street Y, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation.

In 2008, Fuhrman founded The FLAG Art Foundation, a nonprofit exhibition space that encourages the appreciation of contemporary art among a diverse audience. FLAG presents four to six exhibitions a year that includes artworks by international established and emerging artists, borrowed from a variety of sources. FLAG invites a broad range of creative individuals to curate exhibitions and works in-depth with artists to provide curatorial support and a platform to realize their own solo exhibitions. Since its founding FLAG has organized over 50 exhibitions showing the work of almost 500 artists, curated by 18 different curators, including Lisa Dennison, Prabal Gurung, Jim Hodges, and Shaquille O’Neal, among others. Based in the heart of Manhattan’s Chelsea art district, FLAG and all its related programs are free and open to the public.

Amanda Fuhrman is a non-practicing attorney previously with Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett LLP, specializing in Trust and Estates. She left the law to pursue public service, and became the Deputy Executive Director of Millennium Promise, a nonprofit founded by economist Jeffrey Sachs and philanthropist Raymond Chambers, focused on eradicating extreme poverty. Amanda Fuhrman is currently a Trustee of Edible Schoolyard NYC. In 2009, she co-curated with Philae Knight the exhibition Re-Accession: For Sale by Owner at FLAG, which featured a cross section of New York–based artists who were either without, or who had lost, gallery representation as a result of the 2008 economic downturn.

In 2013, the Fuhrmans sponsored the creation of the nation’s largest free Wi-Fi network, covering 95 city blocks in Harlem. Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman established the Fuhrman Family Foundation in 2016 for grant-making focused on the arts, children’s education, women’s causes, health and well-being, minority causes, and criminal justice reform. They live in New York City with their three children.