Nari Ward is an artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 based in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Nari Ward received a BA from Hunter College

Hunter College

Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...

, CUNY

City University of New York

The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...

 in 1991 and a MFA from Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

, CUNY in 1992. His work is often composed of found object

Found object

A found object, in an artistic sense, indicates the use of an object which has not been designed for an artistic purpose, but which exists for another purpose already. Found objects may exist either as utilitarian, manufactured items, or things which occur in nature...

s from his neighborhood, and "address issues related to consumer culture, poverty

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

, and race".

Career

Nari Ward has shown in solo and group exhibitions around the globe. In 2011 he will have a solo exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art

Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, commonly referred to as MASS MoCA, is a museum in a converted factory building located in North Adams, Massachusetts, USA. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing arts in the country.MASS MoCA opened with 19...

 entitled Nari Ward: Sub Mirage Lignum. His installation will fill all of the museum's second floor and will investigate transformative spaces that straddle the division between leisure and work. In the previous year he exhibited in a solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery and was part of Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Rotunda curated by Nancy Spector and held at the Guggenheim Museum

Guggenheim Museum

Guggenheim Museum may refer to:* The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, United States* The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy* The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain* The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas, United States...

. Other notable exhibitions include
Prospect.1, New Orleans (2009); Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art

Whitney Museum of American Art

The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...

, New York (2006); Documenta XI, Kassel, Germany (2002); and a solo exhibition entitled Nari Ward's Rites-of-Way in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, Walker Art Center

Walker Art Center

The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...

, Minneapolis, MN.

Nari Ward is the recipient of numerous awards including the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Willard L. Metcalf Award (1998), Pollock Krasner Foundation grant (1996), The National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

 (1994), and the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1992). He has also participated in the Studio Museum in Harlem

Studio Museum in Harlem

The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American contemporary art museum in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, New York. It was founded in 1968 as the first such museum in the U.S. devoted to the art of African-Americans, specializing in 19th and 20th century work as well work of artists of...

's Artist-in-Residence program

External links

• Lehmann Maupin