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Inaugural CADD x Maddrey PLLC Artist Prize open to Black Artists Living or Working in Dallas County
Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas and Maddrey PLLC are pleased to announce their establishment of the CADD x Maddrey PLLC Artist Prize. Enacted by two organizations dedicated to serving creatives in our city, the annual prize aims to champion historically underserved and underrepresented groups of the Dallas arts community by offering quantifiable support. While the criteria for candidates of the CADD x Maddrey PLLC Artist prize will expand in upcoming years, the inaugural edition has been formed as a direct response to the current national and global conversations surrounding racial inequalities. Recognizing how these issues extend into the local art world, this year’s Prize will be awarded to a Black artist in our immediate community.
The 2020 Prize recipient will be selected from distinguished jurors: Vivian Crockett, The Dallas Museum of Art’s Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art; and Lise Ragbir, Director of Art Galleries at Black Studies, University of Texas at Austin.
The recipient will be awarded a $5,000 cash prize as well as a solo exhibition of their artwork to be hosted in 2021. In addition, Maddrey PLLC will provide the recipient with a Legal Mentorship Package worth a total value of more than $4,500.
Lisa Ragbir (featured left) and Vivian A. Crockett (featured right)
Vivian A. Crockett is a Brazilian-American curator and scholar specializing in modern and contemporary art. Her work focuses largely on art of African diasporas, Latinx diasporas, and the Americas at the varied intersections of race, gender, and queer theory. She is a PhD candidate in Art History at Columbia University whose dissertation examines artistic practices and discourses in Brazil in the sixties and seventies. She has published exhibition catalogue texts for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, Leslie-Lohman Museum, and MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo), among others. Crockett has previously worked at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and held fellowships at MoMA and the Whitney Museum. She is currently The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.
Lise Ragbir is the Director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies (AGBS) at the University of Texas at Austin. As such, she’s organized exhibitions featuring the work of artists such as Genevieve Gaignard, Lewellyn Xavier, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Deborah Roberts, Jacob Lawrence and Dawoud Bey among others. She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of [The Narrative]–AGBS’s virtual-platform which seeks to explore the conversations surrounding creative expression from across the Black Diaspora. Her essays about race, identity, immigration, and cultural representation have appeared in the Guardian, Time Magazine, and Hyperallergic in addition to other publications. She holds a BFA in Art History and Studio Art from Concordia University in Montreal and completed her graduate work in Museum Studies at Harvard University.
About the Partnership
Founder and Managing Member of Maddrey PLLC, Thomas Maddrey, adds, “This moment and this movement are critical in examining how our institutions are set up to support diversity and equity, or how they are not. We are honored to be part of this new initiative along with CADD, an organization we have long held in high esteem for their work in the arts community.” Thomas Maddrey is the founding partner and managing member of Maddrey PLLC, an art law and intellectual property firm in Dallas, TX, and General Counsel for the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP). For over a decade, Thomas was a commercial photographer and editorial shooter.
Thomas regularly assists clients with legal issues, drafts amicus briefs that are filed across the judicial system, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and advises clients on all aspects of copyright and trademark law.
Co-President of CADD, Erin Cluley, states, “We are in a time where cultural communities around the globe are taking a much needed look at the diversity of their programs. As gallerists and business owners, we have the power to make impactful decisions. We are proud to be partnering with Maddrey PLLC to create this opportunity for Black artists working in Dallas.”
Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas (CADD) is a non-profit membership organization of galleries formed in 2007 for the purpose of promoting the advancement of contemporary art on all levels. Today, each of CADD’s twelve member galleries function as an important component of the Dallas art community, providing the means by which artists reach their public and collectors gain access to works of art. Through year-round social and fundraising events, CADD aims to develop resources that support visual artists in our community.
