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.
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.” 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.”
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 Lisa 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. Artists can visit www.caddallas.org/prize for complete details on applying. Deadline to apply is Friday, October 30, 2020.
The 2020 CADD x Maddrey Artist Prize is made possible through the generous support of Maddrey PLLC, Diane Boddy, Joanne Cassullo, John Dirba and Brian Morrison, Mike Matthews, Travis Vandergriff and Rodrigo Zepeda, and additional anonymous donors.
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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.
Maddrey PLLC is a boutique art law firm with a specific focus on intellectual property law and the business and law of art. Our focus is creatives and creators, and the world in which they work. With a career prior to law in the arts and as an artist, founder Thomas Maddrey brings the experience from both sides of the table. Maddrey PLLC is focused on making sure you can do what you do best: Create.
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About the jurors
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.