Showcasing the Essential Role of Diverse Voices in Storytelling
Since 2005, Tribeca and CHANEL have brought together esteemed artists who generously gift an original work to winning filmmakers of the Festival.
This year, the exceptional group of artists invited by Tribeca and CHANEL embodies a wide spectrum of perspectives, backgrounds, and identities, affirming the essential role of diverse voices in storytelling. They include Deborah Kass, Erick & Elliot Jiménez, Glenn Ligon, Jenny Holzer, Joiri Minaya, José Parlá, Juliana Huxtable, Maia Cruz Palileo, Paul Anthony Smith, and Tourmaline. Curator Racquel Chevremont led the selection of artists and their work.
Tribeca and CHANEL recognize the undeniable impact diverse artists can have when their work and stories are in the spotlight,” said Tribeca Co-Founder and CEO Jane Rosenthal. “We are dedicated to celebrating creativity and culture, championing diverse voices, and encouraging the development of a new generation of visionaries. Our nineteen-year partnership with CHANEL underscores our joint commitment to honoring powerful storytelling, artistic excellence, and the spirit of artists supporting other artists. We invite audiences to join us in this celebration and discover the transformative power of diverse artistry.”
Since its inception, the Artist Awards Program has recognized the intersection between creative fields and celebrated New York City’s enduring spirit of cultural innovation. The tradition of supporting artistic creativity and vision traces back to the start of the Tribeca Festival, which was founded with a mission to rebuild and regenerate the artistic life of New York City in the wake of 9/11. Tribeca’s enduring impact on the community has prompted studio artists to engage directly with the Festival by supporting and celebrating fellow storytellers. Solidarity and generosity remain core values of the Festival, as demonstrated by the Artists Awards Program each year.
“As the curator for this year’s Artist Awards Program, I am honored to showcase the exceptional talents of these diverse creators,” said the 2024 Artist Awards curator Racquel Chevremont. “Each artist brings a unique vision and narrative, enriching the dialogue of storytelling and emphasizing the importance of inclusive narratives in shaping our cultural landscape.”
CHANEL continues its support of the annual Artist Awards Program for the 19th year, which celebrates the leading filmmakers and artists of our time. Art has been integral to the House of CHANEL throughout its history. House founder and visionary Gabriel Chanel surrounded herself with the leading artists of her time, drawing inspiration and support from her fellow creative peers. CHANEL’s collaboration with the Tribeca Festival is a testament to the brand’s continuous commitment to creation and artistry in their varied forms.
This year’s art collection will be displayed at the Tribeca Festival Hub at Spring Studios throughout the Festival.
In a short film created exclusively for the Festival, Deborah Kass, José Parlá, Paul Anthony Smith and Racquel Chevrement talk about the program, the vibrancy of Tribeca and the effect of artists supporting artists.
Deborah Kass Diamond Deb, 2013. 2 color silkscreen with enamel inks and diamond dust ops 2 ply museum board. 24” x 24”.
Edition 9 of 40.
Given to The Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director
Elliot & Erick Jiménez Midnight Anemone, 2024. Archival photo print. 24” x 32”. Edition of 5 + 2AP. Courtesy of the artists and Spinello Projects.
Given to Best Documentary Short
Glenn Ligon Untitled (I/America), 2023. Digital image with hand-drawn additions. Sheet size 11” x 14” (27.9 x 35.6 cm). Image size 5.13” x 7” (13 x 17.8 cm). AP 3/20 from an edition of 30 with 20 APs. Printed by Griffin Editions. Photographer Credit: Ronald Amstutz.
Given to Best Narrative Short
Jenny Holzer I SEE, 2015. Medium: Inkjet print. Dimensions :12.25” x 15”. / 31.1 x 38.1 cm
Text: Arno, 1996. Edition: Number 10 from an edition of 10 + 3 APs. Studio Inventory number: JH2034.10/10.
Given to Student Visionary Award
Joiri Minaya Postcard composition #1, #2 & #3, 2020, 2023. Postcard composition #1, 2020. 11” x 17”. Archival print. Postcard composition #2, 2020. 11” x 17”. Archival print. Postcard composition #3, 2023. 11” x 17”. Archival print.
Given to Best Animated Short
José Parlá Title: Concentric Harmony, 2024. Pigment on Watercolor Somerset Paper. 23” x 30″.
Given to Best International Narrative Feature
Juliana Huxtable BAILEY 2, 2018. Oil, Acrylic, inkjet print on canvas. 30” x 40”.
Given to Nora Ephron Award
Maia Cruz Palileo Night Swim, 2023. Gouache on paper. 11.25” x 7.5”. Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery.
Given to Best New Narrative Director
Paul Anthony Smith Untitled, 2024. Acrylic Gouache and Collage on Inkjet print, Spray Paint. 12.5” x 10”.
Given to Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature
Tourmaline Pour the boos around me, 2022-23. C-print. 18” x 18” (45.7 x 45.7 cm). Edition 2 of 3 (T 2244).
Given to Best Documentary Feature
About the Artists
Deborah Kass: An artist whose work examines the intersection of art history, popular culture and the self. Her work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of Art, The Guggenheim Museum, The Jewish Museum, The Museum of Fine Art, Boston, The New Orleans Museum of Art, as well as numerous other museums and private collections.
Her work has been shown nationally and internationally. The Andy Warhol Museum presented “Deborah Kass, Before and Happily Ever After, Mid- Career Retrospective” in 2012 with a catalog published by Rizzoli. Her sculpture OY/YO is permanently installed in front of the Brooklyn Museum and the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.
Kass has served on the board of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and currently serves on the board of the Sharpe Walentas Studio Program.
Elliot & Erick Jiménez (b. 1989, Miami, Florida): Identical twins and first-generation Cuban-Americans, Elliot & Erick Jiménez were born and raised in Miami by Cuban immigrants.
Their photographic practice began from an early passion for art history and influences derived from a theological upbringing, exploring the mysticism of gods in mythology, Yoruba, and Catholic syncretic elements. Inspired by paintings, their work portrays the ephemeral nature of light and color through experimental camera techniques and the composition of their subjects, typically rendering them like paintings.
Elliot & Erick bridge the unique culture of Lucumí within Cuban spirituality and canonical works of art from Western history. They reinterpret these art historical references by orchestrating staged photographs, employing intricate sets, costumes, and lighting arrangements. Within these compositions, they infuse their shadow figures and their floral offerings with rich symbolism, portraying them as elusive entities. Once hidden out of fear of persecution, these figures are now depicted as powerful symbols, seamlessly integrating the duo’s personal narratives within this framework.
Elliot & Erick’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. Solo exhibitions of their work have been presented at Spinello Projects, Entre Dos Mundos/Between Two Worlds (2022), Paris Photo (2022), and PHOTOFAIRS New York (2023). Group museum exhibitions include Open Storage (2022) at the Bass Museum, Miami, The Florida Prize (2023) at the Orlando Museum of Art, and Surrealism & Us (2024) at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
Their work is held in the permanent collections of Beth Rudin DeWoody’s Bunker Art Space and the Orlando Museum of Art. In 2023, they created their first public art project; a monumental site specific installation, spanning 100 linear feet in the Miami Design District. Elliot & Erick were also the recipients of the Ellies Creator Award (2023), the Miami Individual Artist (MIA) Grant (2023), the Latin American Fashion Awards Emerging Photographer of the Year (2023), and were awarded the Orlando Museum of Art’s Florida Prize People’s Choice Award (2023).
They have worked on editorial projects with publications such as Vogue Italia and TIME magazine and collaborated with brands like Gucci and Hermès. In 2023, Elliot & Erick made editorial history by photographing Bad Bunny for the cover of TIME in the publication’s first-ever all-Spanish cover, in its 100-year history. Elliot & Erick live and work between Miami & New York and are represented by Spinello Projects.
Glenn Ligon (b. 1960): is an artist living and working in New York. Throughout his career, Ligon has pursued an incisive exploration of American history, literature, and society across bodies of work that build critically on the legacies of modern painting and conceptual art. He earned his BA from Wesleyan University (1982) and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (1985). In 2011, the Whitney Museum of American Art held a mid-career retrospective, Glenn Ligon: America, organized by Scott Rothkopf, that traveled nationally.
Important solo exhibitions include Post-Noir, Carre d’Art, Nîmes (2022); Call and Response, Camden Arts Centre, London (2014); and Some Changes, The Power Plant Center for Contemporary Art, Toronto (traveled internationally) (2005). Select curatorial projects include Grief and Grievance, New Museum, New York (2021); Blue Black, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis (2017); and Encounters and Collisions, Nottingham Contemporary and Tate Liverpool (2015). Ligon’s work has been shown in major international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2015, 1997), Berlin Biennial (2014), Istanbul Biennial (2019, 2011), and Documenta XI (2002).
Jenny Holzer: For more than forty years, she has presented her astringent ideas, arguments, and sorrows in public places and international exhibitions, including Times Square, the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Her medium, whether a T-shirt, plaque, or electronic sign, is writing, and the public dimension is integral to her work.
Starting in the 1970s with her New York City street posters and continuing through her recent light projections on landscape and architecture, her practice has rivaled ignorance and violence with humor, kindness, and courage. Holzer received the Leone d’Oro at the Venice Biennale in 1990, the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award in 1996, and the US State Department’s International Medal of Arts in 2017. She holds honorary degrees from Williams College, the Rhode Island School of Design, The New School, and Smith College. She lives and works in New York.
Joiri Minaya (1990) is a NY-based Dominican-United Statesian multidisciplinary visual artist. She studied art at the ENAV (DR), the Chavón School of Design, and Parsons. Minaya has exhibited across the Caribbean, the U.S. and internationally. She’s a recent recipient of a Latinx Artist Fellowship, a NYSCA / NYFA Artist Fellowship, a Jerome Hill Fellowship, and a NY Artadia award. She has participated in residencies at ISCP, Skowhegan, Smack Mellon, Bronx Museum, Red Bull House of Art, LES Printshop, Socrates Sculpture Park, Art Omi, Vermont Studio Center, New Wave, Silver Art Projects, Light Work and Fountainhead.
José Parlá is a critically acclaimed, multidisciplinary artist working in painting, large-scale murals, photography, video and sculpture. He started painting walls in Miami’s underground art scene of the early 1980s and went on to study at Miami Dade Community College, New World School of the Arts and Savannah College of Art & Design.
Parlá’s work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, The Bronx Museum, High Museum of Art, Atlanta; SCAD Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Neuberger Museum of Art, National YoungArts Foundation, Gordon Parks Foundation, Goss Michael Foundation, Istanbul’74 Arts & Culture Festival, and the Havana Biennial, Cuba, among others.
Parlá’s work is in several public collections including the British Museum, London; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York; POLA Museum of Art, Hakone, Japan; and the National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba, Perez Art Museum Miami.
Permanent Public Arts projects include commissions by Far Rockaway Writers Library, the University of Texas, Austin; One World Trade Center for his monumental mural painting, ONE: Union of the Senses; Barclays Center, New York; Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York; Chiltern Firehouse, London; North Carolina State University’s Hunt Library by Snøhetta; and at Concord City Place, Toronto.
Juliana Huxtable is a writer, artist and musician living and working Between New York and Berlin. Her forthcoming poetry collection will be published with Wonder Press in 2024. Her first collection of texts, Mucus In my Pineal Gland, was co-published by Wonder Press and Capricious in 2017, and she co-wrote Life: A Novel with Hannah Black, which was published in 2018 with Buchhandlung Walther König.
Maia Cruz Palileo (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist exploring migration and the notion of home through paintings, installations, sculptures, and drawings. Drawing from their family’s Filipino heritage and the historical ties between the Philippines and the United States, Palileo weaves together memory and imagination in dream-like paintings that blur the lines between reality and fiction.
Their work recontextualizes archival photographs to honor forgotten narratives and challenge exploitative representations. Palileo holds an MFA in sculpture from Brooklyn College and a BA in Studio Art from Mount Holyoke College. They’ve had notable solo shows at moniquemeloche Gallery, the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, and Kimball Arts Center amongst others, and inclusion in group exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, and San Jose Museum of Art amongst others. Palileo’s work is held in collections worldwide, including the San Jose Museum of Art, Nasher Museum of Art, and the Speed Museum. They’ve received numerous awards and grants, including from Joan Mitchell Foundation. Palileo resides and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Paul Anthony Smith (b. Jamaica) is an artist based in New York. Smith creates paintings and picotage on pigment prints that explore the artist’s autobiography, as well as issues of identity within the African diaspora. Referencing both W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness and Franz Fanon’s theory of diasporic cultural confusions caused by colonialism, Smith alludes to fences, borders, and barriers to conceal and alter his subjects and landscapes.
Smith’s practice celebrates the rich and complex histories of the post-colonial Caribbean and its people. Memory, migration and home are central to Smith’s work, which probes questions of hybrid identities between worlds old and new. Smith’s layered picotage is often patterned in the style of Caribbean breeze block fences and modernist architectural elements that function as veils, meant both to obscure and to protect Smith’s subjects from external gaze.
Tourmaline (b. 1983, Roxbury, Massachusetts): Lives and works in Miami, FL. Received her BA from Columbia University in 2006.Has had solo exhibition at MUDAM, Luxembourg (2023) and Chapter NY, New York (2020-2021). Her work has also been presented within significant group exhibitions such as the 2024 Whitney Biennial, Even Better Than the Real Thing, Whitney Museum of American Art (2024); Acts of Resilience, South London Gallery, London (2024); Artist and Society, Tate Modern, London (2023–); the Venice Biennale (2022); Mountain/Time, Aspen Art Museum (2022); Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2021–); The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience, and Resistance in the Art of Our Time, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2021); and Critical Fabulations, Museum of Modern Art,New York (2021).
Tourmaline’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Grand Duke Jean Museum of Modern Art, Luxembourg; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Tate Modern , London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
About Tribeca Festival 2024
Presented by OKX, brings artists and diverse audiences together to celebrate storytelling in all its forms, including film, TV, music, audio storytelling, games, and immersive. With strong roots in independent film, Tribeca is synonymous with creative expression and entertainment. Tribeca champions emerging and established voices, discovers award-winning talent, curates innovative experiences, and introduces new ideas through exclusive premieres, exhibitions, conversations, and live performances.
The Festival was founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff in 2001 to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of lower Manhattan following the attacks on the World Trade Center. The annual Tribeca Festival will celebrate its 23rd year from June 5–16, 2024 in New York City.
In 2019, James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems bought a majority stake in Tribeca Enterprises, bringing together Rosenthal, De Niro, and Murdoch to grow the enterprise.
About Chanel
A private company and a world leader in creating, developing, manufacturing and distributing luxury products. Founded by Gabrielle Chanel at the beginning of the last century, Chanel offers a broad range of high-end creations, including Ready-to-Wear, Leather Goods, Fashion Accessories, Eyewear, Fragrances, Makeup, Skincare, Jewellery and Watches. Chanel is also renowned for its Haute Couture collections, presented twice yearly in Paris, and for having acquired a large number of specialized suppliers, collectively known as the Métiers d’art. Chanel is dedicated to ultimate luxury and to the highest level of craftsmanship. It is a brand whose core values remain historically grounded on exceptional creation. As such, Chanel promotes culture, art, creativity and “savoir-faire” throughout the world, and invests significantly in people, R&D, sustainable development and innovation. At the end of 2023, Chanel employed over 36,500 people worldwide.
Gregg W. Morris can be reached at gregghc@comcast.net, profgreggwmorris@gmail.com
Editor, Publisher Gregg W. Morris