Pollock-Krasner Foundation announced today that the $50,000 Pollock Prize for Creativity is awarded to Beili Liu, an Austin artist who creates site-specific installations and performances that address themes of migration and cultural memory, as well as labor, social, and environmental concerns.
Established in 2016 to honor the artistic legacies of Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, the prize is given to one artist a year whose work embodies high creative standards and has a substantial impact on individuals and society.
Liu is the fourth recipient of the award. Previous winners are winners include Todd Williamson, Amy Sherald, and Gideon Mendel.
On leave from her professorship at the University of Texas, Liu is currently north of the Arctic Circle in Tromsø, Norway serving as the Fulbright Arctic Chair, a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Fellowship. She is conducting research and teaching at UiT, the Arctic University of Norway.
The Pollock Prize will support Liu’s sculptural installation and performance series “Dreams of the High North: Between Survival and Belonging,” a solo exhibition at the Norwegian national arts and cultural institution Hå Gamle Prestegard. It will be view from June 2023 through September 2023.
“Beili Liu is an immense talent whose work is both innovative and striking. From addressing environmental concerns to cultural narratives, in her work she encourages new ways of thinking and grappling with our shared histories,” said Ronald D. Spencer, Chairman and CEO of Pollock-Krasner Foundation. “Fostering new work from visual artists is at the core of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s mission, and we are delighted to help support her work and exhibition in Norway in the coming year.”
“Throughout my career as a visual artist, I have been committed to international and interdisciplinary exchange,” said Liu, who was born in China. “I admire Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s inclusive, global-facing mission of supporting artists to develop new work, mount exhibitions, and most importantly, to grow. I know for certain that my experience and research in the High North will be life-changing and profoundly impact all my future work.”
Liu’s work has been exhibited and internationally. Here in Texas she had solo show in 2020 at Dallas’ Crow Museum of Asian Art. Last year, her 14-foot-tall sculpture “Cloud Pavilion” was permanently installed in the Seaholm District in downtown Austin. In 2013, Liu’s much heraldedtemporary public art project “Thirst” saw a ghostly white tree intriguingly poised just above the surface of Lady Bird Lake.
