In a wide-ranging conversation about objects that over between identities—sculpture, design, architecture—with varying degrees of utility, ‘The Uncanny Politics of Objects’ will include New York-based, Korean artist Minjae Kim; Los Angeles-based designer and artist, Peter Shire; Brooklyn-based designer and artist Katie Stout; Mexico City-based and writer and curator Su Wu; and will be moderated by Sarah Schleuning, the Margot B. Perot Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Minjae Kim

Minjae Kim is a Korean artist working in New York with a background in architecture and furniture design. His practice in furniture and objects acts as an antithesis to the restriction in architectural practice in time, scale, and accessibility. The results are simple, quirky, imperfect, incohesive, impractical, irrational and often emotional one-liners revolving around an idea. He holds a MA in Architecture from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and has had exhibitions at Marta, New York; Etage Projects, Copenhagen; TIWA Select; V.V. Sorry, Mexico City, among others.

Peter Shire

Peter Shire is an LA-based artist whose work eludes all attempts at categorization. He has created ceramics, furniture, toys, interior designs, and public sculptures, that seem to at once reference and parody influences such as Bauhaus, Futurism, Art Nouveau and Art Deco. This subversive humor and playfulness extend throughout his work and made him a natural fit for the controversial and iconic Milan-based Memphis design group, of which he was a founding member. A graduate of the famous Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, Peter Shire has an impressive exhibition record. In addition to many group shows, his works have been exhibited in numerous solo shows, in his hometown, Los Angeles, nationally and internationally in Milan, Paris, Tokyo and Sapporo. Shire’s works are in many public collections and museums in the US and abroad. Shire is represented by Kayne Griffin Corcoran.

Katie Stout

Katie Stout has become one of the most influential young artists of her generation, revitalizing the use of ceramics and refusing to define her work within categories of high and low art, or art and design. To date, her career boasts an impressive array of highlights, including a furniture collaboration with Bjarne Melgaard for his installation at the 2014 Whitney Biennial, her fantastical Bedroom Curio exhibition at Design Miami 2015, which was photographed by Juergen Teller for a Barneys New York Rick Owens campaign, being listed in Forbes “30 Under 30” in 2017, collaborating with Jeremy Scott on his F/W 2018 collection, and subsequently launching her own clothing collection in 2019. Stout’s work can be found in museums and private collections across the globe, including the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY. Upcoming projects include a second solo exhibition with R & Company in 2022, which will feature new monumental work in ceramic, glass and bronze created with the century-old foundry, Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, in Milan, Italy. Katie Stout lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Su Wu

Su Wu is a writer and curator based in Mexico City. She is an art editor for the journal n+1 and was most recently the curator of the exhibition “Elementos Vitales: Ana Mendieta in Oaxaca,” which marked the first presentation of Mendieta’s ‘Silueta’ filmworks in the region where they were made. With Mexico-based exhibition platform MASA, Wu is preparing a show of functional work by Mexican artists and designers – as well as artists who immigrated to Mexico – at Rockefeller Center in New York City, opening in May 2022. She was a longtime contributor to T: the New York Times Style Magazine, and her writing has also appeared in the Guardian, Artforum.com, and The Nasher Magazine, among others. Wu is an alumnus of Swarthmore College and Northwestern University, where she received the Madeline J.Halpern scholarship, and was a recipient of the Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship.

Sarah Schleuning, Moderator

Sarah Schleuning is the Margot B. Perot Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Dallas Museum of Art, and her recent exhibitions and publications include the upcoming Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity, Electrifying Design: A Century of Lighting, and Curbed Vanity: A Contemporary Foil by Chris Schanck. Schleuning graduated from Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences with a Bachelor of Arts. She received her Master of Arts in the History of Decorative Arts from Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in conjunction with Parsons School of Design.

About Nasher Prize Dialogues

This series of talks and discussions about contemporary sculptural practice, taking place around the world in partnership with other institutions, is a unique programmatic model bringing the brightest artists, curators, and critics together to address challenging topics in sculpture.

About Nasher Prize

The Nasher Prize is awarded annually to an artist whose body of work has had an extraordinary impact on our understanding of sculpture. Each year’s Nasher Prize laureate is selected by an international jury of esteemed museum directors, curators, scholars, and artists. A full season of diverse programming inspired by the laureate – discussions and lectures, family and student programs, community partnerships, and more – engage thousands of art-lovers in Dallas and far beyond, both in-person and virtually. Then, the celebration culminates with the Nasher Prize Award Gala, held at the Nasher Sculpture Center each April.

Support the Nasher Prize

Proceeds from the Nasher Prize not only benefit Nasher Prize programming but also help sustain the year-round work undertaken by the Nasher Sculpture Center itself, including thought-provoking exhibitions, impactful education and community initiatives, and more. 

Underwriting packages for the Nasher Prize 2022 Award Gala are now available. For more information on how to get involved, please contact the Nasher’s Development Team at 214.242.5151 or at [email protected].