The multinational electronics firm LG and the Guggenheim New York have named the conceptual artist Trevor Paglen because the recipient of the 2026 LG Guggenheim Award. The artist will obtain an honorarium of $100,000.
Paglen, who relies in New York, works throughout a number of codecs together with pictures, writing, digital artwork, sculpture and extra. Nonetheless, it’s his works that try to visualise the techniques and bounds of mass surveillance, communications infrastructure and laptop imaging which have made him probably the most influential US artists of his technology.
Trevor Paglen, Faces of ImageNet, 2022. Interactive video set up, dimensions variable. Courtesy Jessica Silverman, San Francisco; Tempo Gallery, New York; and Paglen Studio, Brooklyn. © Trevor Paglen
“We’re residing via a profound transformation in our relationship to photographs,” Paglen mentioned in a press release. “Pictures, sensing techniques, algorithms and the infrastructures round them have turn out to be energetic members on this planet—shaping selections, identities, cultures and histories.”
In deciding on Paglen, the LG Guggenheim Award jury praised his potential to convey “legibility and public entry to opaque and infrequently inaccessible applied sciences, whereas resisting dominant company narratives and foregrounding broader societal and moral concerns”. The jury for this yr’s award included Mami Kataoka, the director of the Mori Artwork Museum in Tokyo; Melanie Lenz, the curator of digital artwork on the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; Rasha Salti, a researcher, author and curator of artwork and movie, and curatorial advisor to the late Koyo Kouoh; Noam Segal, the LG Electronics affiliate curator on the Guggenheim in New York; and Eugenio Viola, the previous creative director of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá. The LG Guggenheim Artwork and Expertise Initiative was launched in 2022 as a five-year collaboration between the 2 organisations.
Trevor Paglen, Orbital Reflector, 2018. Mylar, aluminum and photo voltaic panels. Courtesy Jessica Silverman, San Francisco; Tempo Gallery, New York; and Paglen Studio, Brooklyn. © Trevor Paglen
Paglen will ship a hybrid lecture and efficiency titled “The Lizard Folks Are Right here!” on the Guggenheim in New York on 18 Might. The occasion’s title winks at conspiracy theories and paranoia, however its underlying level is sober: the techniques Paglen paperwork usually are not the stuff of fringe creativeness however of every day, largely unexamined life. His new ebook, The best way to See Like a Machine: Pictures After AI, will probably be launched by Verso the next day.
The award’s previous recipients are Stephanie Dinkins (in 2023), Shu Lea Cheang (2024) and Ayoung Kim (2025). One additional artist will probably be recognised in 2027, the initiative’s closing yr.
