Fred Wilson

1954

Fred Wilson is a conceptual artist of African-American and Caribbean descent who's primarily known for rearranging art and artifacts in museum collections to reveal the inherent racism and gender politics that are often overlooked. First gaining notoriety in the early '90s with the exhibition Mining the Museum, in which he placed a whipping post from pre-Civil War America in a gallery and surrounded it with four ornate chairsall from the permanent collection of the Maryland Historical Society. Wilson has represented the United States at the Biennial Cairo and the Venice Biennale. The recipient of numerous awards, including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Larry Aldrich Foundation Award, Wilson is a trustee at the Whitney Museum and the SculptureCenter. As both critic and insider in the museum world, Wilson's work challenges the outdated racial and gender hierarchies that these institutions are slow to shed.