Tue Dec 16 09:10:00 UTC 2025: ## Brooklyn Artist Catherine Telford Keogh Receives Inaugural Jack Galef Visual Arts Award
NEW YORK, NY – Catherine Telford Keogh, a Brooklyn-based artist exploring themes of value, waste, and consumption, has been named the first recipient of the Guggenheim Museum’s Jack Galef Visual Arts Award. The $50,000 prize, funded by the Jack Galef Estate, will be awarded biennially to artists demonstrating exceptional talent, innovation, depth, and vision.
Telford Keogh, chosen by the museum’s curatorial department, utilizes a research- and process-driven approach in her work, often examining the lifecycle of biological and commoditized elements. Born in Toronto and educated at the University of Waterloo and Yale University, she is also a faculty member at Parsons School of Design.
The award arrives as Parsons, a part of the New School, faces significant budget cuts and faculty restructuring. Telford Keogh emphasized the precarious conditions for artists and educators, noting the importance of supporting institutions that champion interdisciplinarity and critical inquiry.
She plans to use the prize money to further research the metabolic relationship between microbial life and industrial contaminants in the Gowanus Canal Superfund Site. Telford Keogh aims to highlight the life forms thriving in environments deemed disposable, questioning which forms of life society values and acknowledges.
The Jack Galef Visual Arts Award follows the Guggenheim’s discontinuation of the Hugo Boss Prize in 2020. Guggenheim Director and CEO emphasized that Telford Keogh embodies the originality and depth the new award seeks to champion.
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