Nari Ward

Esteemed artist Nari Ward is both a graduate of Hunter College and a distinguished faculty member. A longtime resident of Harlem, Ward’s family immigrated to New York from Jamaica when he was 12 years old. After earning his BA at Hunter in 1989 and then an MFA at Brooklyn College, he received a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and was included in the 45th Venice Biennale just a few years out of school. His sculptural installations from the 1990’s through the present re-contextualize discarded material found and collected in his neighborhood in thought provoking juxtapositions—inviting viewers to examine their relationship to race, economics, poverty, and consumer culture. In recent work, Ward directly confronts the complex social and political realities on both a local and national level, advocating for art’s capacity to address the most urgent issues we face today. 

Describing his role as an educator, Ward said, “Teaching for me is activism. I wouldn’t be an artist if I did not have the mentors who helped me to look at and challenge my approach to seeing. In contemporary society there are very few opportunities to profoundly affect an individual’s life, and teachers offer this possibility.” Ward was hired as an Assistant Professor in 1998, and has taught at every level in the department. Former Hunter Professor Jeffrey Mongrain described Ward as “a supportive teacher able to share his breadth of knowledge of contemporary art with ease, clarity, and specificity, which I believe is the hallmark of a great teacher. It is clear to me that Nari’s students both like and respect him.”

Ward has been honored with many prestigious awards, including the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Rome Prize, and the Pollock Krasner Foundation. His work has been given multiple solo exhibitions, including at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston (2019); New Museum, New York (2019); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2017); the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (2016); Pérez Art Museum Miami (2015); the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (2011); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2002); and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (2001, 2000).