The Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) has awarded its annual Pérez Prize to New York–based artist Javier Téllez. The award, which comes with an unrestricted grant of $50,000, was presented to the artist at the museum’s Art of the Party Fundraiser on November 15.
“Pérez Art Museum Miami is honored to present this year’s Pérez Prize to Javier Téllez, an artist whose work continues to expand how we see and who gets to be seen,” PAMM director Franklin Sirmans told ARTnews in an email. “In a moment of increasingly rigid and antagonistic hierarchies, Javier’s use of wit, humor, and imagination challenges us to see differently, to listen more deeply, and to create a more empathetic world. We are proud to recognize his vital practice that expands the possibilities of empathy, dignity, and community.”
Working across film, installation, collage, and more, Téllez is known for a body of work that looks at the ways in which society marginalizes various groups, from recently arrived immigrants to people with disabilities. The recent filmic work Amerika (2024) combined cinema history, vaudeville, and reenactment as a response to the decade-long displacement of more than seven million Venezuelans, some 60,000 of which have come to New York.
“I was born in Venezuela to a Spanish immigrant and have lived in New York for 30 years,” Téllez told ARTnews by email. “Because of my personal experience I have always been especially aware of the proximity of the other and the ethical responsibility that comes with it. In my films and video installations, I often collaborate with disenfranchised members of society to address issues such as migration, disabilities, and mental illness, questioning power structures and dismantling notions of the normative. Receiving the prestigious Pérez Prize encourages me to continue my work with greater strength and visibility.”
Téllez has had solo exhibitions at Center for Art, Research and Alliances in New York (2024), the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2018), the Blanton Museum in Austin (2014), SMAK Ghent (2013), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (2011), among others. His work has been featured in the 2019 Aichi Triennial, Documenta 13 in 2012, the 2008 Sydney Biennial, the 2008 Whitney Biennial, and the 2001 and 2003 editions of the Venice Biennale.
In an email, collector and patron Jorge Pérez, whose family foundation endows the Pérez Prize, said, “Téllez’s work explores the experiences of a very underserved and underrepresented population, and we are proud to support his current and future work. In that vein, the Perez Prize exists to serve as an example of the critical impact that strategic private philanthropy can have on our community, beyond the arts — toward lasting social and cultural change.”
