Commencement: Agnes Gund and Carrie Mae Weems

University of the Arts is honoring two extremely accomplished individuals at its virtual commencement ceremony this year: Agnes Gund and Carrie Mae Weems. UArts’ virtual Commencement ceremony will be celebrated Saturday, May 22, at 10am EDT, via commencement.uarts.edu.

Agnes Gund is president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art and chair of its International Council. She is also chair emerita of MoMA PS1. Gund joined the MoMA Board in 1976 and served as president from 1991 until 2002. She is also founder and chair emerita of Studio in a School, a nonprofit organization she established in 1977 in response to budget cuts that virtually eliminated arts classes from New York City public schools.

Gund serves on the boards of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, and the Morgan Library and Museum. She is cofounder and chair emerita of the Center for Curatorial Leadership; trustee emerita of the Barnes Foundation and the National YoungArts Foundation; and an honorary trustee of Independent Curators International and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland.

A civic leader and staunch supporter of education, environmental concerns and social justice, Gund has served on the boards of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, the Andy Warhol Foundation, Chess in the Schools, the Frick Collection, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the New York City Mayor’s Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, among other organizations. In June 2017, she launched the Art for Justice Fund in partnership with the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors to support criminal justice reform in the US.

Gund has received the National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton (1997), the J. Paul Getty Medal (2018), the inaugural Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award (2020) and the French Legion of Honour (2021).

Carrie Mae Weems will also address graduating students. Widely renowned as one of the most influential living artists in the US, Weems examines how our society structures power through deeply embedded stories, images and ideas. Among many other honors, Weems is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship (also known as the “genius” grant) and was the first Black woman to have a retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. In addition, Weems has exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Tate Modern, the Walker Art Center, the Whitney Museum of American Art and many other institutions. She is also the recipient of the BET Honors Visual Artist Award, the Prix de Rome, the Frida Kahlo Award for Innovative Creativity, the International Center for Photography Spotlight Award, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, the Lucie Award for Fine Art Photography and the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal. In 2012, Weems was presented with one of the first US Department of State’s Medals of Arts.

In August 2020, UArts installed a public art project of Weems’ on its campus. Resist Covid Take 6! aimed to create an artist-driven public awareness campaign to educate and enlighten Black, Latinx and Native American communities about the impact of COVID-19 on their lives. In fall 2020, UArts also hosted an exclusive conversation with Weems for its community in support of her project. 

Silver Star Outstanding Alumni Awards
University of the Arts will also honor celebrated conceptual artist Alex Da Corte, a graduate of UArts’ Printmaking/Fine Arts program, and lauded opera star and UArts School of Music graduate Osceola Davis.

UArts’ virtual Commencement ceremony is open to everyone via commencement.uarts.edu. Join the celebration Saturday, May 22, at 10am EDT.