Rodney McMillian Named 2026 MacArthur Fellow
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation named the School of the Art Institute of Chicago alum Rodney McMillian (Post-Bacc 2000) as one of its 2026 MacArthur Fellows. The Los Angeles artist, who turns shabby carpets, sewn vinyl, and borrowed anthems into arguments about American power, joins this year's class of "genius grant" recipients. Working across sculpture, painting, video and installation, McMillian probes the fraught connections between history and contemporary culture and how they play out in American politics and in the traditions of American modernist art.
The MacArthur fellowship includes an $800,000 stipend. Fellows are selected by a committee who weighs each candidate against three criteria: exceptional creativity, promise of important future work based on significant past accomplishment, and the chance that the fellowship will make new creative work possible.
Alum Hong Sang-Soo (MFA 1989) has written and directed more than 30 features and has become a fixture at the world's most prestigious festivals.
