Guggenheim Fellowships have been awarded this year to three scholars and several alumni from the University of Chicago. The distinguished artists, writers and scientists join the 100th class of Guggenheim Fellows honored for “prior career achievement and exceptional promise.”
Prof. Theaster Gates, Lect. Richie Hofmann and Prof. Marcus Kronforst are among the 198 distinguished individuals selected from a pool of nearly 3,500 applicants. As established in 1925 by founder Senator Simon Guggenheim, each fellow receives a monetary stipend to pursue work under “the freest possible conditions.”
This year’s class of fellows, announced April 15, is part of the Guggenheim Foundation’s yearlong celebration marking a century of transformative impact on American intellectual and cultural life.
“At a time when intellectual life is under attack, the Guggenheim Fellowship celebrates a century of support for the lives and work of visionary scientists, scholars, writers and artists,” said Edward Hirsch, president of the Guggenheim Foundation. “We believe that these creative thinkers can take on the challenges we all face today and guide our society towards a better and more hopeful future.”
Several UChicago alumni also join the 2025 class of Guggenheim fellows, including composers Tomás Gueglio, PhD’16, and Krzysztof Wołek, PhD’07; author and theater scholar Rachel Shteir, AB’87, and documentary photographer Nina Berman, AB’82.
Theaster Gates
Globally renowned artist Theaster Gates is a professor in the Department of Visual Arts. His work is anchored by an artistic investment in space theory, sculpture and performance. Gates uses his background in urban planning and ceramics to reconstitute vacant and abandoned spaces in Chicago into active sites of artistic programming, convening, care and experimentation.
In 2010, Gates founded the Rebuild Foundation, a platform for art and cultural development that operates several sites on the South Side of Chicago, including the Stony Island Arts Bank, Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative, and Kenwood Gardens. He is also the founder of UChicago’s Arts + Public Life, an initiative that fosters neighborhood vibrancy through the arts and culture on the South Side of Chicago. On the Arts Block in Washington Park, Arts + Public Life hosts year-round exhibitions, community events, performances, classes and programs.
Gates plans to use the Guggenheim Fellowship to continue studying Japanese ceramic craft traditions.
"Studying the craft traditions that shaped me, both at home and abroad, always gives me tremendous joy,” Gates said. “This Guggenheim Fellowship will allow me an opportunity to immerse myself in Japanese ceramic culture focusing principally on Mingei, a movement that celebrated the power of local craft traditions. I look forward to deepening my knowledge and I’m grateful for this honor."
Gates has exhibited and performed at The LUMA Foundation, Arles, France (2023; The New Museum, New York, (2022); The Aichi Triennial, Tokoname (2022); The Serpentine Pavilion, London (2022); The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (2021); Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2013 and 2021); Tate Liverpool, UK (2020); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2020); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019); Palais de Tokyo Paris, France (2019); Sprengel Museum Hannover, Germany (2018); Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (2018); National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA (2017); Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada (2016); Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy (2016); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2016); Punta della Dogana, Venice, Italy (2013); and dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012).
Gates is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees including the Isamu Noguchi Award (2023); National Buildings Museum Vincent Scully Prize (2023); Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts (2022); an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Institute of British Architects (2021); the World Economic Forum Crystal Award (2020); J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development (2018); Nasher Sculpture Prize (2018); Sprengel Museum Kurt Schwitters Prize (2017); and Artes Mundi 6 Prize (2015).
Richie Hofmann
Richie Hofmann is a poet and lecturer in the Humanities Collegiate Division, where he teaches in the “Poetry and the Human” sequence as part of the undergraduate Humanities Core.
His poems explore beauty, sexuality, art, history and desire. The poem “Arms”, a selection from his forthcoming book of poems The Bronze Arms (2025), was recently published in The New Yorker.
Hofmann is also the author of two previous collections of poetry: A Hundred Lovers (2022) and Second Empire (2015). His poetry has also appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry and The Yale Review, as well as the Best American Poetry anthology.
“I am deeply honored by this award and the validation of my peers,” said Hofmann, who plans to use the fellowship funds to travel and conduct archival research for his upcoming project.
“I hope to use the Guggenheim Fellowship to work on a new sequence of poems inspired by the work of French writer and photographer Hervé Guibert (1955-1991), who lived in Paris and whose sensuous and demanding work in literature and visual arts became major forces in the public’s awareness and perception of AIDS.”
Marcus Kronforst
Marcus Kronforst is a professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolution. His research focuses on the genetics and evolution of mimicry and speciation in butterflies.
He and the members of his lab apply a combination of molecular and population genetics, genomics, functional genetics, genome editing and behavioral studies to address questions regarding the evolution and mechanics of adaptation and speciation. For example, in previous research, he has shown that a single genetic switch can change wing color in butterflies, and that monarch butterflies bred in captivity likely lose the ability to migrate.
Kronforst plans to use the Guggenheim Fellowship to work in Australia for six months studying female-limited polymorphism in the butterfly Papilio aegeus—a project that will deepen our knowledge of how genetic factors shape the evolution of sexually dimorphic traits, which are critical for survival in many species, as well as providing insights that could help with biodiversity conservation.
“I am very excited about this fellowship because it will help me finally tackle a project that my lab and I have been thinking about for many years,” Kronforst said. “It really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I feel very fortunate to have been selected.”