The MacArthur Foundation has named the recipients of its 2025 MacArthur Fellowships, also known as its “Genius Grants.” This year’s cohort includes four visual artists—Garrett Bradley, Gala Porras-Kim, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, and Jeremy Frey; and two documentary photographers—Matt Black and Tonika Lewis Johnson. Since 1981, the MacArthur Foundation has awarded unrestricted fellowships to exceptionally creative individuals working across the arts, sciences, and humanities. Each recipient receives an $800,000 stipend—granted with no conditions and distributed over five years.
This year’s winners “focus our attention on microbial worlds and distant stars, community vitality and timeless traditions, sacred and improvisational music, and shared histories of our time on Earth,” said Kristen Mack, vice president of communications for MacArthur Fellows and Partnerships, in a statement.
Garrett Bradley, a 39-year-old artist and filmmaker from New Orleans, first gained attention for her 2019 short film America. This multi-channel work, featuring 12 black-and-white vignettes filmed on 35mm, was inspired by the Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1915), which is believed to be the first feature film with an all-Black cast. Her subsequent documentary Time (2020), which examined the injustice of the American carceral system, was nominated for an Oscar. Bradley has presented solo shows with the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam in 2025 and Lisson Gallery, which represents her, in 2022. Her work is in the collections of institutions including the Tate Modern and the Museum of Modern Art.
Based in Los Angeles, Gala Porras-Kim uses her interdisciplinary practice to probe linguistics and history while critically examining institutional systems. Research and scientific experimentation play a big role in the Colombian Korean American artist’s work. For her 2024 exhibition “A Hand in Nature” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, she released air trapped in an 8,000-year-old glacier to mix with present-day air, drawing attention to historical and natural change. Her work is the subject of a solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery in Seoul, “Conditions for holding a natural form,” through October 26th.
Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s multidisciplinary work, spanning installation and film, focuses on the rippling effects of colonialism on his home country, Vietnam, as well as Australia, the United States, and Senegal. In particular, his film The Island (2017) focuses on Pulau Bidong, once the site of the longest-running refugee camp following the Vietnam War. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, the film probes themes of history and migration. His recent solo show “The Other Side of Now” was on view at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town until July 2025.
Descending from a long line of Wabanaki basket makers, Jeremy Frey blends Indigenous craft with contemporary experimentations in color and form. His baskets feature complex geometric patternings and are adorned with turquoise, golden yellows, lavenders, and stark reds. His work is in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine, among others.
