The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) has announced the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Environment and Art Prize, a juried award that will support and celebrate artists whose practices address critical intersections in art, architecture, design, climate, conservation, sustainability, and environmental justice.
The new Eric and Wendy Schmidt Environment and Art Prize, funded through the generosity of philanthropists Eric and Wendy Schmidt, will be awarded by MOCA to an artist every two years from 2024 until 2030, resulting in three prizes over six years. The Prize awards a $100,000 unrestricted honorarium as well as resources and institutional support to complete a new project that will be commissioned and presented by MOCA.
The inaugural winner of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Environment and Art Prize will be announced this fall, and the first artist’s MOCA-commissioned project will be unveiled in spring 2026. Over each two-year award period, prize winners will engage and collaborate with communities in Los Angeles and beyond.
“Eric and Wendy Schmidt, through their philanthropic initiatives, have long supported projects at the intersection of science, technology, and the arts. MOCA is immensely grateful to them for their generous gift to establish this prize,” said Johanna Burton, The Maurice Marciano Director of MOCA. “MOCA has demonstrated our commitment to engaging with artists around critical environmental issues through the presentation of exhibitions such as Pipilotti Rist: Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor, MOCA Focus: Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, and Josh Kline: Climate Change; performances and residencies including the opera Sun & Sea and Crenshaw Dairy Mart’s garden at MOCA Geffen; as well as our ongoing Climate Conversations series. This new prize enables the museum to continue to forefront the work of artists who are creating dialogue and visibility around issues of climate, conservation, and sustainability.”
“Science and technology help us explain the world, while art and community give us understanding and belonging,” said Wendy Schmidt, president and co-founder of the Schmidt Family Foundation and Schmidt Ocean Institute. “We are delighted to establish this prize with MOCA because, as we’ve seen across our philanthropy, connecting scientists, artists and communities appears to reveal essential truths about people and our planet.”
MOCA’s Environmental & Sustainability Strategist Kelsey Shell added: “The Schmidt Environment and Art Prize will deepen the museum’s engagement with the community and reinforce our mission to support artists whose work drives important conversations about sustainability and environmental justice.”
This summer a committee of 15 to 20 representatives from diverse fields–ranging from art and architecture to conservation and ecology to design and community organizing–will nominate artists from a broad range of disciplines to be considered for the inaugural prize. Nominated artists will then have four weeks to create and submit proposals.
MOCA’s Environmental Council–the first such body convened by a major U.S. art museum–will advise MOCA in the administration and execution of the prize. A five-person jury will select the winners of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Environment and Art Prize. Jury members for 2024 are: Johanna Burton, Maurice Marciano Director of MOCA; Maria Seferian, President, Hillspire; Dan Hammer, Managing Partner, Ode & Advisor to the MOCA Environmental Council; John Kenneth Paranada, Curator of Art and Climate Change, Sainsbury Center; Carson Chan, Director of the Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment, MoMA.
The final artwork will be presented at MOCA and may be an exhibition, performance, artist book, public program, or other project to be determined in collaboration with the winner. The winner will also select an advisor with experience in environmental justice, climate science, or sustainable practice to serve as a key collaborator in the conception, contextualization, and realization of the project.
For more information about the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Environment and Art Prize, please visit MOCA’s website at moca.org/about/schmidt-prize.
