Popular Rappaport Prize lecture moves to Brooks Auditorium

Daniela Rivera, the 20th recipient of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum’s Rappaport Prize, will deliver the Rappaport Prize Lecture in the Lincoln School’s Brooks Auditorium on Wednesday, Oct. 23 at 6:30 p.m.

The prize is presented to a contemporary artist with strong connections to New England and a proven record of achievement. “Rivera has deep ties to New England and the Boston area, and I’ve long admired her sophisticated site-specific installations with their fascinating intersection of politics, history, and perception. I can’t think of a more deserving recipient,” said John B. Ravenal, the Trustees’ vice president for arts & culture and artistic director at deCordova.

Rivera (born 1973 in Santiago, Chile) is a painter and installation artist, often working with immersive architectural forms on a monumental scale. Having grown up under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile before moving to Boston in 2002, she addresses the specific history of repression that she experienced firsthand while also drawing her viewers into larger global narratives of dislocation and turmoil.

“The Rappaport Prize is an incredible honor to receive. It is such an affirming recognition of my work over the last 17 years in Massachusetts,” Rivera said. “It gives value to my experience as a U.S. and New England resident, as well as to the choices I’ve made and the life circumstances I’ve faced here. This prize also opens up so many possibilities for my work, including an opera on immigration that I have been wanting to create and can now begin planning as a result.”

Established in 2000, the Rappaport Prize is one of the most generous contemporary art awards of its kind. In 2010, the prize was endowed in perpetuity by the Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation. The foundation recently made an additional gift of $500,000 in order to increase the annual award amount from $25,000 to $35,000 beginning with this year’s prize.

The free lecture was moved from the museum after quickly reaching capacity. Doors open and a casual reception with complimentary snacks and nonalcoholic beverages will begin at 5:30 p.m.