Of nearly 5,000 applicants to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation this year, only 223 were chosen. Kenneth Tam, assistant professor of art at Rice University, was among them.
Tam, an interdisciplinary artist whose work spans video, sculpture, installation, performance and photography, was named a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow in fine arts. One of the most prestigious honors in the arts and sciences, the fellowship provides a monetary stipend for recipients to pursue independent work “under the freest possible conditions,” a tradition the foundation has upheld since its establishment in 1925.
Tam’s work probes the performance of masculinity, the transformative potential of ritual and expressions of intimacy within groups. His art has been shown at institutions including the Hammer Museum, MoMA/PS1, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, MIT List Center for Visual Arts and SculptureCenter. He will be featured in Greater New York 2026 at MoMA/PS1.
“I’m more than thrilled to be receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship,” Tam said. “At a moment when the values of higher education are under assault, this fellowship reaffirms the work we do in the arts and humanities, and I am eager to start on my next project, which involves creating an experimental performance work in collaboration with local Houston performers.”
The Guggenheim Fellowship is awarded through a rigorous application and peer review process, selecting individuals on the basis of prior career achievement and exceptional promise. This year’s applicant pool surged dramatically with applications in the creative arts and humanities rising 50% and those in the sciences climbing 86%.
Tam joined Rice’s faculty in 2023, brought in by Kathleen Canning, dean of the School of Humanities and Arts.
“Kenneth is exactly the kind of artist-scholar we envisioned when we set out to strengthen our world-class arts program at Rice,” Canning said. “His practice is intellectually ambitious, formally inventive and deeply human. This fellowship affirms what we have known since we recruited him: that his work is shaping critical conversations in contemporary art, and that Rice is a place where that work can flourish.”
Tam joins a group of Rice Guggenheim Fellowship awardees that includes Dominic Boyer (2025), Tomás Q. Morín (2022), Lacy Johnson (2020), Leslie Hewitt (2020), Cin-Ty Lee (2017), Luay Nakhleh (2012), Kurt Stallman (2008) and Moshe Vardi (2005), further cementing the university’s presence among the nation’s leading research institutions.
The 2026 class of fellows represents 55 disciplines, 97 academic institutions and 33 U.S. states. Fellows range in age from 28 to 76.
“Our new class of Guggenheim Fellows is representative of the world’s best thinkers, innovators and creators in art, science and scholarship,” said Edward Hirsch, president of the Guggenheim Foundation. “I feel confident that this new class of 223 individuals will do bold and inspiring work, undaunted by the challenges ahead.”
Since its founding, the Guggenheim Foundation has awarded nearly $450 million in fellowships to more than 19,000 individuals.