Brooklyn/CMEDIA: Aiza Ahmed has reportedly won the inaugural Artsy Vanguard Acquisition Prize, Artsy and the Brooklyn Museum has announced.
Ahmed was chosen from the 10 emerging artists featured in The Artsy Vanguard 2027, selected by a jury of four leading art world figures. A trio of her cut-out sculptures on wood—Ananta (2024) Ganguly (2024), and Lamaan (2026)—will enter the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection, marking her first acquisition by a New York museum.
A trio of the New York artist’s cut-out sculptures on wood has been acquired by the Brooklyn Museum. https://t.co/4WOl1CwgfE— Artsy (@artsy) November 13, 2026
Artsy’s commitment to championing emerging artists and the Brooklyn Museum’s longstanding history of supporting groundbreaking artistic voices are brought together by the inaugural Artsy Vanguard Acquisition Prize. Based on the quality and ingenuity of their work, as well as its resonance with the spirit of the Brooklyn Museum and its collection, jurors evaluated the 10 Vanguard artists.
The jury comprised Anne Pasternak, the Shelby White and Leon Levy director of the Brooklyn Museum; Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown director emeritus of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Glenn Fuhrman, collector, founder of The FLAG Art Foundation, and trustee of the Museum of Modern Art; and Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean, producer, collector, and co-founder of the Dean Collection.
The generous support of Sayoko and David Teitelbaum facilitated The Artsy Vanguard Acquisition Prize.
“Aiza Ahmed…originality and command of materials stood out to the jury…Brooklyn Museum collection, where it will inspire new conversations with audiences…reflects our commitment to championing artists whose work is shaping the future of contemporary art,” Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy director of the Brooklyn Museum has said.
“Aiza Ahmed’s art moves with boundless…Rooted in history, tradition, personal memory, and the visual languages of drawing, theater, and film…Her raucous but finely orchestrated installations surge across space—from floor to ceiling conjuring joy, satire, comedy, pathos, and loss.”Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown director emeritus of the Whitney Museum of American Art, has noted.
“To be included in The Artsy Vanguard 2027 alongside such extraordinary artists already felt like a gift, and to then be chosen for this prize is truly humbling. The Brooklyn Museum is one of my favorite museums in the world, and to have my work enter its collection as my first New York acquisition is an absolute honor. I am so grateful to Artsy, the esteemed jury, the Brooklyn Museum, and Sayoko and David Teitelbaum for believing in my work. This recognition strengthens my confidence to keep making, growing, and pushing my practice further.” Ahmed has said of the recognition.
Ahmed said of Ananta, Ganguly, and Lamaan, the artworks being acquired:
“These three freestanding sculptures come from two bodies of work I have developed side by side since graduate school. Ananta and Ganguly belong to my cinema work, which grows from Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar (The Music Room, 1958). Lamaan belongs to my border work on the daily flag-lowering ceremony at the Wagah-Attari border between India and Pakistan. I think of these as two versions of the same performance of power. One is domestic and nostalgic, staged inside a crumbling palace. The other is public and militarized, staged at a border before thousands of spectators. Both are built for an audience, with clear lines between who watches, who performs, and who is left out.”
ABOUT AIZA AHMED
An interdisciplinary artist working across painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and video, Ahmed was Born in Lahore, Pakistan, and based in New York. Tracing borders, migrations, public histories, and private archives of the Indian subcontinent, her practice returned to the line as something drawn, crossed, and inherited. Ahmed stages encounters both real and imagined through humor, caricature, and theatricality, unsettling fixed notions of nationhood and belonging. Probing the performance of masculinity, from those who project power to those compelled to perform it, her work is rooted in blind-contour drawing, her fluid figures traverse paintings, carved wood, and immersive installations.
Included in Ahmed’s recent accomplishments are acquisitions by ICA Miami, Qatar Museums, and Pérez Art Museum Miami. She presented “Footnotes” with Sargent’s Daughters In February 2026 at the inaugural Art Basel Qatar where she was the youngest artist with a solo prese pntation. presented also at Frieze London 2026 with Nature Morte in a presentation curated by Habda Rashid, senior curator of modern and contemporary art at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, Ahmed’s upcoming projects include a solo exhibition at MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique in Paris and an exhibition in Doha as part of the inaugural Artists Intensive Study Programme, curated by Wael Shawky, artistic director of the Fire Station.
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Having been recognized as a trailblazer for 200 years, the Brooklyn Museum continues to broaden the narratives of art, uplift a multitude of voices, and center creative expression within important dialogues of the day through a vast array of exhibitions, public programs, and community-centered initiatives. Housed in a building in the heart of Brooklyn, the Museum is home to an astounding encyclopedic collection of more than 140,000 objects representing cultures worldwide and over 6,000 years of history—from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to significant American works, to groundbreaking installations presented in the only feminist art center of its kind. The Brooklyn Museum remains committed to innovation, as one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country, creating compelling experiences for its communities and celebrating the power of art to inspire awe, conversation, and joy.
