WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.- Helen Molesworth and Hilton Als will receive the 2022 Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing. Molesworth is a writer and a curator. Als is a writer for The New Yorker magazine and a curator and teaching professor.

“The Clark Prize raises awareness of the importance of writing that bridges scholarly and popular interest and seeks to encourage support for clear and engaging writing that inspires readers to connect with the arts,” said Olivier Meslay, the Hardymon Director of the Clark Art Institute. “Helen Molesworth and Hilton Als are two of the most interesting writers in the field today, producing compelling and thought-provoking prose. Celebrating the work of both Helen and Hilton through the award of the Clark Prize is doubly delightful.”

Als is a Pulitzer Prize-winning staff writer and a theater critic for The New Yorker magazine. He is the curator of the recent exhibition, Toni Morrison's Black Book, at the David Zwirner Gallery, New York, and is the author of several books including The Women (1996), White Girls (2013), and Alice Neel, Uptown (2017). Based in New York, Als is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley and an associate professor of writing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

“I can't tell you how moved and encouraged I feel by this honor,” Als said. “My predecessors are all writers and thinkers I admire and continue to learn from. To be in their august company, and to be acknowledged by the great Clark Art Institute, feels extraordinary because it is.”

Based in Los Angeles, Molesworth’s esteemed career as a curator is the basis of her ever-expanding sphere of projects. Most recently, she hosted PROGRAM, two days of live-streamed interviews with artists and writers hosted by the David Zwirner Gallery; presented the Recording Artists podcast with the Getty Institute; and organized the group exhibition Feedback for The School gallery in Kinderhook, New York. She is the author of numerous catalogue essays and her articles have appeared in Artforum, Art Journal, Documents, and October.

“It’s a wonderful honor to receive the Clark Prize. Though, truth be told, I find the company I’m in, from my PhD advisor Hal Foster, to one of my favorite poets Eileen Myles, to Kobena Mercer, whose version of art history has always been a beacon, even more pleasing than receiving the prize itself,” Molesworth said. “That I should share this honor with Hilton Als, one of our most important public intellectuals, is as flattering as it is joyful."

Meslay led the 2022 jury for the Clark Prize. Other members of the panel included João Ribas, Steven D. Lavine Executive Director of REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater; Sebastian Smee, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for The Washington Post; Julia Bryan Wilson, Doris and Clarence Malo Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, University of California, Berkeley; Kobena Mercer, Professor in History of Art and African American Studies, Yale University and a 2006 Clark Prize recipient; Marc Gotlieb, Halvorsen Director of the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art; Esther Bell, the Clark’s Robert and Martha Berman Lipp Chief Curator; and Caroline Fowler, the Starr Director of the Clark’s Research and Academic Program.




An event honoring Molesworth and Als with the presentation of the Clark Prize will take place later this spring.

Hilton Als became a staff writer at The New Yorker in 1994 and a theatre critic in 2002. He began contributing to the magazine in 1989, writing pieces for “The Talk of the Town.”

Before coming to The New Yorker, Als was a staff writer for the Village Voice and an editor-at-large at Vibe. In 2017, Als curated Alice Neel, Uptown, which was named one of the ten best exhibitions of the year by Artforum. His accompanying book on the artist was also widely praised. His book, White Girls, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the winner of the Lambda Literary Award in 2014.

The recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2017, Als received Lambda Literary’s Trustee Award for Excellence in Literature in 2016. He received the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for 2002-03 and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000.

Als is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and an associate professor of writing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He previously taught at Yale University, Wesleyan University, and Smith College.

Helen Molesworth is an internationally recognized curator specializing in contemporary art.

Her major museum exhibitions include One Day at a Time: Manny Farber and Termite Art; Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957; Dance/Draw; This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s; Part Object Part Sculpture; and Work Ethic.

She has organized monographic exhibitions of Ruth Asawa, Moyra Davey, Noah Davis, Louise Lawler, Steve Locke, Anna Maria Maiolino, Josiah McElheny, Kerry James Marshall, Catherine Opie, Amy Sillman, and Luc Tuymans. Molesworth has held head curatorial positions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Harvard University Art Museums; and the Wexner Center for the Arts.

The recipient of a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, Molesworth received the 2011 Bard Center for Curatorial Studies Award for Curatorial Excellence.