Edgar Calel has won the 2026 Sam Gilliam Award, the Dia Art Foundation and the Sam Gilliam Foundation have announced. He will receive $75,000 and a public programme at one of the Dia Foundation’s locations this autumn.
Born and based in Chi Xot, Guatemala, Edgar Calel comes from a family of Maya Kaqchikel artists and artisans. His work, which spans drawing, sculpture, installation and performance, often engages with ancestral knowledge and traditions from his hometown, foregrounding Indigenous experience and addressing histories of colonialism and systemic exclusion.
Calel was chosen by a jury composed of Jordan Carter and Matilde Guidelli-Guidi, curators at the Dia Art Foundation, NY; Elvira Dyangani Ose, curator and artistic director of the 2nd Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial; Annie Galwak, president of the Sam Gilliam Foundation, Washington DC; Shanay Jhaveri, head of visual arts at the Barbican, London; and Clara Kim, chief curator and director of curatorial affairs at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
‘Edgar Calel has a remarkable ability to create works that operate at once intimately and expansively, bringing together material, ritual, and community to form deeply resonant environments’, said Jessica Morgan, Director of the Dia Art Foundation.
Calel is the third winner of the annual Sam Gilliam Award, which seeks to recognise artists who have made a significant contribution to art and for whom receiving the prize would be transformative. Previous laureates include Ibrahim Mahama (2024) and Sheela Gowda (2025).
