Independent Curators International (ICI) has announced the recipient of this year’s Leo Award, named after art dealer and supporter of ICI Leo Castelli, in recognition of those who have shown extraordinary support to curators and artists and created new infrastructures that serve a broader art world.
Uzodinma Iweala has been the CEO of The African Center in New York since 2018. Previously, Iweala was the CEO, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Ventures Africa magazine. He has also written widely on the African and diasporic experience, publishing books including nonfiction Our Kind of People (2012) which focuses on AIDS in Nigeria, and novel Speak No Evil (2018) which explores the experience of a queer Nigerian-American teen in Washington D.C.
Previous recipients of the Leo Award include Candice Hopkins and the American Indian Community House, Steve McQueen, Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Dimitris Daskalopoulos, Marian Goodman, Michael Govan, Miuccia Prada, Roy and Dorothy Lichtenstein, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
The Award will be presented at ICI’s Fall Benefit and Auction this October.
