Visionary: Celebrating Leadership in the Arts

Sarah Sze gleans objects and images from worlds both physical and digital, assembling them into complex multimedia works that shift scale between microscopic observation and macroscopic perspective on the infinite. Sze’s body of work spans sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, video, and installation, always addressing materiality, entropy, and temporality. With both force and delicacy, Sze’s art adeptly and dynamically captures moments of flux and precariousness.

Sze earned a BA from Yale University in 1991 and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 1997. The next year, she had her first solo institutional exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where she presented Many a Slip (1999), a sprawling multimedia installation. Sze represented the United States at the 55th Venice Biennale with a solo pavilion presentation titled Triple Point. Other exhibitions include those at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2023); Storm King Art Center, New York (2021); Fondation Cartier Pour L’art Contemporain, Paris (2021); MOCA Toronto (2020); and Haus der Kunst, Munich (2017–18). She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003.

The 2024 Arts Philanthropy Awards honor BMO Bank N.A. for its support of arts education in Chicago and its historical relationship with the MCA. Darrel Hackett, President and Chief Executive Officer, BMO Bank N.A., accepts the award on behalf of the bank.

The 2024 Arts Philanthropy Awards also honors Darrel Hackett and MCA Trustee Nickol Hackett for their generous philanthropy in Chicago. In addition to his leadership at BMO, Darrel serves on the Board of Directors for the Art Institute of Chicago, Rush University Medical Center, Kids First Chicago, and United Way of Metro Chicago. He is a member of the Federal Advisory Council, Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, the Trustees’ Committee of the Chicago Community Trust, the Executive Leadership Council, Economic Club of Chicago, and the Executives’ Club of Chicago.

Nickol has been Trustee of the MCA since 2016. Nickol is Chief Investment Officer and Treasurer at the Joyce Foundation, overseeing the investment program for endowment assets of $1 billion in support of the Foundation’s grant making. She serves on the board of directors of the First Women’s Bank and is part of the Harvard Business School Case Collection. Nickol is an avid supporter of civic and cultural engagement. She is Vice Chair of Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and served on the Governance and Nominating Committee as well as the Investment Committee. She also supports various cultural institutions throughout the area.