2027 Wind Challenge Exhibition Series

• OVERVIEW

  Established in 1978 as The Challenge and now known as the Wind Challenge, Fleisher’s annual juried competition is committed to enriching people’s lives through art by featuring the work of exceptional artists living in the region. Artists living within a 450-mile radius of Philadelphia are welcome to apply.

  For this series, nine selected artists will be featured in a trio of Wind Challenge Exhibitions, each featuring three artists, to be hosted at Fleisher in 2027. The jurors for this year’s competition are SEAN STAROWITZ and ALPESH PATEL. The selected cohort of artists will work closely with the Director of Exhibitions in curating their work and exhibition-related programming.

  The Wind Challenge Exhibition Series is made possible thanks to generous support from the Wind Foundation.

• MEET THE JURORS

  ALPESH KANTILAL PATEL is an associate professor of global contemporary art at Tyler School of Art and Architecture and was previously a curator at large at UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, where they organized a series of exhibitions under the theme, “Forever Becoming: Decolonization, Materiality, and Trans* Subjectivity.” They are the author of Multiple and One: Global Queer Art Histories, forthcoming from Manchester University Press and Productive Failure: Writing Queer Transnational South Asian Art Histories (2017); coeditor of the dossier ‘conceptualizing TRANS-ASIA’ for ASAP/Journal (2024), the anthology Storytellers of Art Histories (2022), and a special issue of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art (2021) commemorating Okwui Enwezor, among other publications. Grants and fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, Loughborough University, Arts Council England, Cranbrook Academy of Art, and New York University have supported their research. They are associate editor of visual arts, architecture, and art history for ASAP/Journal and an editorial advisory board member of the Getty Research Journal.

  SEAN STAROWITZ Sean M. Starowitz has worked in a variety of community-based contexts, spanning more than a decade of socially engaged art practice. He uses archival research and public memory as material to reframe our current understanding of natural history and political imaginaries. Starowitz served as the Assistant Director of the Arts for the City of Bloomington, IN, during this time, he directed the 1% for the Arts program and managed cultural grants on behalf of the City. Prior to his work in local government, he was the artist-in-residence at the Farm To Market Bread Company in Kansas City and is a graduate of the Interdisciplinary Arts program at the Kansas City Art Institute. Starowitz has exhibited his work at Living Arts of Tulsa, KMAC Museum, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as, numerous artist-run spaces. He has contributed writings to Proximity Magazine, Ruckus Journal and Belt Magazine. And has lectured at various universities throughout the US,  including Queens College, UCLA, Indiana University, University of South Dakota, SVA, and at American University in D.C.  In 2023, Starowitz received his MFA in Sculpture from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture. He currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA, and spends his summers teaching at the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts in Lexington, KY.

  Sean Starowitz was a 2024 Wind Challenge Artist

• EXHIBITION SCHEDULE & FEATURED ARTISTS

  The Wind Challenge Exhibition Series will be held in the Dene M. Louchheim Galleries at Fleisher Art Memorial.

  Wind Challenge I:

  Exhibition: Feb 20 – March 20

  Reception/Artist Exchange: Feb 26

  Featuring:

  Henry Morales

  Alicia Link

  Soso Capaldi

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  Wind Challenge II:

  Exhibition: April 3 – May 1

  Reception/Artist Exchange: April 9

  Featuring:

  Amira Pualwan

  Kalena Marshall Garcia

  Dot Jackson

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  Wind Challenge III:

  Exhibition: May 15 – June 12

  Reception/Artist Exchange: May 21

  Featuring: 

  Lena Ruth

  Gwyneth Zeleny Anderson

  Gabrielle Constantine