Atul Gawande and Shahzia Sikander are among the 25 recipients of this year’s MacArthur Foundation grants, announced yesterday. The MacArthurs, widely known as “genius grants,” give the winners $500,000 over five years, with no strings attached. You don’t apply for a MacArthur; it just turns up. It’s really a beautiful thing.
Two other things of beauty: First, the fact that the MacArthur committee makes brilliant choices that reflect a whole range of human endeavor, and isn’t afraid to reward young “geniuses” — many recipients are in their 30s. And second, the style of the foundation’s epigrammatic citations, which are concise and finely crafted:
Atul Gawande: Surgeon/Author applying a critical eye and fresh perspective to modern surgical practice, articulating its realities, complexities, and challenges, in the interest of improving outcomes and saving lives.
Shahzia Sikander: Painter merging the traditional South Asian art of miniature painting with contemporary forms and styles to create visually compelling, resonant works on multiple scales and in a dazzling array of media.
The full list of winners is here. Gawande, 40, is a surgeon, an innovator in surgery ethics and technique, a staff writer for the New Yorker, and a columnist for the New England Journal of Medicine. Oh, and he’s also the author of the best-seller Complications, which Amardeep blogged about here. Sikander, 37, is a New York-based painter who trained in the art of miniatures at the National College of Art in Lahore and re-imagines the form in work that extends into digital media. Congratulations to the full crop of this year’s Geniuses and massive props to Atul and Shahzia!
