Fred Wilson (artist)

Fred Wilson
Fred Wilson: A Critical Reader, published in 2011.
Born	1954 The Bronx, New York
Nationality	American
Education	BFA, SUNY Purchase
Known for	Conceptual art
Awards	MacArthur Fellowship Larry Aldrich Foundation Award

Fred Wilson (born 1954) is an American artist. He describes himself as of "African, Native American, European and Amerindian" descent. Wilson received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in 1999 and the Larry Aldrich Foundation Award in 2003. Wilson represented the United States at the Biennial Cairo in 1992 and the Venice Biennale in 2003. In May 2008, it was announced that Wilson would become a Whitney Museum trustee replacing Chuck Close. Wilson is represented by The Pace Gallery in New York.

An alumnus of Music & Art High School in New York, Wilson received a BFA from SUNY Purchase in 1976, where he was the only black student in his program. He says that he no longer has a strong desire to make things with his hands. "I get everything that satisfies my soul," he says, "from bringing together objects that are in the world, manipulating them, working with spatial arrangements, and having things presented in the way I want to see them."

An installation artist and political activist, Wilson's subject is social justice and his medium is museology. In the 1970s, he worked as a free-lance museum educator for the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Craft Museum. Beginning in the late 1980s, Wilson used his insider skills to create "Rooms with a View", a series of "mock museums" that address how museums consciously or unwittingly reinforce racist beliefs and behaviors. This strategy, which Wilson refers to as "a trompe l'oeil of museum space," has increasingly become the focus of his life's work.

From 1988 to 1992, Wilson served on the board of directors at Artists Space in TriBeCa, New York.