The Whitney Museum of American Art awarded Pat Oleszko the 2026 Bucksbaum Award on Thursday, giving the veteran performance and visual artist one of the most substantial prizes associated with a major U.S. museum exhibition. The honor includes $100,000 and was decided by a seven-member jury that selected Oleszko from the 56 artists, duos and collectives participating in this year’s Whitney Biennial.

The announcement places renewed attention on an artist who has spent more than half a century combining sculpture, live performance, costume, film, installation and audience participation. Born in Detroit in 1947 and based in New York, Oleszko has developed an intentionally unruly practice shaped by handmade objects, visual puns, public interventions and theatrical spectacle. Her work frequently uses humor to address politics, gender, labor, consumer culture, nationalism and environmental instability.

Oleszko’s presentation in the 2026 Biennial brings together works separated by more than 15 years but connected by their treatment of the body, movement and comic transformation. “Blow Hard,” created in 1995, is a giant inflatable clown head that blows fire through a trumpet. It was first commissioned for the World Trade Center Plaza, where the open-air conditions created practical difficulties for the lightweight structure.

The Whitney describes the inflatable as part sculpture and part performance apparatus. Oleszko began developing large inflatables in the early 1980s, allowing her to construct monumental forms without heavy internal armatures. She sewed the works in sections before connecting, unfolding and inflating them. Many later served as sets, props or active participants in performances during the 1980s and 1990s.

The installation also includes “Footsi,” a 1979 black-and-white film in which two fingers wearing miniature socks and shoes move across Oleszko’s body and through New York streets. Its intimate scale contrasts with the architectural presence of “Blow Hard,” but both works animate ordinary materials and body parts through costume, choreography and absurdist humor.

Together, the two pieces offer a compact account of Oleszko’s approach. She repeatedly collapses the boundaries separating sculpture from theater, object from performer and spectator from participant. Spectacle, in her practice, is not simply decorative. It becomes a way to make criticism visible and approachable, allowing playful forms to carry arguments about power, social behavior and public life.

Whitney Director Scott Rothkopf said the award recognizes an artist who has challenged and entertained audiences for decades while expanding the field of American art. Biennial co-curators Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer said the jury was unanimous and emphasized that Oleszko’s work had resonated with both museum visitors and other artists in the exhibition.

The jury included Rothkopf; Whitney chief curator Kim Conaty; Guerrero; Sawyer; Renaissance Society Director and Chief Curator Myriam Ben Salah; New York University Institute of Fine Arts Director Joan Kee; and Center for Art, Research and Alliances Executive and Artistic Director Manuela Moscoso.

The Bucksbaum Award was established in 2000 by collector, patron and former Whitney trustee Melva Bucksbaum and her family. It is presented during each Whitney Biennial cycle to an included artist whose work, in the jury’s judgment, combines exceptional talent and imagination and has the potential to make a lasting contribution to American art. Funding comes from an endowment created by the Martin Bucksbaum Family Foundation.

Oleszko is the 13th artist to receive the award. Earlier winners include Paul Pfeiffer, Irit Batsry, Raymond Pettibon, Mark Bradford, Omer Fast, Michael Asher, Sarah Michelson, Zoe Leonard, Pope.L, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Ralph Lemon and 2024 recipient Nikita Gale. That list spans painting, performance, film, installation and other practices, reflecting the broad range of media represented in successive Whitney Biennials.

For Oleszko, the prize follows a period of heightened institutional attention. Earlier in 2026, SculptureCenter in Queens presented “Pat Oleszko: Fool Disclosure,” described as her first solo exhibition at a New York institution in more than 35 years. The Whitney also organized an April screening of her moving-image work, presenting selections from more than 70 films produced between the 1970s and the 2000s.

Her career has unfolded across museums, streets, festivals, public plazas and performance venues rather than through a single medium or institutional channel. Oleszko has presented work at the Museum of Modern Art, Lincoln Center, international exhibitions and public events. Her past honors include a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rome Prize, National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships and a Bessie Award for sustained achievement.

The Bucksbaum decision also highlights the intergenerational structure of the 2026 Biennial. Organized by Guerrero and Sawyer with curatorial contributions from Beatriz Cifuentes and Carina Martinez, the exhibition brings together artists working across a wide range of ages, locations and disciplines. Rather than advancing a single defining theme, the show examines relationships involving family, technology, ecology, infrastructure, mythology and the global reach of U.S. power.

Within that framework, Oleszko’s installation stands out for its combination of physical scale and comic directness. “Blow Hard” fills the gallery with an exaggerated face, trumpet and flame, while “Footsi” reduces performance to two costumed fingers. The contrast demonstrates how her work can shift from monumental public spectacle to small, mischievous gestures without abandoning its interest in transformation and participation.

The award may bring broader visibility to a career that has been influential but often resistant to conventional art-world categories. Performance, inflatable sculpture and temporary public actions can be difficult to preserve, collect and exhibit. Oleszko’s recognition underscores the role museums play in documenting practices whose impact has often depended on live encounters, photographs, film and the memories of participants.

Visitors can see Oleszko’s Biennial installation at the Whitney’s downtown Manhattan building through Aug. 23. The museum’s selection gives the exhibition a late-run focal point while affirming that innovation in American art can be measured not only by novelty, but also by the sustained development of a distinctive artistic language over decades.