Jamal Cyrus (born 1973, Houston, TX) received his BFA from the University of Houston in 2004 and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008. Cyrus has won several awards, most recently the Driskell Prize, awarded by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA (2020). He has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions, including Slowed and Throwed: Records of the City Through Mutated Lenses, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (2020); Front International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH (2018); Direct Message: Art, Language and Power, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2019); and The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 – Now, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL (2016).

 

Cyrus was also a member of the artist collective Otabenga Jones and Associates. As a member of the collective, he exhibited at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2008); the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC (2008); the Menil Collection, Houston (2007); and the 2006 Whitney Biennial.