Rashid Johnson and Sheree Hovsepian have announced the Casa Gràcia Artist Residency Menorca dedicated to giving visual artists and writers unstructured time and private space to work. Set in the historic city of Mahon, the program emerges from the founders’ deep personal connection to the island — a relationship that developed, for Johnson, through his long ties to Hauser & Wirth and a solo exhibition at the gallery’s Menorca outpost in 2022. The announcement arrives with one of the more remarkable advisory boards assembled for a residency program of this kind.
Both founders are practicing artists, and they are married to each other, which gives Casa Gràcia a quality of genuine personal investment that distinguishes it from institutional programs built at arm’s length. Johnson works across painting, sculpture, film, and installation, often exploring themes of Black intellectual history, identity, and collective memory. Hovsepian’s practice spans textile, photography, and sculpture. The program they have built reflects what they value most as artists: time, space, and freedom from outcome.
What the Casa Gràcia Artist Residency in Menorca Provides
Five places are awarded each year: three visual artists are invited for residencies of up to three months, and two writers for extended periods of up to six months. Residencies are entirely self-directed, with no obligation to produce an outcome or deliver a public presentation. The framing is deliberate — this is time for reflection, experimentation, and creative development, not production in any conventional sense. A local team at Hauser & Wirth Menorca provides knowledge and support throughout each residence.
Ahead of the full program launch, an inaugural season will take place in fall 2026, hosting the recipient of an artist grant from the Institut Menorquí d’Estudis, a public research and cultural institution in Mahon, in a partnership supported by Es Baluard Museum and Hauser & Wirth Menorca. Applications for the 2027 Casa Gràcia Artist Residency are open through July 31, 2026 at casagracia.org/apply. Artists and writers from the Balearic Islands, mainland Spain, and internationally are encouraged to apply.
The Space in Mahon: Studio, Study and the City’s Largest Walled Garden
Casa Gràcia sits in a quiet residential neighbourhood at the centre of Mahon and was built in 1860. Before its transformation, the ground floor served as the entrance to a nightclub, with the owner’s apartment above — a history that makes its current form as a dedicated artist residency in Menorca all the more considered a reinvention. The renovation was carried out by Laplace, the award-winning Paris-based architectural firm, working alongside Menorcan architects Maimó&Brosa.
The result is three distinct spaces available to residents: a 300m² studio, a study, and what is described as the largest private walled garden in the Mahon city centre. Interiors are furnished with traditional Menorcan pieces sourced locally and paired with selected contemporary objects, creating an atmosphere that connects the island’s material heritage with the conditions for modern creative work. The entire building is shared between the artist and writer in residence at any given time.
Why Menorca: What Johnson and Hovsepian Found on the Island
Johnson’s relationship with Menorca developed through his engagement with Hauser & Wirth, whose art centre on the Illa del Rei — a small island in Mahon harbour — opened in 2021, and where he presented a solo exhibition in 2022. He has described what the island gives a creative practice in terms of slowness, clarity, and a new quality of openness, noting that Menorca has “a quiet but profound way of sharpening attention and deepening one’s relationship to making.”
Hovsepian’s perspective reaches further into the island’s geological and archaeological character. Menorca is distinguished among the Balearics by its talayotic structures — Bronze Age prehistoric stone monuments scattered across the island, quietly holding the memory of another time and civilisation. She describes the island as one that expands inner space, where ideas surface more freely and creativity feels connected to something both personal and ancient. It is that quality — deep time informing the present — that Casa Gràcia is trying to offer to artists and writers who arrive there.
The Advisory Board Behind the Casa Gràcia Artist Residency
The board assembled to oversee the residency reads less like a courtesy list and more like a working cross-section of the contemporary art world’s most serious participants. Colson Whitehead — two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist — and Patrick Radden Keefe, staff writer and bestselling author, represent the literary side. Hank Willis Thomas brings a major visual arts practice. On the gallery side, Iwan and Manuela Wirth, co-founders of Hauser & Wirth, anchor the institutional weight alongside curator Katherine Brinson, Cristopher Canizares, Alex Ernst, Debbie Hillyerd, Gaurav Kapadia, and Ravi Nandan.
The Casa Gràcia Artist Residency advisory board considers applications on an annual basis. The deadline for the 2027 calendar year is July 31, 2026.
Discover more from artsXhibit
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.