VIA Art Fund is pleased to announce its new 2018 grant recipients. Totaling USD 700,000, grants in amounts ranging from USD 15,000 to USD 100,000 were awarded across four categories: Artistic Production Grants, Incubator Grants, 2019 VIA Curatorial Fellowship, and the 2018 Frontier Art Prize.
Artistic Production Grants are awarded to fund the production, (semi) permanent installation and/or exhibition and institutional acquisition of new artistic commissions in the public realm. When possible, VIA Artistic Production grants are made with the intention to gift a work of art to a permanent public collection/museum once production and exhibition are complete.
Incubator Grants support small to mid-size nonprofit organizations whose activities are rooted in programs, publications and/or projects that embrace innovation, experimentation, progress, and risk; champion new and diverse artistic voices; cultivate new avenues of thought leadership within the field; and work rigoroursly within their respective communities.
In an effort to broaden the impact of its Incubator Grants, VIA has partnered with Wagner Foundation to establish a five-year USD 1 million fund offering grants of up to USD 40,000 towards general operating costs and/or specific initiatives.
The VIA Curatorial Fellowship, an annual award in support of today’s visionary curatorial voices, provides discretionary funds to enable a curator to pursue aspirational research and reflection; supports travel and/or convenings; and enables other scholarly endeavors that will enhance the curator’s individual practice.
The Frontier Art Prize, presented in partnership with The World Frontiers Forum, is an annual USD 100,000 award conferred upon a visual artist whose practice reflects a pioneering spirit, whose work challenges the current and future condition of human knowledge and experience, and who celebrates individual and collective experimentation and collaboration.
Bridgitt Evans, President and Co-Founder of VIA Art Fund, commented: “2018 was a seminal year for VIA, defined by another outstanding group of grantees and the announcement of the expansion of our Incubator Grants with a five-year USD 1 million Fund in partnership with Boston’s Wagner Foundation. We are gratified by the unwavering support of our patrons, who have consistently recognized visionary artistic projects, underwritten general operating support for small-scaled arts organizations, and endorsed talented curators like our incoming Curatorial Fellow Jamillah James. In 2018, VIA provided major funding for pioneering projects including Kevin Beasley, David Hammons, Amie Siegel, and Frontier Art Prize awardee Tavares Strachan. We are looking forward to 2019, which will see an increased impact across our grantmaking efforts. The recent addition to our staff of Katherine Rochester as VIA’s first Associate Director of Curatorial Research will strengthen and reinforce our ability to support innovative artistic endeavors that engage the broader public.”
VIA Art Fund 2018 Grantees:
Eight Artistic Production Grants totaling nearly USD 600,000
Kevin Beasley, for the production of the installation A view of a landscape
Desert X, for a public outdoor installation by Iván Argote as part of their 2019 biennial
Madison Square Park Conservancy, for new works by Martin Puryear, commissioned for the US Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale
Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, for the production of Isaac Julien’s Lessons of the Hour, and the accession of the work into Memorial Art Gallery’s permanent collection
MIT List Visual Arts Center, for the production of new work by Alicja Kwade as part of her first major solo exhibition in North America
Amie Siegel, for the development of the film installation Asterisms
Tavares Strachan, for the production and exhibition of the installation The Encyclopaedia of Invisibility, for the 57th Edition of the Carnegie International
Whitney Museum of American Art, for Day’s End, a permanent public art project by David Hammons at Hudson River Park
Works accessioned to public collections
Precarity, John Akomfrah, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile, Daniel Buren, Walker Art Center
Seven Incubator Grants totaling USD 105,000
Artists Space, New York, NY
Artpace, San Antonio, TX
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA
For Freedoms, New York, NY
Redwood Library and Athenaeum, Newport, RI
X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly, Los Angeles, CA
Primary Information, New York, NY
2019 VIA Curatorial Fellow
Jamillah James, Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Frontier Art Prize 2018
Tavares Strachan
About VIA Art Fund
VIA Art Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit philanthropic arts organization founded by an international coalition of individuals and private foundations who believe in the central role art plays in society. VIA’s activities support innovative, ambitious, and rigorous works of art, and endeavors with far-reaching public impact realized in various forms including institutional production and acquisition, exhibitions, public installations, curatorial research, publications, and symposia. Funding artists, curators, and arts organizations around the world, VIA Art Fund awards grants in three categories—Artistic Production Grants, Incubator Grants, and an annual Curatorial Fellowship—that exemplify VIA’s core values of Artistic Production, Thought Leadership, and Public Engagement.
