Andy Warhol Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts seeks to “foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process by encouraging and supporting cultural organizations that in turn, directly or indirectly, support artists and their work.” It focuses on contemporary and pop art, as well as writing and writers who promote and support it.
IP TAKE: Writers and organizations must have a very specific focus on contemporary art to receive funds from Warhol. This is not an accessible arts grantmaker. It prioritizes large organizations and museums, so grassroots organizations are less likely to secure a grant. Grant seekers should be sure they have done their homework before seeking support here. Networking is key.
PROFILE: Founded in 1987, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts seeks to “support the creation, presentation and documentation of contemporary visual art, particularly work that is experimental, under-recognized, or challenging in nature.” The foundation funds Curatorial Research Fellowships, Exhibition Support grants and Multi-year Program Support. It also supports artists through Regional Regranting programs and Special Initiatives.
Grants for Visual Arts and Film
The Warhol Foundation’s three main grantmaking programs serve arts organizations and individuals with three separate opportunities.
The Warhol Foundation’s Curatorial Research Fellowship program supports curators “with or without institutional affiliation” conducting research for planned visual arts exhibitions or related projects. Fellowships prioritize curators pursuing topics or subjects that are “understudied and artists whose practices (or aspects of whose practices) are experimental, hard to categorize, and otherwise less well known to the general public.” Fellowships are awarded in amounts of up to $50,000 and may support travel expenses, research assistant pay, acquisitions of relevant media or technical services including translation, recording or transcription. Past grantees include: the Detroit Museum of Contemporary Art , LA MOCA and the North Carolina Museum of Art, among many other institutions.
Exhibition Support Grants support the curation and production of exhibitions of one or more visual artists “whose work has been less celebrated than that of their peers, whose commitment to their practice has been under recognized yet has had a significant impact on the current (and upcoming) generation of artists.” These grants generally range from $60,000 to $100,000, which should account for about 25% of the funded project’s “total direct costs.” Recent grantees include the Baltimore Museum of Art, the National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the Athenaeum of the University of Georgia and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri.
Multi-year Program Support grants take a broader approach, offering support to different types of visual arts projects, including “exhibitions, residencies, public art works, screenings, performances, lectures, publications, mentorships and other professional development opportunities for artists.” Projects are generally about two years in duration, and grants range from $60,000 to $100,000, which should account for about 25% of the funded project’s “total direct costs.” The foundation notes that the ideal proposals for these grants will “focus on artists and ideas” as opposed to proposals to fund projects that create benefit for the organization. Past grantees include the Anthology Film Archive in New York, the Chicago Artists Coalition, Public Art St. Paul and the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in Salt Lake City.
The foundation’s Regional Regranting Program supports artists and groups around the U.S. that “chart new creative territory in their communities.” This program operates exclusively through established partnerships with funding organizations in 32 separate cities and regions. Priority is given to “artists whose work falls outside the scope of traditional presenting organizations and/or funding opportunities.” Examples of funded projects include “queer zines, living room galleries, radical seafaring events, and virtual reality film screenings among other public-facing experimental activities.”
The Andy Warhol Foundation also supports visual arts through two of its special initiatives. Creative Capital was created in 1999, when the National Endowment for the Arts ended its support programs for individual artists and represents a collaboration between the Warhol Foundation and several other arts grantmakers. The program supports “the creation of bold, risk-taking, and genre-stretching projects in the visual arts, performing arts, film, technology, literature, and multidisciplinary forms.” Creative Capital runs an application program separate from the Andy Warhol Foundation and awards grants in amounts of up to $500,000. Another collaborative initiative, Common Field, makes grants to artists and arts organizations with the broad goal of “platforms and advance thinking that support diversity in identity, geography, history, orientation, perspective, and circumstance and create space for many people to enter and shape the field.” Common Field also runs a separate grant application program.
Grants for Writing
The Andy Warhol Foundation’s support for writing stems from its Arts Writer’s Grant Program, a special initiative of the foundation. Established in 2006, the program supports writers working on books, articles and other types of written work on “contemporary visual art” and related issues. Grants range from $15,000 to $50,000 and have supported a broad range of projects, including experimental and interdisciplinary pieces. See the program page for examples of funded work and application information.
Important Grant Details:
In general, The Warhol’s grants are all made on a project-to-project basis, with grant amounts specified per program. Most funding invests in museums, artists’ organizations, and other cultural institutions, although some programs support the work of individual artists, writers or filmmakers. The foundation also provides funds for exhibitions, catalogs, and other organizational activities related to “innovative and scholarly presentations of contemporary visual arts.” It is best for grant seekers to familiarize themselves with some of the people involved in the Foundation and their backgrounds, then take a look at the organizations they fund. Like many areas of the contemporary art world, it is very much about who you know.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
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