Pioneering artist support organization Creative Capital has announced its 2016 awardees, funding 46 projects selected from a nationwide pool of 2,500 proposals. The artistic disciplines being funded this year are: literature, performing arts and emerging fields. Drawing on venture-capital principles, Creative Capital seeks out artists’ projects that are bold, innovative and genre-stretching, then surrounds those artists with the tools they need to realize their visions and build sustainable careers.
The 2016 Creative Capital awardees are an incredible group of creative thinkers, representing 63 artists at all stages of their careers with an age range of 28 to 65 years old. More than half are women; and more than half identify as people of color. Each funded project will receive up to 50,000 USD in direct funding and additional resources and advisory services—such as financial consulting and communications support—valued at 45,000 USD, making the organization’s total 2016 investment more than 4,370,000 USD.
Many of these projects reflect Creative Capital’s commitment to artist-activists, who are engaging some of the most significant and hotly debated issues of our time. Projects receiving funding span a wide range of genres and forms, including an exhibition and book on the histories of transgender communities, an adaptation of Euripides’ Medea as a Latin American variety show, and an opera examining America’s relationship with guns.
“Artists today are brave, bold and deeply engaged in the world,” said Ruby Lerner, Founding President & Executive Director, Creative Capital. “The 2016 class of Creative Capital awardees are creating important and deeply moving work, with immediacy and passion. This class is diverse, it is extraordinarily talented, and we believe the 2016 Creative Capital artists will shape their fields for decades to come.”
The 2016 awardees in emerging fields are:
Tanya Aguiñiga, Los Angeles
Zach Blas, Brooklyn, NY
Peter Burr and Porpentine, Brooklyn, NY and Oakland, CA
Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo and Sable Elyse Smith, Brooklyn, NY
desert ArtLAB (April Bojorquez and Matt Garcia), Pueblo, CO
Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Chicago
Liz Glynn, Commerce, CA
Heather Hart and Jina Valentine, Brooklyn, NY and Durham, NC
Marisa Morán Jahn, New York
KCHUNG, Los Angeles
Yotam Mann, Brooklyn, NY
Eva and Franco Mattes, Brooklyn, NY
Irvin Morazan, Richmond, VA
Laura Parnes, Brooklyn, NY
Kenya (Robinson), Gainesville, FL
Evan Roth, Paris
Chris E. Vargas, Bellingham, WA
The 2016 awardees in literature are:
Jesse Ball, Chicago
desveladas (Macarena Hernández, Sheila Maldonado, Nelly Rosario), Brooklyn, NY
LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, New York
Percival Everett, South Pasadena, CA
Eileen Myles, New York
Dao Strom, Portland, OR
The 2016 awardees in performing arts are:
Cornell Alston and Kaneza Schaal, New York
Jeff Becker, New Orleans
Peter Born and Okwui Okpokwasili, Brooklyn, NY
Ligia Bouton, Matt Donovan and Lei Liang, San Diego, CA
Sharon Bridgforth, San Francisco
Ben Thorp Brown, Brooklyn, NY
Ann Carlson, Santa Monica, CA
Mallory Catlett, New York
Ellen Sebastian Chang and Amara Tabor-Smith, Oakland, CA
Jim Findlay, Brooklyn, NY
Robin Frohardt, Brooklyn, NY
Sean Graney, Chicago
Brian Harnetty, Columbus, OH
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Carmelita Tropicana, New York
Joseph Keckler, Brooklyn, NY
Heather Kravas, Seattle
Ahamefule J. Oluo, Seattle
Pegasus Warning (Guillermo E. Brown), Los Angeles
Graham Reynolds, Austin
Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble (Tei Blow and Sean McElroy), Brooklyn, NY
James Scruggs, Jersey City, NJ
Erika Chong Shuch, Berkeley, CA
Yara Travieso, Brooklyn, NY
Read more about these artists, their projects and the selection process here.
About Creative Capital
Creative Capital’s pioneering approach—inspired by venture-capital principles—surrounds adventurous artists in all disciplines with the tools they need to realize their visions and build sustainable careers. Since 1999, Creative Capital’s awards program has committed nearly 40 million USD in financial and advisory support to 511 projects representing 642 artists, including Kyle Abraham, Janine Antoni, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Theaster Gates, Meredith Monk, Laura Poitras, Rebecca Solnit and The Yes Men. Creative Capital has reached nearly 12,000 additional artists in more than 600 communities through its career-development workshops and webinars. For more information, visit www.creative-capital.org.
Creative Capital receives major support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Toby Devan Lewis, Lambent Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Booth Ferris Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The Hearst Foundations, Muriel Pollia Foundation, Paige West, The Theo Westenberger Estate, New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Cordish Family Foundation, Sylvia Golden, Rappaport Family Foundation, Stephen Reily & Emily Bingham, Catharine & Jeffrey Soros, and more than 350 other institutional and individual donors.
Press inquiries: Mark Ro Beyersdorf, mark [at] berlinrosen.com / T 646 200 5295
