Application deadline: April 6, 2015
New Art Center
61 Washington Park
Newton, MA 02460 USA
The New Art Center’s Curatorial Opportunity Program (COP) is currently accepting proposals.
This open-call program investigates contemporary culture through the visual arts and makes diverse curatorial visions possible. It encourages emerging curators and artist-curators to realize experimental exhibitions within a large, non-profit exhibition space. We accept proposals involving two or more artists and at least one public presentation.
Our 2,500-square-foot gallery is a converted church with a 25-foot vaulted ceiling. Curators of accepted proposals receive a 1,000 USD stipend as well as administrative, installation, marketing and PR support.
The New Art Center has a 35-year tradition of using its Main Gallery for group exhibitions curated by an independent curator. Since May 1991, we have continued this tradition through our Curatorial Opportunity Program’s public call for proposals.
The New Art Center in Newton, Massachusetts, supports the development of visual artists and cultivates a community that appreciates art. We are a Boston-adjacent non-profit corporation that serves over 2,500 students annually in hundreds of classes and workshops. We have one of the few mid-sized nonprofit exhibition spaces in New England, which attracts over 4,500 visitors annually. The New Art Center’s Curatorial Opportunity Program is well respected in New England’s visual arts community. This program is a unique vehicle for curators and artists to collaborate and present thoughtful, innovative concepts. It is the foundation of our Connections Program for gallery education.
Learn more, read our guidelines and apply here.
Click here to see previously selected COP shows.
Interested parties are encouraged to attend our hands-on COP Workshop & information session on Tuesday, December 16, 7–9pm at the New Art Center. Workshop participants will learn about curating contemporary art from curatorial professionals. They will have the opportunity to engage in dialogue about curatorial ideas while learning more about the New Art Center’s Curatorial Opportunity Program (COP).
The workshop will feature a presentation by Al Miner, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Miner will discuss his recent and in-process curatorial projects as well as his approach to creating contemporary art exhibitions. He will provide inspiration, guidance and information based on his experiences curating thematic group shows.
Following Miner’s presentation, New Art Center staff will lead a question-and-answer period on the proposal submission process.
About the workshop presenter
Al Miner is Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. There, Miner has curated Evelyn Rydz: Forever Yours (2014), Landscape, abstracted (2014), Dawit L. Petros: Sense of Place (2013), Daniel Rich: Platforms of Power (2012), and Ori Gersht: History Repeating (2012) for which he authored an award-winning monograph of the same title.
He has received fellowships from the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC), Goethe-Institut, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), Artis foundation, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the Smithsonian Institution. Prior to his time in Boston, Miner worked at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.
