VIA Art Fund is pleased to announce its 2020 grant recipients. Through the VIA Partnership’s extraordinary generosity, this year surpassed grantmaking records across four categories: Artistic Production Grant Fund, VIA | Wagner Incubator Grant Fund, 2020 VIA Grantee Relief Fund, and the VIA Curatorial Fellowship.
Bridgitt Evans, President of VIA Art Fund, commented: “In a tumultuous year, VIA has remained a bastion of support for artists, arts organizations, and curators. Our grantees exemplify VIA’s rigorous standards for artistic production, thought leadership, and public engagement. Their ambitious projects—so many of which were paused, retooled, or freshly reconceived during the course of 2020—are now poised to debut with renewed relevance in a changed world. We watch with great anticipation as they chart the course forward, staking out new ground on which we can all convene together in a brighter and more promising near future.”
Over the course of 2020, VIA Art Fund approved 925,000 USD in Artistic Production grants. In addition to funding the production of new work, VIA also gifted Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Shadow Stalker to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
In the second year of its five-year, 1,000,000 USD VIA | Wagner Incubator Grant Fund, the VIA partnership awarded 200,000 USD to five geographically diverse visual arts nonprofit organizations with 40,000 USD each for general operating support.
The 2020 VIA Grantee Relief Fund provided a total of 342,000 USD in emergency relief funding to 24 previous Incubator grantees during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Finally, Wassan Al-Khudhairi was selected as the recipient of the 2021 VIA Curatorial Fellowship. She is Chief Curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.
VIA Art Fund 2020 Grantees
Artistic Production Grant Fund:
Anchorage Museum, for the production and acquisition of Nicholas Galanin & Merritt Johnson’s Natural Forces
Carolina Caycedo & David de Rozas, for the production and public accessioning of The Blessings of the Mystery
Creative Time, for the production and exhibition of Charles Gaines’ Moving Chains and Mound
Josh Kline, for the production and public accessioning of Adaptation
Liverpool Biennial, for the production and exhibition of a new sculptural installation by Ebony G. Patterson
Richard Mosse, for the production and public accessioning of Vector (working title)
Tuan Andrew Nguyen, for the production and public accessioning of Crime(s) of Solidarity/ Crimes de Solidarité
Prospect New Orleans, for the production and public accessioning of Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s Play Me Home
Jacolby Satterwhite, for the production and public accessioning of Dawn
Rose B. Simpson, for the production and exhibition of a new performance work for the Nevada Art Museum
Socrates Sculpture Park, for performances activating Jeffrey Gibson’s sculpture Because Once You Enter My House, It Becomes Our House
VIA | Wagner Incubator Grant Fund:
Artspace, New Haven, CT
Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Portland, OR
The Lab, San Francisco, CA
Locust Projects, Miami, FL
The Luminary, St. Louis, MO
2020 VIA Grantee Relief Fund:
Antenna, New Orleans, LA
ART21, New York, NY
Artpace, San Antonio, TX
Artist’s Institute, New York, NY
Artists Space, New York, NY
Burnaway, Atlanta, GA
CCA Wattis, San Francisco, CA
Coleman Center for the Arts, York, AL
International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), Brooklyn, NY
Independent Curators International, New York, NY
LAXART, Los Angeles, CA
Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, MN
Primary Information, New York, NY
PS1-Center for Afrofuturist Studies, Iowa City, IA
Recess, Brooklyn, NY
Rhizome, New York, NY
SculptureCenter, Queens, NY
SPACE, Portland, ME
Swiss Institute, New York, NY
The Kitchen, New York, NY
The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
The Underground Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Triple Canopy, New York, NY
X-TRA, Los Angeles, CA
VIA Curatorial Fellowship:
Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Chief Curator, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
About VIA Art Fund
VIA Art Fund is a 501(c)(3) 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 awards grants in three categories—Artistic Production Grants, Incubator Grants and an annual Curatorial Fellowship grant—that exemplify VIA’s core values of Artistic Production, Thought Leadership, and Public Engagement. For press images and further inquiries: press@viaartfund.org
