We’re proud to announce we’ve been awarded $100,000 over 2 years for visual arts program support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
SPACE, a nonprofit contemporary art gallery and multi-media venue in Portland, Maine has been awarded $100,000 over two years in program support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. This grant will support over 20 exhibitions, the commissioning of new media and visual arts projects in experimental platforms, and further SPACE’s commitment to the financial support of artists and the production of their work.
The 42 recipients were selected from an applicant pool of 224 nonprofit arts organizations, with final awards ranging from $35,000 to $120,000.
Joel Wachs, the President of the Warhol Foundation noted on the announcement, “Many of these organizations are small with budgets well under $1 million, yet they are providing vital professional support to a diverse set of artists while remaining socially engaged in their communities. This work is inspiring at a time when many groups in this country feel threatened – women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, to name a few.”
SPACE’s Executive Director Kelsey Halliday Johnson shared that, “We are grateful to the Warhol Foundation who first championed SPACE through it’s unique Warhol Initiative program and has helped catalyze new projects throughout Maine with the Kindling Fund Grants. With this new program support, the next two years in SPACE’s galleries are ripe with possibility. We’re preparing to embark on projects that are critically excellent, risk-taking, and above all else, artist-centered.”
When Andy Warhol died unexpectedly on February 22, 1987, he left a vast and complicated inventory of works of art and personal possessions. His will dictated that his entire estate, with the exception of a few modest legacies to family members, should be used to create a foundation dedicated to the “advancement of the visual arts.” In its early days, the Foundation brought artists, curators, administrators, educators, critics and others together to help it shape a responsive, committed and engaged philanthropic organization. The grantmaking program that grew out of these meetings and the Foundation’s ongoing efforts to protect and enhance its founder’s creative legacy ensure that Warhol’s inventive, open-minded spirit will have a profound impact on the visual arts for generations to come.
The primary focus of the Foundation’s grant making activity has been to support the creation, presentation and documentation of contemporary visual art, particularly work that is experimental, under-recognized, or challenging in nature. The program has been both pro-active in its approach to the field of cultural philanthropy and responsive to the changing needs of artists. A strong commitment to freedom of artistic expression led the Foundation to play an active advocacy role for artists during the culture wars of the 1990s and continues to inform its support of organizations that fight censorship, protect artists’ rights and defend their access to evolving technologies in the digital age.
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