The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts will award $224,000 in Spring 2019 Curatorial Research Fellowships. Fellows will receive grants up to $50,000 to support new scholarship on contemporary visual art, particularly experimental and under-recognized practices. Research activities include travel, visits to relevant museums, archives and collections, convenings of colleagues and advisory groups as well as the development of related publications. In addition to the Curatorial Research Fellowships, last week, the foundation announced it will award $3.81 million in Spring 2019 grants to visual arts organizations. The foundation’s current grants budget is $14.3 million.
The Spring 2019 Curatorial Research Fellows and supporting institutions are as follows: Peter S. Briggs, Museum of Texas Tech University; Jaime DeSimone, Portland Museum of Art; Polly Nordstrand, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College; Catherine Taft, LAXART; and Olga Viso, El Museo del Barrio.
“Each of these curators will explore important, previously unexamined work by experimental artists and forgotten movements. Their projects will introduce new perspectives and approaches to exhibition making while also influencing the field of contemporary art scholarship,” said Joel Wachs, the foundation’s President.
Jaime DeSimone spoke about the fellowship’s impact, “The Warhol Foundation’s support affirms the importance of research in mounting ambitious, international projects and exhibitions…It is an honor to be awarded this curatorial research fellowship, as it demonstrates the value of collaboration, the significance of in-depth curatorial research, and the vision of the PMA’s contemporary art program.”
Olga Viso commented on the fellowship’s significance at this stage in her research, “Thanks to The Warhol Foundation, I am able to return to research I commenced 20 years ago with the acquisition of Elso’s masterwork Por America for the Hirshhorn Museum’s collection.” She continued to say that the fellowship will help “bring greater public understanding of the iconic yet little-known Cuban master.”
The Curatorial Research Fellowship program is in its 11th year; it has awarded $4.6 million to 135 curators to date. Curators at any career stage are encouraged to apply with the formal support of an institution. Recipients are selected through the foundation’s biannual open submission process. The number of awarded fellowships varies with each round based on the strength of applications. The next deadline is September 1, 2019.
Spring 2019 Curatorial Research Fellowships | Project Descriptions
Peter S. Briggs | Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
Peter S. Briggs is curating “Down in the Dirt: Terry Allen’s Graphic Art,” an exhibition and publication of the artist’s lithographs and intaglios in preparation for which he has immersed himself in Allen’s obsessive considerations of border landscapes, temperaments, and class conflicts. His research will take him to locations throughout the Southwest to investigate the context of Allen’s work and to conduct interviews with friends, collaborators, and the artist. Briggs will also work with Chris Taylor, director of the Land Arts of the American West program, and others to organize scholarly symposia.
Jaime DeSimone | Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
In preparation for the 2021 North Atlantic Triennial (working title), a collaborative project of the Portland Museum of Art, the Reykjavik Art Museum and the Bildmuseet in Umea, Sweden, Jaime DeSimone will travel extensively in Maine, the Canadian Maritimes, and major cities of Scandinavia in order to conduct studio visits, identifying the themes, ideas, and modes of working that are unique to the region.
Polly Nordstrand | Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO
The goal of Polly Nordstrand’s “Queer Indigenous Visualities” is to provide a corrective to historical considerations of Native American art that have thus far ignored the significant contributions of queer artists. Working with Michelle McGeough from the University of British Columbia and V. Gina Diaz from the University of New Mexico, Nordstrand will study the creative practices of contemporary Latinx and Indigenous LGBTQIA+ artists. Her research will include two convenings followed by the exhibition and public programs.
Catherine Taft | LAXART, Los Angeles, CA
An early intersectional movement that identified critical connections between gender oppression and the exploitation of natural resources, ecofeminism evolved out of the environmental, feminist and anti-nuclear movements of the early 1980s. It was taken up by politically active contemporary artists at the time, however, it has been conspicuously absent from historical surveys of the period. In preparation for the group exhibition, “Life on Earth: Ecofeminist Art Since 1979,” Catherine Taft will research overlooked historical works and link them to currents in contemporary practice, effectively establishing a lineage for today’s ecofeminist artists.
Olga Viso | El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY
Guest curator Olga Viso will be developing a groundbreaking exhibition for El Museo del Barrio, tentatively titled “Por America: Juan Francisco Elso in Context,” highlighting the work of Cuban artist Juan Francisco Elso. Through her research, Viso will explore how Elso’s art dovetailed with that of contemporaries, particularly the better-known Ana Mendieta, whose works were also inspired by personal mysticism, Afro-Cuban ritual traditions, and Amerindian civilizations. In addition, Viso will examine Elso’s and Mendieta’s intersection with other key figures of the 1980s, including Jimmie Durham and Luis Camnitzer, and the vital role the artists played in the development of contemporary Cuban art on and off the island.