Teiger Foundation Announces Grantees And New Climate Action Pilot Program

Teiger Foundation announced today it has awarded a total of $4.2 million in support of innovative curator-led projects, coalitions, and climate action within the field of contemporary art.

Of this total, $3.3 million has been awarded through the Foundation's inaugural Call for Proposals, the first initiative of its kind to support the full spectrum of curatorial activities, from community integration of traveling exhibitions, to research and the development of major exhibitions, to multi-year programming at small institutions. The new grantmaking program, designed to help address critical gaps in funding for contemporary art curators, awarded grants to 39 curators/curatorial teams throughout the United States, including Mary V. Bordeaux, Olivian Cha, Stefanie Hessler, and Diya Vij, among many others. As part of the Call, seven grantees have been selected to be part of the Foundation's Climate Action Pilot, an experimental initiative that seeks to develop a new model for helping curators embed climate consciousness into their everyday practices.

Alongside the launch of its first-ever Call for Proposals, Teiger Foundation has deepened its commitment to a select group of past grantees focused on advancing climate action and coalition building across the visual arts, with a series of new grants totaling $900,000. These grantees include Los Angeles Visual Art Coalition (LAVA), Artists Commit, Art into Acres, Art + Climate Action, and Ki Culture.

The announcement of these grants reflects both a strategic acceleration of the Foundation's activities and its enduring commitment to experimentation, community building, and positive structural change within the field of contemporary art. Initially established in 2008, Teiger Foundation entered a new phase of activity following the posthumous sale of the collection of its founder David Teiger (1929 - 2014) and has become today one of the largest foundations dedicated exclusively to contemporary art.

"The grants we are making within our 2023 fiscal year are reflective of the Foundation's exciting trajectory, one of increasingly ambitious activity supporting boundary-pushing curatorial projects and coalitions," said Larissa Harris, Teiger Foundation's inaugural Executive Director. "Contemporary art curators are integral interlocutors of today's society-interrogating social and environmental issues, questioning canonical structures, preserving underrepresented histories, and advancing new creative discourse. As a Foundation, we have been distinguished by a history of being responsive to curatorial needs and, in turn, to supporting curatorial empowerment. We are thrilled to be finding new ways to reach an increasing number of curators through our first-ever Call for Proposals and through our Climate Action Pilot."

Added John Silberman, President of the Board of Teiger Foundation, "The Foundation's Call for Proposals seeks to advance the fields of contemporary art and curating by providing new and needed resources for the full spectrum of curatorial activities, encompassing everything from new research to site-responsive programming. The announcement of our 2023 grantees marks a pivotal moment for the Foundation as we continue to build upon the legacy of our founder David Teiger and support an ever-broader group of curatorial visionaries."

Teiger Foundation's inaugural Call drew over 400 proposals from curators at various points of trajectory in their careers and project development, and who are affiliated with visual art organizations ranging in size and focus. The 39 grantees were selected through a competitive process that included a review by an advisory group of peer curators as well as the Foundation's Board and staff. Grantees each received awards of $150,000; $75,000; $50,000; or $25,000 toward their work. The seven climate grantees will also each receive tailored support from a sustainability consultant to develop a climate plan for their project or organization. Teiger Foundation will then provide an additional $20,000 to implement that plan.

The full list of grantees from Teiger Foundation's inaugural Call for Proposals, including those selected for the Climate Action Pilot, can be found here. Highlighted grants include:

• Curatorial research projects, such as Revisiting Kealakekua Bay, Reworking the Captain Cook Monument, conceived by curator Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick and supported by the Pu'uhonua Society in Honolulu, which invites artists to reconsider the 19th-century obelisk through conversations, interventions, and community engagement.
• Major new exhibitions, including the first U.S. solo presentation of Colombian artist Delcy Morelos, curated by Alexis Lowry at Dia Chelsea in New York City; Code Switch: Distributing Blackness, Reprogramming Internet Art, an exhibition that recognizes artists of African descent as key producers of "Black data"-contributors to, drivers of, and innovators through and beyond digitally networked culture-organized by Legacy Russell at The Kitchen; and Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape, a major photography exhibition curated by Dan Leers for Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, documenting the effects of colonialism, industrialization, racism, and other human interventions on the environment.
• Multi-year programming at smaller-scale organizations, including a long-term project led by Tizziana Baldenebro of SPACES in Cleveland with the artist duo Cooking Sections that uses the power of art to kickstart improvement in Lake Erie's water quality; and new exhibitions, partnerships, and publications at New Orleans' Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought, an organization led by Andrea Andersson that merges contemporary art practice, archival, and curatorial work, in particular through its partnership with Amistad Research Center.
• Presentation support and community integration of touring exhibitions, including the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art's presentation of Black American Portraits, an exhibition organized by Christine Y. Kim and Dr. Liz Andrews for Los Angeles County Museum of Art chronicling how Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves that is being complemented with new programs developed specifically for Memphis' local audiences by Patricia Lee Daigle; and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis' presentation of Paul Chan: Breathers, organized originally by Pavel Pyś and Matthew Villar Miranda at the Walker Art Center, which will feature new programming developed by CAM's Misa Jeffereis that extends Chan's work expanding voter registration, granting each new voter who registers at CAM a free print by the MacArthur-Award winning artist.

Although its inaugural Call for Proposals was for curators working in the U.S. and territories only, Teiger Foundation funds internationally and is developing a process to do so consistently in the future.

The advisory group for Teiger Foundation's inaugural Call for Proposals included: Giampaolo Bianconi (Associate Curator, Art Institute of Chicago), Ryan N. Dennis (Chief Curator and Artistic Director, Mississippi Museum of Art's Center for Art and Public Exchange), Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy (Director, Kunstinstituut Melly), Chris K. Ho (Executive Director, Asia Art Archive), and Meg Onli (Co-curator, Whitney Biennial 2024).