Congratulations to FRONT Partner Curated Storefront and FRONT 2022 Artist Chakaia Booker on being awarded a VIA Art Fund Artist Production Grant!

Jan. 17, 2024

VIA ART FUND AWARDS $1 MILLION IN GRANTS IN 2023

Support provided for projects by Jeffrey Gibson, Delcy Morelos, and Glenn Kaino.
Recognition and support given to small-scale, visual arts non-profit organizations.
Jessica Bell Brown selected as 2024 VIA Curatorial Fellow.

(FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE) VIA Art Fund is pleased to announce its 2023 grant recipients across three categories: Artistic Production Grant Fund, VIA | Wagner Incubator Grant Fund, and the VIA Curatorial Fellowship.

In 2023 VIA Art Fund celebrated its 10th Anniversary. More than $8 million in grants have been awarded in the first decade of the organization, all in support of the production, exhibition, and accessioning of public artworks, general operation of small-scale contemporary art organizations nationwide, and curatorial research nationally and internationally.

Brooke Davis Anderson, Executive Director of VIA Art Fund commented, “2023 has been a signature year for VIA Art Fund: we celebrated ten years of collective grantmaking with our Partners, we distributed $1 million in funding to artists, curators, and projects around the world, and we rearticulated the value of our work with growth plans for the future. VIA also recommitted to supporting the creation of new work by placing future emphasis on artistic production, while completing the five-year VIA | Wagner Incubator Grant Fund program, which has come to a close.

As a result of our grantmaking in 2023, some of our most exciting practitioners will realize projects in public gardens, pavilions, piers, and planetariums in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Venice, and elsewhere. With our funding, we hope these projects will attract new audiences to contemporary art and encourage artists to work outside an expected cultural map.

It has been a pleasure for all of us at VIA to partner with the Wagner Foundation to distribute $1 million over five years to twenty-five deserving organizations around the country. While the VIA | Wagner Incubator grant program has concluded we will host a convening in 2024 to aid in our evaluation of this program, with hopes that we will learn more about the value of general operating support. Based on visionary leadership, exciting community partnerships, and rich programming, the cultural leaders of these twenty-five Incubator grantees are our future, so we look forward to learning from them in the years to come.”

Charlotte Wagner, Founder and president of the Wagner Foundation commented, “Over the last five years, the VIA | Wagner Incubator Grant Fund has been an extraordinary opportunity to learn about and support anchor cultural institutions in communities across the country and to come together as a funder collaboration to expand our reach. Unrestricted general operating funding is an essential part of diversifying our arts ecosystems and resourcing artists visions and we have seen the incredible impact that this support has brought to the twenty-five organizations who have participated in the initiative. We continue to be inspired by these thought leaders creating thoughtful, experimental, and engaging programming in their region and imagining the arts organizations needed to serve future generations.”

Throughout 2023, VIA approved $1 million in grants, including $775,000 in Artistic Production grants and $200,000 in partnership with the Wagner Foundation. The VIA | Wagner Incubator Grant Fund grants $40,000 to five geographically diverse visual arts non-profit organizations for general operating support over two years.

Jessica Bell Brown has been selected as VIA’s 2024 Curatorial Fellow, which carries an award of $25,000 to support curatorial research and travel. Brown is currently the Curator and Department Head for Contemporary Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

On occasion, VIA’s grantmaking of new work results in the gifting of VIA-produced artworks to US-based museum collections. In 2023, five artworks were donated to public permanent collections.

VIA Art Fund 2023 Grantees:
Artistic Production Grant Fund

Curated Storefront, production and accessioning: Chakaia Booker’s Untitled Lock 3 Project, Akron, OH
Dario Robleto, production and exhibition: Ancient Beacons Long for Notice, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
Dia Art Foundation, production and exhibition: Delcy Morelos’s Delcy Morelos: Elabrazo, New York, NY
Glenn Kaino, production and exhibition: Glenn Kaino’s Aki’s Market, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Hammer Museum, production and exhibition: Cannupa Hanska Luger’s Sovereign, Los Angeles, CA
Hayward Gallery, production and exhibition: Tavares Strachan’s Head of Marcus Garvey, London, UK
Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA), production and accessioning: Eamon Ore-Giron’s Tlaloc’s Eyes, Los Angeles, CA
Jordan Weber, production and accessioning: Detroit Remediation Forest, Detroit, MI Landmarks,
The University of Texas at Austin, production and accessioning: Howardena Pindell’s Untitled, Austin, TX
Madison Square Park Conservancy, production and exhibition: Nicole Eisenman’s Stopped Crane, New York, NY
LAXART, production and exhibition: Kara Walker’s Untitled (Stonewall Jackson Project), Los Angeles, CA
Portland Art Museum, production and exhibition: Jeffrey Gibson’s the space in which to place me, U.S. Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

VIA | Wagner Incubator Grant Fund

1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA
516 ARTS, Albuquerque, NM
All My Relations Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Indigo Arts Alliance, Portland, ME
PARTICIPANT INC, New York, NY

2024 VIA Curatorial Fellow
Jessica Bell Brown, Curator and Department Head for Contemporary Art, Baltimore Museum of Art

VIA Artworks Gifted to Museums

Asaase III by David Adjaye, The Griot Museum of Black History, St. Louis, MO
Reifying Desire 7 – Dawn by Jacolby Satterwhite, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA), Los Angeles, CA
Tender Balance by Jill Magid, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, NY
The Teachings of the Hands by Carolina Caycedo and David de Rozas, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Water Moves Life by Nicholas Galanin and Merritt Johnson, Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK

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 with far-reaching public impact realized in various forms including institutional production and acquisition, public installations, curatorial research, publications, and symposia. Funding artists, curators, and arts organizations around the world, VIA Art Fund awards Artistic Production grants in support of new artwork commissions and offers an annual Curatorial Fellowship grant. Through these grant programs, VIA endeavors to support work that exemplifies its core values of Artistic Production, Thought Leadership, and Public Engagement. For press images and inquiries: press@viaartfund.org.