The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, a nonprofit arts organization founded in 1963 by John Cage and Jasper Johns, has announced the recipients of its annual awards. Fourteen unrestricted grants of $40,000 each will be given to individual artists in the United States. Along with this cycle of grant awardees, Linda Austin has been named winner of the second biennial Merce Cunningham Award; artist and activist Jimmie Durham,the Robert Rauschenberg Award; and poet Liz Waldner, the inaugural Dorothea Tanning Award.
The Merce Cunningham Award was established in 2015 with a gift from the Merce Cunningham Trust in memory of the groundbreaking choreographer, one of the Foundation’s first grant recipients. This unrestricted $40,000 award is made biennially through Grants to Artists to an individual whose work embodies Cunningham’s legacy of creativity and innovation.
“The Grants to Artists awards are distinguished by their anonymous nomination and selection by distinguished artists and arts professionals,” said Stacy Stark, Executive Director. “Each November, we have the privilege of calling artists out of the blue to tell them that their peers in the artist community have nominated and selected them to receive a $40,000 unrestricted award. These calls were especially poignant ones, in the wake of the election. The Foundation is proud to continue its mission of supporting pioneering work and experimental practices.”
See the complete list of grantees HERE.
Performance Works NW || Linda Austin Dance 