The National Endowment for the Arts’ most recent round of grants has been awarded to 1,126 cultural institutions in the 50 states as well as Guam and American Samoa. A total of $27.7 million was disbursed, with $2.7 of that designated for 11 Southern states.
Here’s how the South fared, in order of funds received:
Florida: Number of Grants: 24 / $575,000
Virginia: Number of Grants: 24 / $495,000
Georgia: Number of Grants: 20 / $437,000
North Carolina: Number of Grants: 16 / $320,000
Louisiana: Number of Grants: 11 / $247,000
Kentucky: Number of Grants: 8 / $200,000
Arkansas: Number of Grants: 8 / $150,000
South Carolina: Number of Grants: 4 / $115,000
Alabama: Number of Grants: 5 / $95,000
West Virginia: Number of Grants: 1 / $20,000
Mississippi: Number of Grants: 1 /$10,000
Here are select projects that received funding, in descending order of grant amount:
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
$50,000 to support the exhibition “Al Taylor: What Are You Looking At?” and an accompanying catalogue. The exhibition, featuring the work of Al Taylor (1948-1999), will include approximately 100 objects, drawings, and prints, many made of commonplace materials such as hangers, broomsticks, and plastic bottles.
City of Atlanta, Office of Cultural Affairs
$50,000 to support the exhibition series Freedom Now and related activities, an Imagine Your Parks initiative. The series will honor the heroines of the civil and human rights movements. The primary project component will be a series of glass arches and mandalas by artist Xenobia Bailey. The artworks will be installed throughout Freedom Park, a 200-acre municipal park located in the center of the civil rights district, adjacent to the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site. In addition, the city will commission the work of local artists and present a series of public engagement activities. A speaker series will explore 21st-century interpretations of freedom and the contributions that women have made in the worldwide struggle for freedom.
Berea College, Berea, Kentucky
$50,000 to support a collective impact project. A core group of partners led by Berea College will develop a plan to ensure all students acquire arts knowledge and skills in the rural Southeastern Kentucky Appalachian Promise Zone. Building on the cultural asset mapping in Appalachia supported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Promise Zone, Berea College and its partners will expand this mapping to include more in-depth information about arts and education assets. Partners will include Kentucky Arts Council, Kentucky Highlands, Appalshop, and Hindman Settlement School.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia
$45,000 to support an exhibition and catalogue of works by Edvard Munch (1863-1944) and Jasper Johns (b. 1930). Approximately 130 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs will be presented together, exploring Munch’s influence on Johns’s art-making during the 1970s and ’80s. The exhibition is the first scholarly exploration of how Munch’s art inspired thematic and stylistic changes in Johns’s mid-career work.
Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art / College of Charleston
$40,000 to produce the exhibition “Southbound: Photographs of and about the American South, 1985-2016” and the accompanying catalogue. The exhibition will include approximately 160 photographs by more than 40 contemporary artists, among them Brandon Thibodeaux, Tamara Reynolds, Kathleen Robbins, Daniel Beltra, Chris Jordan, Richard Misrach, and William Eggleston.
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans
$35,000 to support a series of multidisciplinary arts performances focusing on the idea of being intertwined with cultures both contemporary and historic. Performers will include violinist Regina Carter and dance company zoe | juniper.
Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, South Carolina
$30,000 to support the exhibition “REMIX: Themes and Variations in African-American Art,” featuring works by approximately 40 contemporary African-American artists. The exhibition will be divided into three distinct categories, featuring work by artists who rework ideas and subjects found in art from around the world, reclaim stereotypes and symbols, and reuse or repurpose objects.
Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida
$25,000 to support artist residencies and related activities. Interdisciplinary residencies will provide mid-career and emerging artists a chance to work with master artists. The master artists will determine the focus of the residency session and set the criteria for the competitive application process for their potential resident artists. Former master artists have included poet Richard Blanco, writer Rick Moody, and visual artist Mildred Howard.
Elsewhere, Greensboro, North Carolina
$25,000 to support a site-specific residency program for Southern artists that includes travel funds, room and board, and a stipend. The residency will include access to Elsewhere’s collection of vintage objects, production support for experimental new works, professional development tools, project publicity, and video documentation. An online component will feature artist blogs, interviews, and fellowship projects alongside reflections from a guest curator.
Indie Grits Film Festival / Columbia Film Society (aka The Nickelodeon Theatre)
$20,000 to support the Indie Grits Film Festival, an annual showcase of film and culture that this year will focus on environmentalism and the arts. The program will include film screenings, educational workshops, site-specific art installations, and live performances showcasing the work of artists from the Southeastern United States. All events are free-of-charge and will take place near the Congaree River in South Carolina.
Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta
$20,000 to support the Working Artist Project. This residency program provides Georgia artists with a stipend, a studio apprentice, a solo exhibition, and a full-color catalogue. Part of the program includes a one-year mentoring program of a younger artist.
Space One Eleven, Birmingham
$20,000 to support Cost of Living, a series of events, exhibitions, and residencies by artists examining issues related to income inequality. An anchor exhibition for the program will feature Larry Thompson, whose work examines issues related to returning active duty military members. Residencies will complement the exhibition by ceramist and Gulf War veteran artist Ehren Tool, and installation artist Ais
McColl Center for Art & Innovation, Charlotte, North Carolina
$20,000 to support residencies serving Latino/Hispanic artists whose work explores contemporary Latin American issues, values, and identity. An “artesanos” (makers’ fair) will showcase Latino printmakers, muralists, painters, and ceramicists, as well as local artisans and musicians who have been identified through the Center and its partners, including the Latin American Coalition, LACA Projects, and City of Charlotte.
Spoleto Festival USA, Charleston
$25,000 to support the presentation of selected works during the Spoleto Festival. The festival will feature performances from national and international artists in dance, theater, and opera. Presentations will include productions of George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” the world premiere of Edmund Thornton Jenkins’ operetta “Afram ou la belle Swita,” and Helmut Lachenmann’s opera “The Little Match Girl.” The event also will include London-based theater company 1927’s “Golem,” and Sadler’s Wells production of the Cuban dance celebration “Havana Rakatan.” The festival also will feature “La Double Coquette,” an updated version of 18th-century composer Antoine Dauvergne’s “La Coquette Trompee” by composer Gerard Pesson and librettist Pierre Alferi.
Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach
$20,000 to support an exhibition exploring the impact of the 10-year-old San Francisco-based publication Hi-Fructose. The exhibition will feature work by more than 50 artists, including Kehinde Wiley and Yoshitomo Nara, Mark Dean Veca, and OLEK.
Penland School of Crafts, Penland, North Carolina
$20,000 to support an artist-in-residence program and temporary site-specific installations on the campus of Penland. Artists working in a variety of mediums including papermaking, ceramics, drawing, painting, glass, iron, metal, photography, printmaking, textiles, and woodworking will be invited for one- to six-week-long residencies. Participants will receive studio space, housing, and a stipend, as well as equipment access and community engagement opportunities.
Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, Virginia
$15,000 to support a multimedia contemporary art exhibition and public art program presenting new work by 10 emerging and mid-career artists from across the Mid-Atlantic region. The exhibition will explore the history of landscape design and historical painting, as well as environmental science and politics of place. The public art program will include temporary interventions in the one-acre park that surrounds the art center.
Visual Arts Center, Richmond, Virginia
$15,000 to support a series of solo exhibitions and related public programming. The series will include exhibitions of work by mixed media artists Anna Hepler and Emily Erb. Hepler will exhibit her studio experiments and kinetic installations together for the first time, while Erb will paint enlarged replicas of historic American currency on silk combined with images reflecting Richmond history.
Atlanta Celebrates Photography
$12,000 to support a temporary site-specific public art installation as part of the Atlanta Celebrates Photography Festival. Previous festival projects include the “FENCE” by United Photo Industries (Brooklyn, New York), which was installed along the Atlanta Beltline, “Apparitions” by Atlanta-based artist Gregor Turk in Piedmont Park and “Art on Track,” a photographic installation on MARTA trains.
Flux Projects, Atlanta
$10,000 to support the Flux Night Festival. The downtown street festival will present an array of art events, including media projections, music and dance performances, and sound and light installations. Artists also will engage with community members through artist talks, and other informal gatherings in the months leading up to the event.
Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina
$10,000 to support a community-based public art project that will be part of the Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition and Exhibition. A selected sculptor will work with underserved community groups to design and fabricate a public art project for installation on the university campus. The project will be coordinated by the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University and will seek to involve residents from northwestern North Carolina.
Community Arts Center, Danville, Kentucky
$10,000 to support Art Under Pressure, a series of printmaking events for teens in rural Kentucky will be facilitated by guest artists and will culminate in a public steamroller printmaking event. Printmaking artists Rodolfo Salgado, Jr., and Susanna Crum will lead an exploration of large-scale printmaking with youth in Boyle County, Kentucky. The finished prints will be hung as a public art installation in the community.
