The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA) in New York, an organization co-founded in 1963 by Jasper Johns and John Cage, has announced 19 recipients of its annual artist grants. Additionally, composer Petr Kotik was named the recipient of the biennial John Cage Award. Each will receive an unrestricted grant of $45,000 (a $5,000 increase from past years).
The FCA was founded on an “artists for artists” principle, by which artists support each other by the sales of donated works. Participants at the first benefit in 1963 included Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Marcel Duchamp, Philip Guston, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol. Seven of the awards are named after artists associated with FCA’s history, including Cy Twombly, Dorothea Tanning, and Helen Frankenthaler, among others. The biennial John Cage Award was established in 1992 in honor of the late composer and FCA co-founder, who died that year.
Each year, awardees are selected via a “confidential two-part nomination and selection process.” Members of the foundation’s board, in addition to guest jurors, are responsible for choosing each year’s awardees, and they include British painter Cecily Brown, co-founder Jasper Johns, poet and art critic John Yau, and sonic and visual artist Jennie C. Jones.
The FCA has upped its support to artists since the onset of the pandemic in recognition of the fact that many of their livelihoods were upended. Since March 2020, the FCA has doled out $5.6 million in emergency relief grants to artists. The current round of grants totals $900,000.
Below is the complete list of this year’s grantees:
Dance
- Anonymous
- Leslie Cuyjet, Brooklyn, NY
- Marguerite Angelica Monique Hemmings, Philadelphia, PA
- nia love, New York, NY
- David Thomson, Brooklyn, NY
Music/Sound
- Raven Chacon, Albuquerque, NM
- Susie Ibarra, New Paltz, NY
- Laura Ortman, Brooklyn, NY
- The Dorothea Tanning Award: Pamela Z, San Francisco, CA
Performance Art/Theater
- JJJJJerome Ellis, Virginia Beach, VA
- Autumn Knight, New York, NY
- Carlos Martiel, Brooklyn, NY
- The Robert Rauschenberg Award: Brontez Purnell, Oakland, CA
Poetry
- The Cy Twombly Award for Poetry: Kay Ulanday Barrett, Rahway, NJ
- The C.D. Wright Award for Poetry: Mónica de la Torre, Long Island City, NY
- Cedar Sigo, Poulsbo, WA
Visual Arts
- The Roy Lichtenstein Award: Eve Fowler, Los Angeles, CA
- Matt Savitsky, Los Angeles, CA
- The Helen Frankenthaler Award for Painting: Joan Waltemath, New York, NY
John Cage Award
- Petr Kotik, New York, NY
