ARTnews: Rubin Foundation Awards Grants to 60 Organizations Aligned with Art and Social Justice

Silence = Death Collective’s 2017 window installation at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, NYC. Courtesy of LESLIE-LOHMAN MUSEUM. [image description: exterior photograph of museum, in the windows on the ground floor are large prints of “Silence = Death” and…

Silence = Death Collective’s 2017 window installation at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, NYC. Courtesy of LESLIE-LOHMAN MUSEUM. [image description: exterior photograph of museum, in the windows on the ground floor are large prints of “Silence = Death” and pink triangles across all of the windows]

The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation has awarded 60 organizations in New York City grants to help fund day-to-day operations as well as programming and exhibitions. The grants vary in amount between $5,000 and $20,000, with the total reaching $777,000.

The grants draw from the New York-based foundation’s Art and Social Justice initiative, established in 2015 to with a mission to use “art as a tool for advocacy and creative change, inclusive community engagement, and the promotion of greater civic participation and public discourse.”

Among the awardees are the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art, which had a stellar year of programming since its reopening last year, as well as Creative Time, Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.), the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Laundromat Project, and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. The foundation has also given grants to several artists residency programs, including Residency Unlimited, BronxArtSpace, Culture Push, and Weeksville Heritage Center.

In a statement, Sara Reisman, the foundation’s executive and artistic director, said, “With so many at-risk communities under pressure, we were compelled to support smaller organizations whose work is responsive to the current political climate, models experimentation, and offers sustained engagement. We also wanted to ensure that high caliber artistic programming is made available to communities who are not conventionally served by arts philanthropy.”

The full list of grant recipients follows below.

A.I.R. Gallery African Film Festival, Inc. American Indian Artists Inc. (AMERINDA) Anthology Film Archives The Arab-American Family Support Center Artists Space, Inc. ARTs East New York AXS Lab The Bronx Museum of the Arts BronxArtSpace Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) Cave Canem Foundation Center for Book Arts Center for Urban Pedagogy Creative Time CUE Art Foundation Culture Push, Inc. Dance Theatre Etcetera Dances For A Variable Population Dancing in the Streets Disability Dance Works The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts FiveMyles, Inc Forward Union Foundation for Contemporary Arts Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc. Freshkills Park Friends of Materials for the Arts Gina Gibney Dance, Inc. Great Small Works Haleakala, Inc. DBA The Kitchen Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy ISSUE Project Room The Laundromat Project Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art More Art Movement Research, Inc. New York Live Arts (fiscal sponsor for Phantom Limb Company/Octopus Theatricals) No Longer Empty Nuyorican Poets Cafe Old Stone House & Washington Park PARTICIPANT INC. Pepatian Queens Museum Recess Residency Unlimited Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation Signature Theatre Company, Inc. Social Practice Queens (SPQ) Socrates Sculpture Park SOHO20 Artists Inc. The Studio Museum in Harlem Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, Inc. Theatre of the Oppressed NYC Triangle Arts Association Visual AIDS for the Arts Wave Hill Weeksville Heritage Center Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) Young New Yorkers

By Maximilíano Durón Posted 01/29/18 12:19 pm