Teiger Foundation—a private foundation devoted exclusively to supporting contemporary art curators—is pleased to announce its 2024 grant recipients, with 50 curators at 33 institutions across the United States receiving a total of $3,925,000. The grant program supports US curators at organizations of all sizes to conduct research, mount exhibitions, and host touring shows; and curators at organizations with budgets of $3.5 million and below to realize three years of programming. Grant amounts range from $50,000 to $150,000.
In addition to supporting curators’ public-facing work, this year the Foundation launches Climate Action for Curators after a year-long pilot in 2023. This program provides a subset of the Foundation’s grantees with $500,000 in additional funding and coaching support to embed climate consciousness into their project or organization.
With almost half of the awarded projects realized through partnerships, collaborations, and shared leadership models, this year’s grants will support several historic “firsts”, as well as initiatives that foreground under-recognized, diasporic, and BIPOC artists; exhibitions and research focused on decolonization and indigeneity; and projects exploring environmental crisis. Selected 2024 grantees include:
Camille Brown, Assistant Curator at The Phillips Collection (Washington D.C.) for the first exhibition to focus on the Black, gay poet and activist Essex Hemphill and his impact on contemporary visual art;
Daniela Lieja Quintanar, Chief Curator and Talia Heiman, Assistant Curator at REDCAT (Los Angeles, CA), for research for an exhibition inspired by the Mesoamerican mythological figure of the nahual;
Artist-activist-researcher Imani Jacqueline Brown, for ongoing collective investigations into Louisiana’s burial groves, where the remains of enslaved Africans have withstood the expansion of sugarcane plantations and petrochemical plants;
A partnership between Jennie Goldstein, Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY); Pavel Pys, Curator at Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN); independent curator Tom Finkelpearl to co-develop and present Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night, the first survey of the performance and sound artist;
José Esparza Chong Cuy, Executive Director and Chief Curator; Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa, Deputy Director and Curator; and Jessica Kwok, Associate Curator of Storefront for Art and Architecture (New York, NY) for three years of programming including a focus on self-organized schools of thought and the material politics of natural resources;
Jova Lynne, inaugural Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (Detroit, MI), and her co-leader and COO Marie Patton for three years of programming that combines Detroit’s rich artistic landscape with contributions from global visionaries;
Lauren Dickens, Chief Curator at the San José Museum of Art (San Jose, CA) and Jodi Throckmorton, Chief Curator at John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI) for a unique simultaneous presentation of the first survey of photographer Pau Houa Her, coinciding with the 50th anniversary year of Hmong resettlement in the US;
María C. Gaztambide, Executive Director at the Museo de Arte Puerto Rico (San Juan, PR), to host a major survey of works by Puerto Rico-based Cuban artist Zilia Sánchez in her long-time place of residence (this exhibition originated at ICA Miami, curated by Gene Moreno and Stephanie Seidel);
Pablo José Ramirez, Curator, and Ashton Cooper, Curatorial Assistant at the Hammer Museum at UCLA (Los Angeles, CA), for Several Eternities in a Day: Brownness and the Spiritual Turn in Art, the museum’s first major show focused on indigeneity;
Rebecca Matalon, Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (Houston, TX), to stage the first US survey of under-recognized American post-Conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll
Climate Action for Curators provides sustainability coaching and additional funds to a subset of Teiger Foundation’s grantees. Participants work alongside a sustainability coach to develop a climate plan that works best for their project or organization in terms of capacity, philosophy, and relevance to their communities. The program’s innovation is to provide expert guidance and training alongside funding. Once the plan is created, each participant receives $25,000 to implement it. Funds can be used for operations, programs, or a combination.
In addition to Lauren Dickens (San José Museum of Art), Jova Lynne and Marie Patton (MCA Detroit), and Rebecca Matalon (CAM Houston), the subset of 2024 grantees participating in the Climate Action for Curators also includes Candice Hopkins, Executive Director & Chief Curator, and Sarah Biscarra Dilley, Director of Indigenous Programs & Relationality at Forge Project (Ancram, NY); and Julio César Morales, Executive Director and Co-Chief Curator, Laura Copelin, Deputy Director and Co-Chief Curator, and Alexis Wilkinson, Curator, at Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson (Tucson, AZ).
A full list of grantees can be found on the Teiger Foundation website HERE
In 2024, Teiger Foundation received 500 proposals from curators nationwide. Finalists were selected through a competitive process that included a review by an advisory group of peer curators composed of Léuli Eshr?ghi, PhD, Curator of Indigenous Practices at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; Carla Acevedo-Yates, Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Howie Chen, Curator at 80WSE Gallery; Yesomi Umolu, arts leader and independent curator; and Linda Norden, independent curator and writer, as well as Teiger Foundation staff. Advisory panels in New York City and Los Angeles also participated in the selection process.
Curators define the meaning and relevance of their visual art institutions in ways that are not
always acknowledged, and their work is more complex and demanding than ever.We are proud to support established and emerging curators who are taking up the challenge with creative, humane, and nuanced projects and programs. Taking our support a step forward, our Climate Action for Curators builds on the centrality of curators to their institutions–as a former curator myself, I know how their work touches artists, coworkers, facilities, and community. We want to help their funded
Larissa Harris, Teiger Foundation Executive Director.
projects and organizations become part of a sustainable future, and empower them in their work overall.
Our founder, David Teiger, was committed to out-of-the-box thinking within institutions and
transdisciplinary thinkers who pushed art in new directionsWhether supporting the creative leadership of small organizations or curators organizing shows at major museums, Teiger Foundation has an expansive history of supporting experimentation and furthering new perspectives that result in positive shifts within the field. The announcement of our 2024 grantees marks a pivotal moment for the Foundation as we continue to build upon the legacy of our founder and support an ever broader group of curatorial visionaries.
John Silberman, Teiger Foundation Board President.
More information about the call for proposal process is available on Teiger Foundation’s website. Although its call for proposals is for curators working in the U.S. and territories only, Teiger Foundation is actively exploring funding internationally in the future.
About
Teiger Foundation advances innovative curatorial practice in contemporary art. Through its grantmaking initiatives, Teiger Foundation aims to catalyze positive change within the field through its support of curatorial projects that further new research, broaden opportunities for diversity and inclusion, and embrace more sustainable practices.
Established by collector and art patron David Teiger (1929–2014) in 2008, the Foundation honors the spirit of its late founder who acted as an advocate for contemporary curators pursuing ambitious, innovative, and unconventional projects. The Foundation moved into a new phase of activity following the posthumous sale of Teiger’s collection in 2018–19. Between 2020 and 2022, the Foundation distributed a total of $8 million, supporting artistic leadership and curators at nonprofit institutions; curator-led coalitions and initiatives that support and challenge the field of visual art; as well as COVID relief efforts that helped artists and cultural workers in need. 2023 brought the Foundation’s first Call for Proposals and climate action pilot, both of which have now become central programs of the Foundation’s grant-giving and support efforts.
