VIA Art Fund and Wagner Foundation have awarded grants totaling $200,000 to five U.S.-based visual arts organizations. The recipients of the 2022 VIA | Wagner Incubator Grant Fund are: Boston Art Review (Boston, MA), Granary Arts (Ephraim, UT), Project for Empty Space (Newark, NJ), Racing Magpie (Rapid City, SD), and Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (Salt Lake City, UT).
Click here to read the press release.
Click here to learn more about the VIA | Wagner partnership and the Incubator Grant Fund.
Founded in 2017 as a biannual print publication, Boston Art Review (BAR) has grown to offer an expanding array of digitally native content and in-person public programs aimed at supporting the art scene in the greater Boston area. BAR affords both established writers and emerging talent the opportunity to pen in-depth features, reviews, and interviews of internationally acclaimed and locally recognized artists. Public engagement is at the heart of BAR’s programming. From grassroots community art initiatives to Boston’s internationally recognized art institutions, BAR’s coverage builds crucial connective tissue between art scenes in New England. As a regional hub for arts discourse, BAR is committed to being an accessible resource for engaging with Boston’s art ecosystem and contextualizing and amplifying the historically excluded voices of the region’s artists, writers, scholars, and community leaders.
For more information, please visit Boston Art Review
Established in 2012, Granary Arts is an alternative art space that supports diverse, emerging, and established artists from its outpost in rural Utah. Granary Arts facilitates free, year-round, innovative programming and exhibitions to support artists’ range of creative trajectories through lectures, workshops, critical reviews, and collaborative, community, and place-based research. Its dynamic and responsive projects increasingly explore the impact of art criticism in rural communities through the sharing of ideas and conversations around critical and timely issues. Through its Critical Ground initiative, Granary Arts has embraced the role of thought leader both within and beyond the region as it commits to mapping an alternate way forward that is more inclusive of the spectrum of work created from a rural perspective.
For more information, please visit Granary Arts
Project for Empty Space (PES) is a woman-run, femme-powered, People of the Global Majority/BIPOC, Queer, and unapologetically radical ecosystem for creatives. Since its founding in 2010, PES has been dedicated to creating safe and equitable spaces for multidisciplinary artists and the social discourse their practices inspire. Viewing itself as an ecosystem for artists and the public rather than an “organization,” it centers two annual artists in residency programs that feed exhibitions and public engagement offerings. Through its programming, PES cultivates conversations around important social issues through the lens of contemporary art and critical intersectional frameworks. Its diverse array of exhibitions and programs aim to inspire its members and wider audience to further invest in and support Newark’s creative community.
For more information, please visit Project for Empty Space
Founded in 2015, Racing Magpie seeks innovative and collaborative approaches rooted in Lakota thought and action for amplifying the creative community work of Native artists. Racing Magpie strives to organically grow its public and exhibition programs to respond to needs voiced by Native creatives and community. They are committed to creating spaces for Native artists, makers, and creatives in western South Dakota and beyond; to explore and share their expressions without the pressures of the often-problematic Native art market; to uphold the continuum of Lakota creativity and mutual support; and to deepen their impact in creative community building. In this work, Racing Magpie centers Lakota cultural practices, which teach the value of being in good relationship with everything human and non-human.
For more information, please visit Racing Magpie
Founded in 1931, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA), located in downtown Salt Lake City, is Utah’s oldest museum dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary art. Its rigorous exhibition program puts local, national, and international artists in dialog with audiences curious to explore contemporary themes. Anchored by a mission inspired by artists, UMOCA challenges the status quo and proposes art as an agent of change in the face of economic, gender, and racial inequality that exist in its community and beyond. Through programming, advocacy, and collaboration, it works with artists and communities to build a more empathetic world. UMOCA is deeply invested in bridging multiple communities in Utah through programming that navigates critical issues raised by contemporary art while making everyone feel welcome.
For more information, please visit Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
The VIA l Wagner Incubator Grant Fund aims to strengthen the capacity and programming of organizations across the country in order to ensure a robust and inclusive national arts ecosystem.