The Idea Fund Announces 2011 Grantees
The Idea Fund, a re-granting program administered through Aurora Picture Show, DiverseWorks ArtSpace and Project Row Houses, and funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, announces the 2011 The Idea Fund Grantees. The following ten Texas-based artists or artist groups will receive $4,000 ($3,500 for the awarded project, plus $500 seed money for future work) to create and showcase projects in the coming year: ArtScouts Houston (Elaine Bradford, Emily Link, Dennis Nance, Jill Pangallo, C.H. JoAnn Park); Boozefox (Drew Liverman, Jules Buck Jones, Michael Phalan, Scott Eastwood); Nathaniel Donnett; David Feil and Amye McCarther; Christine Foerster; GENDER book creators (Boston Bostian, Mel Reiff Hill, Jay Mays); Leila Grothe and Cynthia Mulcahy; Buster Graybill; Andy Rihn; and The Rio Grande Collective (Mattie Matthaei, Eileen Torpey, Bett Williams). Descriptions of the funded projects are listed below.
Nearly 200 applications were submitted to The Idea Fund from across Texas, these ten were selected by The Idea Fund Panelists as projects that most exemplify artistic practices that fall outside the traditional frameworks of support, one of the main requirements of the grant. This year’s panelists were Bill Arning (Director, Contemporary Art Museum Houston), Kate Lorenz (Executive Director, Hyde Park Art Space, Chicago) and Andrea Mellard (Assistant Curator, Austin Museum of Art).
The Idea Fund is the second re-granting initiative of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, following the pilot program, Alternative Exposure, administrated by Southern Exposure in San Francisco, CA. The Idea Fund is structured to provide artists with quick access to substantial financial support for projects that might not otherwise have access to funding.
“I cherished my role as an Idea Fund panelist for many reasons, but one stands out,” said CAMH’s Bill Arning. “As a new Texan, having moved to Houston in 2009, I feared that the work being made here might be more conservative than what I enjoyed in New York and Boston. After seeing so many wonderful proposals of non-traditional artwork, I am happy to say that the artists we funded produce the edgiest art being made anywhere. As a lifelong advocate of avantgardist practices that does my heart and soul good to see.”
2011 The Idea Fund Grantees and their Projects:
ArtScouts Houston (Elaine Bradford, Emily Link, Dennis Nance, C.H. JoAnn Park) – Nohegan East: An art-making weekend retreat with a focus on community. (Houston-Pearland)
Boozefox (Drew Liverman, Jules Buck Jones, Michael Phalan, Scott Eastwood) – Battleship Earth: A large sculpture/watercraft resembling an iceberg, which will be “driven” around Lady Bird Lake over the course of one or more days. (Austin)
Nathaniel Donnett – What’s The New News?: A project that will challenge, respond to, and juxtapose, the way we read the news and how rap and poetry interprets it, the differences in generations when seeking information regarding issues and current events specifically in Houston’s Third Ward. (Houston)
David Feil, Amye McCarther – Andrus Studios Archive: An artist-volunteer run archive of a collection of audio reels from Andrus Studios, an independent, progressive and artist-directed recording studio owned and operated in Houston by Walt Andrus from 1964 to 1971. (Houston)
Christine Foerster – Fish.taco.ponic: A fully functioning aquaponic greenhouse to be built, maintained, narrated and exhibited in collaboration with students and community members of Segundo Barrio, El Paso. (El Paso)
GENDER book creators(Boston Bostian; Mel Reiff Hill; Jay Mays) – the GENDER book(let): A colorful, highly-illustrated resource, short in length and with detailed real-life experiences, the GENDER book serves as a starter manual that presents the beautiful diversity of gender. (Houston)
Leila Grothe, Cynthia Mulcahy – Square Dance: A Community Project: This project proposes art as social practice in the form of an outdoor seasonal community dance at the new Trinity River Audubon Center in Dallas. (Dallas)
Buster Graybill – The Progeny of Tush Hog: This project will document the offspring of Tush Hogs, a hybrid species of Minimalist sculptures and deer feeders discovered near Marfa, TX, as they continually adapt and migrate towards the urban centers of San Antonio and Houston. (Converse, TX)
Andy Rihn – Texas’ Longest Hammer Choir: To make a slow rolling short film of an event consisting of 500 people hitting hammers together across abandoned railroad tracks, filmed from a custom-made railroad cart that houses the soundtrack musicians, propulsionists and film makers. (Austin)
The Rio Grande Collective (Mattie Matthaei, Eileen Torpey, Bett Williams) – The River is the Road Festival: Our project is a street festival and a site specific video art installation in the historic Sacred Heart Chapel currently under restoration by the Texas Historic Commission. (Marfa – Ruidosa, TX).