Robert Rauschenberg Foundation announces 2023 grant recipients, supporting more than 40 organizations
Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Announces 2023 Grant Recipients
Totaling Over $4 Million, The Grants Will Directly Support More Than 40 Organizations
New York, NY – June 20, 2023 – The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is pleased to announce their 2023 grantmaking program, totaling over $4 million distributed to more than 40 organizations committed to unconventional artistic and community-based, often grassroots, practices. Through these grants, the Foundation supports activist initiatives based in human and land rights, daring curatorial and artistic mutual aid programs, and the daily operations of grantee organizations.
Kathy Halbreich, the Foundation’s recent Executive Director, explained the expansiveness of the artist’s vision and the permission it provides to nimbly adapt to changing needs:
“Robert Rauschenberg was prescient in so many ways. We follow his lead in embracing the joy in risk taking, collaboration across the disciplines, and helping artists in need; he also was fearless in speaking against repressive politics as well as an early environmental activist. Bob foresaw the way many artists today, in caring deeply for their communities, merge artistic and social practice. His values provide the Foundation with a progressive and adaptable philanthropic platform that undergirds small to mid-sized arts and socially engaged organizations that are contrarian and experimental in their drive towards a more equitable world. We often are one of an organization’s earliest supporters. I am so grateful to remain involved as the Foundation’s Advisor through December in guiding several of the bigger philanthropic initiatives I championed.”
The 2023 grant program includes the inaugural year of the Black and Indigenous Land Rights and Agriculture Initiative, a 3-year philanthropic activity which seeks to begin to redress the losses of Black and Indigenous people’s land and capacity for wealth generation due to long term bias imbedded in governmental and statutory systems while providing risk capital to seed or help secure small-scale farming and environmental activities as well as larger coalitions. The program is shaped and led by an anonymous committee of six Black and Indigenous experts from related fields.
The program also initiated a three-year partnership with the Clemente, a cultural and educational Center on the Lower East Side that is almost 30 years old, and LxNY: Latinx Arts Consortium, a network of 40 organizations established in 2020. RRF’s funding will provide support for
Historias: Arts Festival that recovers and elevates histories of the collaborating communities across the boroughs.
Fourteen of the total grants are provided by the Artists Council, an ongoing and anonymous group of artists that assists in shaping the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation’s philanthropy and oversees a significant portion of the Foundation’s grant giving. Stipends and expenses for the Artists Council are funded in part through a grant from the Wallis Annenberg Foundation.
All grant recipients will be profiled on the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation website.
2023 Philanthropy Program Grants:
World Central Kitchen – Washington, DC
NYFA Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grants – New York, NY
The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center – New York, NY
Beach Session Dance Series – New York, NY
Together & Free – New York, NY
Black and Indigenous Land Rights and Agriculture Advisory Committee Grants
Black Farmers Ecosystem – NY
Dishgamu Humboldt Wiyot – CA
Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust – Northeast and NY
Owens Valley Indian Water Commission – CA
Red Willow Center –Taos Pueblo, NM
Shelterwood – Mill Creek, CA
Yurok Tribe Food Sovereignty Program – CA
Makoce Ikikcupi (Land Recovery) – Minnesota
Artists Council Grants
Blank Forms – Brooklyn, NY
Rolling Grocer – Hudson, NY
Chinatown Tenants Union – New York, NY
ReClaiming Our Homes – Los Angeles, CA
El Sereno Community Land Trust – Los Angeles, CA
Human Resources LA – Los Angeles, CA
Participant – Manhattan, NY
Transformative Arts – Los Angeles, CA
LA Black Workers Center – Los Angeles, CA
Brown Bag Lady – Los Angeles, CA
Pinko – Brooklyn, NY
Black and Pink – Omaha, NE
Wide Rainbow – New York City, NY
Public Assistants – Brooklyn, NY
Board Discretionary Grants
Santa Fe Art Institute thematic residency BIPOC awards – Santa Fe, NM
Dash curatorial projects with Artadia – Houston, TX
NXTHVN – New Haven, CT
Cloverdale Arts Alliance – Sonoma, CA
Farmer Jawn Philly – Philadelphia, PA
Spelman College – Atlanta, GA
Publicolor Inc – New York, NY
The Drawing Center – New York, NY
Artists Space Inc – New York, NY
Worlds Resources Institute – Washington, DC
Studio Museum of Harlem – New York, NY
Bidoun – Brooklyn, NY
Tinworks Art – Bozeman, MT
Bronx Defenders – New York, NY
Ali Forney Center – New York, NY
About The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation builds on the legacy of Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) who believed strongly that creative practitioners could serve as catalysts for social change. He shared his appreciation for chance and the everyday by seeking to act in the “gap” between art and life. He was also a gifted collaborator, breaking disciplinary boundaries by experimenting with scientists, performers, and visual artists. As such, we celebrate new and even untested ways of thinking and acting.
The Foundation also maintains residencies for artists and scholars in Captiva, Florida and in its New York archives. Additionally, it promotes in-depth research and partnerships for staff, curators, critics, scholars, and graduate students that open the artist’s life and work to wider interpretation and understanding. Production of a digital catalogue raisonné began recently and information on the earliest works will be launched in celebration of the artist’s 100th birthday in 2025. The staff also supports exhibitions, publications, and special projects across the globe that reflect Rauschenberg’s joyful, responsive, and irreverent approach to making art while living an empathetic and meaningful life.
For more information visit https://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/
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