Displaying items by tag: national endowment for the arts

The Butler Institute of American Art, 524 Wick Ave., has been awarded a $10,000 Arts Engagement in American Communities grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support public programming for its fall exhibition, “California Impressionism: Selections from the Irvine Collection.”

The NEA is the federal agency that supports and funds the arts to give all Americans the opportunity to experience creativity and to participate in the arts. NEA programs and funding support thousands of activities in communities large and small across the country, including about 30,000 performances and 3,000 exhibitions annually.

The National Endowment for the Arts is awarding $894,300 in grants to nine Maine organizations for projects that focus on artistic creativity.

The majority of the funding is going to the Maine Arts Commission. The commission is getting $723,300. The rest of the money is going to a range of organizations that support projects in film, folk music, stage production, young artist workshops and other endeavors.

New studies released today by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and based on surveys carried out in 2012 claim that arts attendance in the US has continued to drop over the past two decades, but both struggle to incorporate digital activities into their findings. The studies, “A Decade of Arts Engagement: Findings From the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, 2002–2012” and “When Going Gets Tough: Barriers and Motivations Affecting Arts Attendance,” break down arts attendance, participation, and production figures demographically and attempt to account for the reasons certain groups do and don’t attend cultural events.

Laumeier Sculpture Park in Saint Louis, Missouri, has successfully completed a $200,000 conservation project for Donald Judd’s “Untitled” (1984). The two-year project was funded by a $100,000 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), with a 1:1 match by Laumeier. According to the NEA’s website, Art Works grants are reserved for projects that “are likely to prove transformative with the potential for meaningful change, whether in the development or enhancement of new or existing art forms, new approaches to the creation or presentation of art, or new ways of engaging the public with art; are distinctive, offering fresh insights and new value for their fields and/or the public through unconventional solutions; and have the potential to be shared and/or emulated, or are likely to lead to other advances in the field.”

Judd, one of the most significant American artists of the post-war period, is often regarded as a Minimalist -- a classification he denounced based on its generality.

The New York artist Andres Serrano has awakened fresh controversy with his 1987 work "Piss Christ," which famously sparked a culture war in the US that led to the end of NEA grants to individual artists. Around 50 protesters gathered yesterday, 26 August, outside the Musée Fesch in Ajaccio, Corsica, to demand the immediate removal of the photograph from an exhibition of 120 works by the artist.

A member of the Catholic organization Cristiani Corsi told France TV Info that the protest aimed to have the work removed from the museum and returned to the Lambert Collection in Avignon, which co-organized the exhibition. “[Corsica] is soiled by the presence of this picture. It’s an insult to every Corsican,” he said.

It looks like some pretty big congrats are in order for one of Arizona's own. On Tuesday, July 22, The National Endowment for the Arts announced that President Barack Obama would be awarding the National Medals of Arts as well as the National Humanities Medals on Monday, July 28, to a select group of artists throughout the United States, including Flagstaff-based artist James Turrell.

Turrell, who first began his artistic career in the early 1960s in California, has spent the last 50 years building a body of work that transforms perception through an innovative manipulation of light and space.

Jane Chu, president and CEO of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts since 2006, was confirmed Thursday by the U.S. Senate as chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

“She’s spent years enriching the culture and strengthening the business community in Kansas City,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to seeing her bring that same leadership to the national stage.”

Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said he “was impressed by her successful oversight of the more than $400 million Kauffman Center.”

In his 2015 fiscal year budget, President Obama increased federal appropriation requests for the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art. The Smithsonian, which received a $45 million increase over 2014, will put a portion of the funds towards its new National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is slated to open towards the end of 2015. Proposed funding for the National Gallery of Art increased $7 million from the previous year. The President’s budget has allotted $140 million for salaries, expenses, and renovations.

President Obama allotted $146 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the same amount requested in 2014. The NEA is an independent federal agency that funds and promotes artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals as well as communities.   

Appropriations could change once congressional appropriation committees review President Obama’s budget.

President Barack Obama has nominated Jane Chu as the next chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Chu is the president and chief executive of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri. Chu, who was born in Oklahoma to Chinese immigrant parents, spearheaded a $414 million campaign to build the center, which opened in 2011.

After earning an associate’s degree in visual arts at Nebraska Wesleyan University, Chu focused on piano studies as an undergraduate at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas. She earned a master’s degree in music from Dallas’ Southern Methodist University, a master’s degree in business administration from Rockhurst University in Kansas City, and a doctorate in philanthropic studies from Indiana University.

The NEA, an independent federal agency that funds and promotes artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation, has dropped its funding from $167.5 million in 2010, to $138.4 million in 2013. Chu’s considerable experience in arts funding and administration would greatly benefit the NEA. The agency’s former chairman, Rocco Landesman, retired in 2012. The NEA’s senior deputy director, Joan Shikegawa has been the acting chairman since then.

Chu’s appointment will have to be approved by the Senate.

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, TX has received a $70,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the exhibition ‘Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River.’ Andrew J. Walker, the museum’s director, said, “Receiving this prestigious NEA grant is certainly an honor. The support will help us create an exhibition that engages and resonates with our diverse audiences.”

George Caleb Bingham, who captured American life in the frontier lands along the Missouri River in the Luminist style, was relatively unknown until his art was rediscovered in the 1930s.‘Navigating the West’ brings together 17 river paintings and nearly 40 drawings that collectively tell the story of how Bingham created his art and artistic persona during a time when American painting, as well as the country, was rapidly changing.

‘Navigating the West’ will be on view at the Amon Carter Museum from October 2, 2014 through January 18, 2015.