The Brooklyn Rail

There is an age-old notion of the artist’s practice as a solitary one in which creativity is born over the course of long hours in the studio. Barring a nomadic or collaborative practice, there is truth to this romantic vision—artists do often work alone—yet there is a constant companion inherent in the creative process: the studio itself. The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) has filled this role for over two-thousand artists and curators from more than 105 countries over the last thirty years.

San Francisco’s Gray Area is an institution working across disciplines with an explicit focus on nascent technologies and social progress. As a networked cultural incubator, Gray Area resonates with the same multi-hyphenate pathos that many of the artists in its community both embody and cultivate: the media artists, the software artists, the data artists, AI artists, audio-visual performance artists, and so on.

Over the nearly five decades since its founding, Franklin Furnace has been known as a hub of the avant-garde, and one of the foremost organizations responsible for establishing the fields of both performance art, and artists’ books.

Socrates Sculpture Park isn’t like any other arts institution in New York City. It has an ad-hoc, relaxed humanism that contrasts sharply with the crisp white galleries and grand museums across the river. It feels like a laboratory for art—a place where creation is as important, if not more important, than presentation.

Conceived by American artist and philanthropist Jerome Hill (1905–1972), the Camargo Foundation is a residency for artists, scholars, and thinkers in Cassis, France. Hill became enamored by French culture during numerous visits to Europe with his family.

Wandering around the flower district of Manhattan, you may be surprised to see a green flag hanging high above the flowers, signaling the location of the Center for Book Arts (CBA) on the third floor, where it has been located since 1999. As artist and designer Ben Denzer recently wrote to me, “Despite coming and going to CBA all the time, I can never really get over how much of an unexpected gem it is. The fact that this book utopia is hiding on the third floor of a random building on 27th street has always made me look at all NYC buildings as if each might contain delightful secrets inside.”

The material conditions of being an artist in New York have a direct impact on the aesthetics and considerations taken in the studio and within an artist’s practice. While the return of the influence of Arte Povera and the prominence of post-studio practices can both can be attributed to ideological and conceptual decisions or to new “structures of feeling” in Raymond Williams’s terms, they can also be translated and defined through the prices of lumber, rising studio costs, and the commuting culture created through the gig economy.

In 2012, Musa Mayer initiated the Guston Foundation, dedicated to maintaining the legacy of her father, artist Philip Guston (1913–1980). It had become evident that Guston’s life and work needed to be available both to researchers and the general public. His reputation, always strong, continues to rise; even among the major New York School artists, Guston’s place in the canon is now seen as distinctive. Today, he is regarded as a painter of consequence, one whose interests included clearly asserted social concerns, among other themes. At ten years old, The Guston Foundation is likely the best resource to seek support for the factual study of Guston and his work.

In order to understand the motivations and mission behind the Joan Mitchell Foundation, it is helpful to first understand that artist Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) placed art above all else, both at the center of her own life and through supporting her artist peers—thick in the battle and euphoria of the studio—who surrounded her during her lifetime. Mitchell was a pioneer artist in Post-War New York, earning an esteemed reputation among her Abstract-Expressionist cohort while also creating a dialogue with the French Impressionists of the previous century.

Artists in Residence Gallery (A.I.R.) emerged during a worldwide political and social awakening, when all kinds of people were demanding their rights to equal access to resources. Its seeds were planted in the 1960s, as empires fell and globally, people sought to assert their own values, eschewing those of capitalists, colonizers, and imperialists in nearly every aspect of society, including art and culture.

Robert Motherwell was a multi-hyphenate artist. He’s entered art history books as the youngest and best educated of the first wave of Abstract Expressionists. But Motherwell also enjoyed a significant career as the editor of the “Documents of Modern Art” series, among other publications, and as a Hunter College professor.

Charlotte Kent profiles the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and finds the the venerable institution as nimble and necessary as ever.

Amber Musser profiles the Fountain House Gallery.

Ann C. Collins profiles the CUE Art Foundation.

Alan Gilbert profiles the Holt/Smithson Foundation, tracing the histories of its namesake artists and outlining the trajectories of its ambitions as an organization.

Yínká Elújọba profiles The Gordon Parks Foundation.

Shocking but true: Artists Space, essential model for a generation of feisty, funky, youth-driven nonprofits, is nearly half a century old. More surprising still, initially it depended entirely on government support, at a time when both the governor of New York (Nelson Rockefeller) and the US president (Richard Nixon, newly re-elected) were Republicans. Promising to make up for a dearth of opportunity for young artists, Artists Space’s founders rounded some up and offered them the chance to call the shots, all on the state’s dime.

It was 1976 and New York City careened from one fiscal crisis to another. Upon opening The New York Times one morning, Agnes Gund, one of New York’s most beloved and generous philanthropists, learned that art classes in the city’s public elementary schools would be cut due to yet another budgetary shortfall.

Printed Matter has something of a legendary origin story, equal parts oral history, hearsay, and gossip, passed down through the decades in letters, postcards, photographs, and artist accounts. The exact series of events remains a bit murky—nearly all the early participants claim status as an originator.

Will Corwin write about the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation and how it supports emerging artists while maintaining the legacy of its founder.

Pen + Brush was founded in 1894 as a private club for women artists and writers. This makes it older than any other professional women’s organization in the United States.

An artist isn’t motivated by need alone. One of the unique aspects of pursuing an artistic life is that the intent of such a life is driven by a personal vision and, if there is an economics of that desire, it is for “more vision.” Adolph Gottlieb believed, unequivocally, that to be an artist was the ultimate life choice. He also acutely knew, however, that from this choice, pragmatic necessities do, unavoidably, arise.

What is an artist-endowed foundation? In the nexus of the art world, foundations are often perceived as mysterious nebulas. Unlike museums, which—at their most basic—share a duty to care for and protect works of art, and make them available to a viewing public, artist-endowed foundations are organizations that serve an array of purposes and uphold diverse missions.