The Andy Warhol Foundation has named its 2020 cohort of Arts Writers Grants recognising 22 writers across three categories, articles, books, and short-form writing. The recipients receive one-on-one time with leading critics as well a collective total of $675,000 (£507,500) in grants aimed at supporting the continuation of critical writing.
The Arts Writers Grants are funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and administered by Creative Capital. Awards range from $15,000 to $50,000 (£11,280 to £37,600) to bolster the work of selected writers.
“Today’s politically charged moment is palpable in the work of the writers selected to receive grants this year,” says Arts Writers Grant program director, Pradeep Dalal, who eloquently summed up the work of the 2020 Arts Writers Grants recipients in a press release.
Dalal continued: “This year’s grantees will write about lesser known and overlooked figures like Patssi Valdez before, during, and after her participation in the Chicano art collective ASCO, and Kynaston McShine, the legendary Trinidadian curator at MoMA. The ethics of photography are probed by several writers, including Naeem Mohaiemen and Anjali Singh, whose book project focuses on the images taken by an embedded war photographer Harmit Singh during the violent partition of Pakistan and Bangladesh.
“Ariel Goldberg’s book on the ethics of trans and queer image cultures mines grassroots exhibitions, photography workshops, and self-published books to understand community focused artmaking. Sergio Delgado Moya’s book considers sensationalism as a form of violence, and how crime tabloids are used by the artists Beatriz Gonzalez and Catalina Parra. Jessica Lynne will write about the intergenerational histories of Black women artists in the South such as Samella Lewis and Allison Janae Hamilton.
“Amy Taubin probes the ‘time machine of cinema available on our home screens’ and will write essays on Garrett Bradley, Arthur Jafa, and Peggy Ahwesh. Monica Uszerowicz will write about Floridian and Caribbean artists who are involved with local ecological activism such as Amara Abdal Figueroa’s Tierrafiltra, the work of Coral Morphologic, and the collective Poncili Creación. Joseph L. Underwood unspools power differentials in art’s transnational framework by analyzing the impact of a single exhibition of Senegalese art as it travelled to 15 countries including Tokyo, Mexico City, and Quebec in the 70s and 80s.
“These are just a few examples of this year’s remarkable group of writers. We are delighted to say the program now has provided support to over 310 arts writers, with funds totaling almost $9.3 million.”
These are the 2020 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant winners:
Articles
Angie Baecker “The Art Group and the Avant Garde: Collective Practices and the Socialist Legacy in Contemporary China”
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill “Patssi Valdez: ‘I dare you question me,’ A Radical Photographic Portraiture”
Erica Moiah James “Juan Francisco Elso: La luz de las cosas / The Light of Things”
Arnold Joseph Kemp “Who is this black, queer curator? If you don’t remember it and do him, his last name is McShine”
Oluremi C. Onabanjo “The Conditions of the Archive: Marilyn Nance and FESTAC 77”
Books
Sergio Delgado Moya A Nervous Archive: Sensationalism and the Potency of Horror
Ariel Goldberg Just Captions: Ethics of Trans and Queer Image Cultures
Naeem Mohaiemen + Anjali Singh Harmit Singh’s War
Jerry Philogene The Socially Dead and Improbably Citizen: Visualizing Haitian Liberation
Jeannine Tang Living Legends: The Art and Care of Queer and Transgender History
Joseph L. Underwood Forging a New Contemporary: Art from Senegal in Transnational Networks, 1974-1984
Short-Form Writing
Ratik Asokan
Jessica Baran
Barbara Calderón
Dan Fox
Bean Gilsdorf
Colony Little
Jessica Lynne
Lauren O’Neill-Butler Amy Taubin
Monica Uszerowicz
Edited November 18: An earlier version incorrectly attributed funding to the USA section of the International Association of Art Critics. The AICA provides workshops for grantees and the Arts Writers Grants are funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and administered by Creative Capital.
