Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts distributes $400,000 to LA arts organisations with revisioned grant

Adapting to the landscape of the pandemic, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts (MKFA) has announced 18 organisations that will be the first beneficiaries of its Organizational Support Grants, a slight revision of their annual Artist Project Grants. The grants will provide the selected organisations with up to $30,000 in unrestricted funds to help support the continuation of their work.

The MFKA, based in Los Angeles, was founded in 2007 to support the “spirit of critical thinking, risk taking, and provocation in the arts” by artist Mike Kelley, who passed away in 2012. In 2016, the foundation offered its first Artist Project Grants, an initiative that has supported the work of dozens of artists since.

However, 2020 presented a new set of issues to the arts community. The MFKA contributed to Artist Relief, but, in the wake of a tumultuous year, it recognised the continued needs of arts organisations within the LA community. So, the foundation chose to pivot the model of their Artist Project Grants to aid small to midsize arts organisations.

The 18 organisations selected for the 2021 grants vary in disciplines ranging from poetry to experimental music to performance art to multimedia works.

“We are struck by the resilience and flexibility of so many arts organizations and artists during this devastating time,” executive director of the MKFA Mary Clare Stevens said in a press release. “Each one of these organizations has helped shape the unique arts landscape in Los Angeles. In the face of cancelled and delayed exhibitions, performances, and fundraising events, we hope that this support will help the grantees navigate this next chapter.”

The 2021 Organizational Support Grant recipients are:

the Center for Land Use Interpretation
Center for the Study of Political Graphics
Coaxial Arts Foundation
Clockshop
Echo Park Film Center
Future Roots Inc. DBA dublab
Human Resources LA
Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA)
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
Los Angeles Filmforum
Los Angeles Poverty Department
Museum of Jurassic Technology
Pieter Performance Space
Poetic Research Bureau
Side Street Projects
Society for the Activation of Social Spaces through Art and Sound
Vincent Price Art Museum Foundation
Women’s Center for Creative Work

Sarah Williams, co-founder and executive director of the Women’s Center for Creative Work described the past year as a “very destabilizing period.” Williams continued saying: “This kind of overarching support is desperately needed to keep people employed and to help small arts organizations weather the months to come. [… and] to ensure a meaningful arts landscape on the other side of the pandemic”

The grantees were selected by an independent panel that reviewed applications. That panel included Erin Christovale, Associate Curator at the Hammer Museum; artist Todd Gray; artist Tala Madani; Sohrab Mohebbi, Kathe and Jim Patrinos Curator of the 58th edition of the Carnegie International and Curator at Large at Sculpture Center; and Diana Nawi, Co-Artistic Director of Prospect.5, New Orleans.

See below a selection of images of workshops, artworks, installations, performances, and more created and organised by the 18 Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts Organizational Support Grantees:

José Clemente Orozco-Farias, Fauna Mirrors Murals, 2017. Photo by: Nico Young. © Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Artists featured in Collection/s at the opening of the exhibition at the Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Gardens, 2018. Photo by Salima Allen © Women’s Center for Creative Work

James Tenney’s “Changes” performed at The Box, November 20, 2017. Photo by: Don Lewis. © SASSAS All Rights Reserved

Jasmine Orpilla Sungka Opera 6. Courtesy Human Resources LA Inc.

Jose Richard Aviles, En Movimiento: El Camino De Vermont. Photo by: Jose Richard Aviles. © 2020 Jose Richard Aviles, All Rights Reserved. Courtesy Side Street Projects and Jose Richard Aviles.

Ester Hernández, Sun Mad, 1982. Silkscreen. © Ester Hernández. Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics

Poetic Research Bureau, PRB Image, 2018. Digital collage. © Poetic Research Bureau. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of Poetic Research Bureau

Marina Magalhães leads students in a class as part of the June 2019 Dancing Diaspora Festival at Pieter’s former studio. Photo by: Bobby Gordo. © Pieter

Carmina Escobar, LO ÚNICO SEGURO ES QUE NOS VAMOS A MORIR (The Only Certain Thing is that We are Going to Die) A syncretic celebration of the endless cycle of life and death, produced in collaboration with Wesam Nassar. Performance still, 2020. Courtesy of LACE

Installation view, “How to House 7,000 People in Skid Row” an exhibition by Rosten Woo, Anna Kobara and Los Angeles Poverty Department at the Skid Row History Museum and Archive, March 7, 2020. © Los Angeles Poverty Department. Courtesy of Los Angeles Poverty Department

Visitors at “Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers): The World You Know Is A Fiction. You Know We Had To Do A Remix, Right Vignettes of The Frenglish Empire in North America (1780-1795),” Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College, 2019. Photo by: Monica Orozco

Installation view of Ree Morton: The Plant That Heals May Also Poison, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, February 16 – June 14, 2020. Photo by: Jeff McLane/ICA LA. © The Estate of Ree Morton. Courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York and Annemarie Verna Galerie, Zurich

dublab DJs. Photo by: Alexandra Pelly. © 2021 Future Roots Inc.

Live Projection Performance by Luis Macías, March 10, 2020, Los Angeles Filmforum at the Echo Park Film Center. Photo by: Adam Hyman. Courtesy Los Angeles Filmforum

Kamau Amu Patton, TEL, 2020. Newsprint, Digital Video. © Kamau Amu Patton. Courtesy of Coaxial Arts Foundation.

Haruko Tanaka, The Soroban and the Present, 2014. Still image from 16mm Film transferred to digital video. © Haruko Tanaka. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of Echo Park Film Center (AIR on the Air).

Simparch, Clean Livin’, 2003–present. Autonomous living system and isolation unit at CLUI Southbase, Wendover, Utah. 10’ x 20’ x 48’. Photo by: the Center for Land Use Interpretation. This work is licensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Creative Commons License. Courtesy of the Center for Land Use Interpretation.

rafa esparza, “Building a simulacrum of power.” Courtesy of Clockshop, a recipient of the 2021 Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts Organizational Support Grants.

Edited February 11 to include more images.