Grand Central Art Center was awarded a multi-year program support grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in support of its artist-in-residence program. This marks GCAC’s fourth multi-year program support grant from the foundation since 2014, a testament to the center’s commitment to fostering innovative, socially engaged art practices.
“Grand Central Art Center’s residency program offers artists unique opportunities and generous resources to develop long-term community collaborations,” said Rachel Bers, program director of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. “We are happy to support its commitment to artist-led and process-oriented programs that bring the voices of artists into meaningful conversation with community members around issues of local and national significance.”
This grant, which amounts to $80,000 over two years, will support the research development and realization of projects by an extraordinary lineup of artists, including Jon Rubin, Carlos Viani, Jennifer Ygual, Anna Berenice Garner, Sean Sarmiento, Gregory Sale, Kelley-Ann Lindo, Ben Kinsley, Pilar Agüero-Esparza, Glenda León, Martin Kersels and Enrique Ramírez, among others. Their projects will explore themes ranging from family memory and diasporic identity to ecological crises and cultural erasure, continuing GCAC’s legacy of amplifying voices and fostering critical dialogue.
GCAC joins a distinguished group of peer institutions receiving multi-year program support this round, including Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Project Row Houses, CUE Art Foundation, Pioneer Works, The Laundromat Project and Southern Exposure, among others. This recognition places GCAC in the company of organizations that are leading the field in advancing artistic experimentation and freedom of expression.
As part of its mission, GCAC’s artist-in-residence program emphasizes a fluid and open creative process, allowing artists to engage deeply with local communities and explore themes that resonate both locally and nationally. Upcoming residency projects launching in the coming month, such as Rubin’s “The Stolen Dove,” which reimagines a symbolic element of the Alex Odeh monument in front of the city of Santa Ana’s library into a mobile monument for peace, and Viani’s “Next of Kin,” an exploration of family memory and loss, exemplify the transformative potential of these residencies.
“The intense pressure placed on artists and the organizations that sustain their work reinforces the foundation’s commitment to support and uplifts the vital work they do,” said Joel Wachs, president of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
This continued support will enable the center to further its mission of fostering creativity, collaboration and community engagement.
Following Warhol’s will, the mission of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is the advancement of the visual arts. The foundation manages an innovative and dynamic grants program while also preserving Warhol’s legacy through creative and responsible licensing policies and extensive scholarly research for ongoing catalogue raisonné projects. To date, the foundation has given nearly $330 million in grants to over 1,000 arts organizations around the country and abroad and has donated 52,786 works of art to 322 institutions worldwide.
Stay tuned for updates on exciting projects, supported in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts grant, including the highly anticipated launch of “The Stolen Dove.” This groundbreaking work will debut its first activation in the coming weeks at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in collaboration with the premiere of the documentary film “Who Killed Alex Odeh?” by filmmakers Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans.