UCLA Arts receives three grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

January 19, 2021

The UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture (UCLA Arts) is pleased to announce that it has received three grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

The Fowler Museum has received a $60,000 grant for a solo museum exhibition of artist and UCLA alumna Gala Porras-Kim; artists Casey Reas and Lauren Lee McCarthy, professors in the Department of Design | Media Arts, have received a $50,000 grant to support curatorial research in the area of software-based art; and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) has received a $10,000 grant to support Artists-in-Presidents, a series of "fireside chat” addresses by artists that accompanied the 2020 presidential election. 

Gala Porras-Kim. Photo by Audrey Min.

The Fowler Museum has received a $60,000 exhibition support grant to support Gala Porras-Kim: The resurrection of a past life before history, a provocative presentation of the acclaimed Los Angeles-based, Colombian-born artist’s in-depth explorations of the uncertain histories of ancient objects. Porras-Kim’s work re-imagines the past while charting new possibilities for the present and future. The exhibition will feature three large-scale installations, a new commission, a publication conceived as an artist’s book—an object in and of itself, rather than a documentation of the exhibition—and a robust schedule of public programs. The resurrection of a past life before history will be Porras-Kim’s first solo museum exhibition in California, and a homecoming to UCLA, where she earned her B.A. in Art and Latin American Studies and her M.A. in Latin American Studies. It is curated by Fowler Museum Chief Curator Matthew H. Robb, a specialist on the arts of the ancient Americas. The exhibition will debut in the fall of 2022 in the Fowler’s 3,700-square foot Lucas Gallery; due to the current global health crisis, the exhibition dates are subject to change. 

Image courtesy of UCLA Arts Conditional Studio. 

Artists Casey Reas and Lauren Lee McCarthy, professors in the Department of Design | Media Arts at UCLA and co-founders of the UCLA Arts Conditional Studio, have received a $50,000 grant to support curatorial research in the area of software-based art. Array[], A Public Archive of Artists + Software will document, expose, and interpret the history of the first five decades of artists working with software and shaping it with their interventions. From films made with code in the 1960s to websites in the 1990s to art games in 2000s, artists have used and written software to create new media for the visual arts, challenging core assumptions about what art and software can be. The project will include a web-based research platform to collect and share this information with artists, curators, and scholars now and into the future. To ensure maximum inclusivity and diversity in social, cultural, and geographic terms, Reas and McCarthy are partnering with artist communities to identify those who have been traditionally overlooked by formal institutions and curatorial processes. The team is collaborating with disabled artists and researchers to ensure the archive and submission process is accessible and open to all. Intent on centering queer, trans, chronically ill and disabled, Black, Indigenous, and POC perspectives as key nodes in research mapping, they are collaborating with artist-run spaces to identify and encourage broad participation.

Constance Hockaday’s presidential portrait. Photo by Constance Hockaday.

UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) received a $10,000 grant to support Artists-In-Presidents: Fireside Chats for 2020, an art project created by CAP UCLA resident artist Constance Hockaday. This initiative brought together over fifty artists to address the nation alongside the 2020 presidential campaign as an acknowledgement that many of the national narratives of liberation have erased Indigenous voices and the voices of people that make up the majority of this country — Black, LGBTQ, people of color, persons with disabilities and women. With an inaugural transmission on September 25, 2020, artists' addresses were shared over podcast, social media, and in a virtual gallery. Continuing weekly, the transmissions were a cornerstone of inspiration, critique, and healing for all who tuned in to the cohort of artists. Written transcripts and ASL interpretations were provided for accessibility. The final transmission on November 13, 2020 highlighted artists sharing personal strategies to move forward together post-election.

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