Alex Klein, the Head Curator & Senior Director of Programs at The Contemporary Austin, and Ashely DeHoyos Sauder and Xandra Eden of DiverseWorks in Houston, have received $75,000 grants for their organizations from the Teiger Foundation.
Founded in 2008 by David Teiger, an art collector and patron, the Teiger Foundation supports contemporary visual art through grants for curator-led initiatives. In the early years of the organization, it supported curatorial projects such as September 11 at MoMA PS1 in 2011, The Air We Breathe at SFMOMA in 2011–2012, Pier 54 presented by High Line Art in 2014, and Laura Poitras: Astro Noise at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2016. Since 2020, when Larissa Harris was named the Foundation’s inaugural Executive Director, the organization has developed a new granting process.
These grants include funding for exhibitions, commissions, performances, public program series, publications, and other experimental projects. Last year, the Teiger Foundation launched its first call for proposals to support four specific types of initiatives: the development and presentation of a major project or program at a mid-to-large-scale institution; development and presentation of three years of curatorial programming at a smaller-scale nonprofit; support for venues to host touring exhibitions; and support for curatorial research.
Recently, the Teiger Foundation announced that 39 curators and organizations have been funded a total of $3.3 million through this program’s inaugural grant year. Grantees include organizations such as Dia Art Foundation, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and more. Among the list are two Texas arts organizations: The Contemporary Austin and DiverseWorks in Houston. Each of these organizations are receiving $75,000, which will be awarded and used differently.
Carl Cheng / John Doe Co., “Early Warning System,” 1969–2023, fabricated plastic, electronics, projector mechanism, radio, wheat, wood. Courtesy the artist and Philip Martin Gallery. Photo credit: Jeff McLane.
The Contemporary Austin has been granted the award in support of a single project, the exhibition Carl Cheng: Nature Never Loses. The show is being organized by Alex Klein and will be a survey of six decades of Mr. Cheng’s work. DiverseWorks has been awarded $75,000 to be used over a three-year period to support multidisciplinary programming and commissions. According to the foundation website, upcoming projects under the purview of Xandra Eden include “Work of Art / Art is Work featuring Laura Gutierrez and Anthony Almendárez, who will present projects on labor policies and art production as work, and Julia Barbosa Landois’s Praise Music Sonogram (working title) that combines spoken word, multichannel video, and sound to tell a story of motherhood, miscarriage, and healthcare access across national and state borders.” Ashely DeHoyos Sauder will oversee several commissions exploring how identity relates “to the regional land, embodied archives, and aesthetic inheritance.” Later this year, Ms. DeHoyos Sauder will work with collaborative duos Jocelyn Cottencin and Emmanuelle Huynh, and Lisa (Li) Harris and Alisha Wormsley.
Lisa E. (Li) Harris with collaborator Alisha B. Wormsley on location in West Texas engaging in experiments that resemble the child’s game “tug of war,” 2021. Courtesy the artist.
To learn more about the Teiger Foundation grants and to read about each of the grantees, visit the organization’s website.
