The Dallas Contemporary has announced the launch of a new initiative to support local graduate students.
Dallas Contemporary
The DC NTX Graduate Student Program will provide mentorship and networking opportunities and will culminate in an exhibition organized by a visiting curator. One student in the exhibition will receive an $8,000 prize and one art history graduate student will be invited to participate in a curatorial fellowship. With a donation of $500,000, Ann and John McReynolds, longtime supporters of the museum, have underwritten the program for the next five years.
In a press release, Lucia Simek, Interim Executive Director of DC, stated, “It is with tremendous enthusiasm that we launch this ambitious new program at Dallas Contemporary, which is deeply aligned with our mission to advance the discovery and appreciation of the art of this moment. The DC NTX Graduate Student Program promises to bridge the often impassable gaps between emerging talent and a wide public, as well as collectors and patrons eager to support regional artists with great promise. We are so grateful to [the] McReynolds for their remarkable foundational gift to this program, and we look forward to watching it radically change the possibilities for our North Texas universities and graduate students.”
Matthew Higgs. Photo: Aubrey Mayer
Inaugural guest curator Matthew Higgs, Director and Chief Curator of White Columns, an alternative art space in New York, will visit graduate student studios in North Texas this fall. Following the visits he will create a cohort of artists to mentor, through in-person and virtual studio visits throughout the fall semester.
An exhibition featuring the cohort’s work will be presented at the DC from late January through early March 2025. The curatorial fellow will assist with organizing the exhibition and be involved with other DC curatorial research projects. The prize winner will be selected by Mr. and Mrs. McReynolds, or a delegate of their choosing, with input from Mr. Higgs.
Matthew Higgs remarked, “I’ve always been interested in how local cultural scenes develop and sustain themselves — how the conversations that exist between artists who live and work in the same communities take shape, creating in turn an art that is often imbued with a regional ‘accent.’”
He continued, “As a teenager in the late 1970s in the north of England I was fascinated by how different English cities — for instance, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, or Leeds — developed distinctly independent musical scenes, each with its own unique character or ‘sound.’ This idea of the ‘regional,’ or the ‘local,’ is something that we don’t emphasize so much these days, but I have a feeling that it remains an important catalyst for both how and why people make art.”
To be considered for a studio visit, students will register via the DC’s website. The application deadline is Monday, September 27.
