The Teiger Foundation, a private foundation that supports contemporary art curators, has awarded a total of $3,925,000 in grants to 50 curators across the U.S., including three curators with projects in Texas.
In a press release, Larissa Harris, Executive Director of Teiger Foundation, remarked, “Curators define the meaning and relevance of their visual art institutions in ways that are not always acknowledged, and their work is more complex and demanding than ever. We are proud to support established and emerging curators who are taking up the challenge with creative, humane, and nuanced projects and programs.”
The foundation’s grant program is intended for U.S.-based curators at organizations of all sizes. Funding supports research, exhibitions, and touring shows, as well as multi-year programming efforts. The grant amounts range from $50,000 to $150,000. Through its new Climate Action for Curators initiative, the foundation awards a subset of grantees with $500,000 in additional funding to support climate-conscious projects.
This year’s awardees include Alison Weaver at the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, Jamaal Wright at the Galveston Artist Residency, and Rebecca Matalon at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Former Texan, María C. Gaztambide has also received funding for a project at the Museo de Arte Puerto Rico. Learn more about each of these projects below, via description excerpts from the Teiger Foundation website.
See the full list of awardees and learn more about the Teiger Foundation on its website.
documenta fifiteen: ikkibawiKrrr, “Building a fire, Changing clothes, Sharing small talk,” 2022, Installation Ansicht, Ottoneum, Kassel, 15. Photo: Nicolas Wefers
Alison Weaver, Glenn Kaino, Mika Yoshitake
Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University
Breath(e): Towards Climate and Social Justice considers art practices that address the climate crisis and anthropogenic disasters, and their inescapable intersection with issues of equity and social justice. The exhibition is part of Getty’s initiative PST Art: Art & Science Collide, originally curated by Glenn Kaino and Mika Yoshitake at the Hammer Museum at UCLA. By bringing Breath(e) to Houston, the Moody Center for the Arts extends the conversation about climate change and environmental justice from California to Texas, the center of the United States energy industry.
Bria Lauren, “Jaylyn,” 2019, photograph. Courtesy the artist. © Bria Lauren
Jamaal Wright
Galveston Artist Residency
Conduits unites artists from Houston’s historically Black Third Ward community, the home of a place-particular tradition of Black contemporary art. Despite its rich contributions, the Third Ward is often overlooked in broader discussions about Southern contributions to Black art in America. Jamaal Wright’s research traces this tradition to Dr. John T. Biggers’ founding of Texas Southern University’s Department of Art in 1949.
Mary Ellen Carroll, “indestructible language,” 2006–ongoing, installation view at Schoolhouse, Glasgow, October 30, 2021– ongoing. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Dougie Lindsay
Rebecca Matalon
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
Mary Ellen Carroll: How to Talk Dirty and Influence People is the first exhibition to survey the work of New York-based artist Mary Ellen Carroll. Working in close collaboration, Rebecca Matalon and Carroll will engage in a conceptually driven form of exhibition-making that both honors and mirrors Carroll’s recursive, materially diverse, and ecologically attuned practice and follows Ms. Matalon’s interest in the exhibition as a site for experimentation and play.
Zilia Sánchez, “Topologías/Topologies,” Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, April 20 – October 13, 2024. Courtesy ICA Miami. Photo: Zachary Balber
Maria C. Gaztambide, Claudia Delaplace Rodriguez, Stephanie Seidel, Gean Moreno
Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico
In winter 2025, the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico will host Topologías / Topologies, a comprehensive survey exhibition of Zilia Sánchez’s seven-decades-long career. Originally organized at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami and curated by Gean Moreno and Stephanie Seidel, the project’s homecoming to San Juan will emphasize the unique position of Sánchez in relation to (and on the fringes of) the Puerto Rican context, and the museum’s neighborhood, where the artist has lived and worked since 1971.
