The Andy Warhol Foundation For The Visual Arts Commits $1.6 Million To Emergency Relief Funds

The Andy Warhol Foundation has announced that it will join forces with its Regional Re-granting partners across the country to make emergency grants to artists affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. One of several simultaneous efforts the foundation is undertaking in response to the global public health crisis, it is targeted at individual artists in sixteen communities nationwide.

The Foundation has authorized its Regional Re-granting Program partners to re-allocate their annual $100,000 grants designated for this program to establish and administer COVID-19 emergency relief funds in their communities. Grants made through these funds will assist artists whose income has been impacted by the pandemic and can be used to help cover basic expenses such as food, rent, medical costs, and childcare.

“The Warhol Foundation is committed to working at both the national and regional level to provide support for artists at this critical moment. With the help of our Regional Re-granting network, we are able to directly address the emergency-related needs of artists in cities where the level of on-the-ground, self-organized artistic activity is highest,” states Joel Wachs, President of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

The Foundation’s Regional Re-granting program supports the creation of independent, non-traditional, public-facing artists’ projects by partnering with leading cultural institutions in communities across the country. It was designed to serve the sizeable population of informal, non-incorporated artist collectives and independent organizers whose work often falls outside the reach of typical funding sources. Working at the edges of commonly recognized contemporary practice, these artists operate in precarious financial conditions in the best of times and have been seriously destabilized by current closures, postponements, job cancellations and countless other restrictions on work and movement that characterize this moment.

Re-granting programs currently exist in sixteen cities: Albuquerque, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Portland (ME), Portland (OR), Saint Louis, San Francisco, and Washington DC. In the thirteen years since it was established, the Foundation has made nearly $10 million dollars in grants to its partners who have funded well over a thousand projects.

Rachel Bers, Program Director, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, says “Our re-granting partners have intimate knowledge of and regular contact with vulnerable artist populations in their communities; they possess the skills, the systems, and the strong relationships necessary to carry out this program efficiently, effectively and with heart. We are grateful for their unparalleled responsiveness and leadership at this time – and always.”