Teiger Foundation Names 2024 Grantees, Launches Climate Program for Curators

TheTeiger Foundationon August 27 announced that it has awarded a total of $3.93 million to fifty curators working across thirty-three US art institutions. Each will receive between $50,000 and $150,000. The funds support three years of programming for contemporary-art curators at institutions with budgets of $3.5 million and below, and assists those at organizations of all sizes in performing research, mounting exhibitions, and hosting touring shows. Several of this year’s grantees are mounting artists’ first institutional shows, while many efforts showcase underrecognized, diasporic, and BIPOC artists; still others are involved in projects variously exploring decolonization, indigeneity, and climate change.

Among this year’s grantees are Camille Brown, assistant curator at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, for the first exhibition to focus on the Black, gay poet and activist Essex Hemphill and his impact on contemporary visual art; Daniela Lieja Quintanar and Talia Heiman, respectively chief curator and assistant curator at REDCAT, Los Angeles, for research for an exhibition inspired by the Mesoamerican mythological figure of thenahual; and Jennie Goldstein, associate curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Pavel Pys, curator at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and independent curator Tom Finkelpearl, to codevelop and present “Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night,” the first survey of the performance and sound artist.

The foundation additionally announced the inauguration of its Climate Action for Curators program. The scheme arrives after a yearlong pilot version, conducted in 2023, and supplies a subset of grantees with expert consultation and $500,000 in additional funding. Participants work with a sustainability coach to determine a climate plan that works best for their program or organization, with an eye to the needs of their respective communities, after which each receives $25,000 to implement that plan.

Established in 2008,Teiger Foundationexpanded its grantmaking activities following the posthumous sale of the collection of its benefactor, American management consultant and art collector David Teiger (1929 –2014); it is today one of the largest organizations of its kind, with a focus on supporting the work of curators.

“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,” said Larissa Harris, Teiger Foundation executive director, in a statement. “We are proud to support established and emerging curators who are taking up the challenge with creative, humane, and nuanced projects and programs. Taking our support a step forward, our Climate Action for Curators builds on the centrality of curators to their institutions–as a former curator myself, I know how their work touches artists, coworkers, facilities, and community. We want to help their funded projects and organizations become part of a sustainable future, and empower them in their work overall.”

A full list of grantees is below. * = Climate Action for Curators Participant

SINGLE PROJECTS

Alex Sloane, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, “Martine Syms”

Camille Brown, Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, “Essex Hemphill: Take care of your blessings”

Charlotte Ickes, Smithsonian Institution National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, “Wendy Red Star: Whispering Spirit”

Jennie Goldstein, Pavel Pyś, and Tom Finkelpearl, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, “Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night”

Jessamine Batario, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME, “Imagining an Archipelago”

Jordan Carter, Dia Art Foundation, New York, “Renée Green”

Lauren Dickens* and Jodi Throckmorton, San Jose Museum of Art, California, and John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI, “The Imaginative Landscape: Pao Houa Her”

Mo Costello and Katz Tepper, the Athenaeum, Athens, GA, “Beverly’s Athens”

Pablo José Ramírez and Ashton Cooper, the Hammer Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, “Several Eternities in a Day”

Rebecca Matalon,* Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, “Mary Ellen Carroll: How to Talk Dirty and Influence People”

Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Binna Choi, and Noelle Kahanu, Hawaiʻi Contemporary, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi Triennial 2025: “Aloha Nō”

THREE YEARS OF PROGRAMMING

Ashley Blakeney, Patrisse Cullors, alexandre ali reza dorriz, Loretta Fields-Powell, Alejandra Lemus, noé olivas, and Vic Quintanar, Crenshaw Dairy Mart, Los Angeles

Ashley Stull Meyers, PRAx, Corvallis, OR

Candice Hopkins* and Sarah Biscarra Dilley,* Forge Project, Ancram, NY

Ceci Moss, Mandeville Art Gallery at UC San Diego

Ekrem Serdar, Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo

Hamza Walker and Catherine Taft, the Brick (fka LAXART), Los Angeles

Jose Esparza Chong Cuy, Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa, and Jessica Kwok, Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York

Joseph Valencia, Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College, Monterey Park, CA

Jova Lynne* and Marie Patton,* Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit 

Julio César Morale,* Laura Coppelin,* and Alexis Wilkinson,* Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson 

Lia Gangitano and Itziar Barrio, Participant Inc., New York

Victoria Munro, Alice Austen House, Staten Island, NY

HOSTING

Alison Weaver, Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, Houston. “Breath(e): Towards Climate and Social Justice,” originated by Glenn Kaino and Mika Yoshitake at the Hammer Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles

Ionit Behar, DePaul Art Museum, Chicago. “Christina Fernandez: Multiple Exposures,” originated by Joanna Szupinska at UCR ARTS, Riverside, CA

Kate Kraczon, Brown Arts Institute / David Winton Bell Gallery, Providence, RI. “Julien Creuzet: Attila cataract your source at the feet of the green peaks will end up in the great sea blue abyss where we drowned in the tidal tears of the moon,” originated by Céline Kopp, director, Le Magasin, Centre national d’art contemporain (CNAC); Grenoble, France, and Cindy Sissokho, independent 

María C. Gaztambide and Claudia Delaplace Rodriguez, Museo de Arte Puerto Rico, San Juan. “Zilia Sánchez: Topologías / Topologies,” originated by Gean Moreno and Stephanie Seidel,  ICA Miami

Sara Cluggish, Perlman Teaching Museum at Carleton College, Northfield, MN. “Basel Abbas and Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us,” originated by Natalie Bell, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA

RESEARCH

Daniela Lieja Quintanar and Talia Heiman, Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT), Los Angeles. This project explores forms inspired by the nahual myth and will engage communities in Mexico and Central America around environmental justice, non-human contexts,  and Indigenous cosmologies. 

Imani Jacqueline Brown, A Studio in the Woods, New Orleans. This project focuses on Louisiana’s preserved burial groves as symbols of resistance and ecological heritage, uniting artists from Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Louisiana to explore and remember eco-cultural practices of the African diaspora. 

Rita Gonzalez and Raphael Fonseca, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Denver Art Museum. Collaborative research on the nearly six-decade career of Roberto Gil de Montes, highlighting his nuanced portrayal of the male body, experimentation with photography, and contributions to the Mexican and LA art communities, including the Chicanx art scene. 

Roshii Montaño, Heard Museum, Phoenix. This project aims to generate a collaborative, multigenerational framework for art institutions engaging with queer/two-spirit Indigenous visual art and artists. Anishinaabe theorist Gerald Vizenor’s notion of “survivance” informs the project. 

W. Jamaal Wright, Galveston Artist Residency, Texas. Research project bringing together artists from Houston’s historic Third Ward for the first time, highlighting the neighborhood’s influence on Black contemporary art in America and arguing for a tradition of Black art particular to Houston, with featured artists including John Biggers, Jesse Lott, Rick Lowe, Robert Pruitt, Li(sa) Harris, Nathaniel Donnett, Autumn Knight, Jamal Cyrus, Delita Martin, and Bria Lauren.