This is as a critical moment for the arts and for our nation. We have been spending time in conversations with artists, arts organizations, our Board and grantmaking colleagues about the role we should play both in the immediate crises and for the long term. Today, we are making a commitment to “the long game.”
At its annual meeting on June 7, 2020, the Jerome Foundation Members of the Corporation elected Curator of Media and Performance at the Museum of Modern Art Thomas Lax (New York, NY), and President of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design Sanjit Sethi (Minneapolis, MN) to the Jerome Foundation Board of Directors.
We at the Jerome Foundation mourn the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, MN. We recognize that we live in a country that systemizes violence on many levels against Black people—a system whose most visible recent victims also include Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY and Ahmaud Arbery in Glynn County, GA.
The Foundation has awarded an additional $150,000 in support of four collaborative funds: the Artist Relief fund, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council’s Emergency Relief Fund, NY Community Trust’s COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund, and Springboard for the Arts’ Personal Emergency Relief Fund.
While grants were originally designed to support one or two years of support specifically for programs and services benefitting early career artists, the Foundation at its Board meeting on March 29 decided to give all grantees the option of using the first year of funding for general operating support, if necessary.
Mike Albert, Leila Awadallah, Ram Devineni, ManSee Kong, Laura Ortman, Laimah Osman, and Tony Whitfield received month-long residencies at Camargo Foundation, a residential center offering programming in the Arts and Humanities in Cassis, France.
