FotoFocus Pledges 2020 Biennial Budget to Emergency Art Grant
Posted on April 28, 2020
FotoFocus announces today that in lieu of presenting the fifth FotoFocus Biennial, originally slated for October 2020, it will pledge its Biennial budget to financially support the Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, Dayton and Columbus, Ohio art communities during the coronavirus pandemic.
FotoFocus will grant an immediate and unrestricted $800,000 to over 100 Participating Venues and Partners that were selected to present as part of the 2020 FotoFocus Biennial. These collaborators work every other year towards making the FotoFocus Biennial a success, including 8 of the regions most prestigious arts venues: Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati Art Museum, Taft Museum of Art, Wave Pool, and Weston Art Gallery (Cincinnati, OH); Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus, OH); Dayton Art Institute (Dayton, OH); and The Carnegie (Covington, KY). The $800,000 is inclusive of all grants that would have originally gone to these venues for Biennial programming, plus an additional 10% for each grant in honor of FotoFocus’s tenth anniversary. FotoFocus is committed to supporting the community and local business partners who help bring the Biennial to fruition.
As part of this pledge, FotoFocus will support 15 academic institutions with grants totalling over $177,000, including: Art Academy of Cincinnati, Miami University, University of Cincinnati, and Xavier University (Cincinnati, OH); Columbus College of Art and Design (Columbus, OH); Wright State University (Dayton, OH); Northern Kentucky University and Thomas More University (KY). The region also has an impressive number of smaller arts venues that will be supported by the FotoFocus grant including: Art Beyond Boundaries, Basketshop, Clay Street Press, Kennedy Heights Art Center, Manifest Gallery, PAR-Projects, and Visionaries + Voices (Cincinnati, OH); and The Contemporary Dayton (Dayton, OH).
“After many discussions about how we should move forward with this year’s FotoFocus Biennial, we kept coming back to the same conclusion—the best thing we can do to help the arts survive this crisis is reconfigure our grantmaking. We are about to move into our second decade and we need our community with us. We hope this money will help our partners get by at the time they need it most,” said Mary Ellen Goeke, FotoFocus Executive Director.
“The theme light& is as timely as ever: our response to this crisis, and to going forward as an organization, is to choose hopefulness over isolation, support over attrition. We are choosing the silver lining, which is to reaffirm our creative community and to use the time, and funding, to create an even brighter future,” said Kevin Moore, FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator.
FotoFocus will continue to support its ongoing commitments to regional, national, and international artists and move several of its artist partnerships from the 2020 Biennial forward to 2022. The next FotoFocus Biennial will take place in October 2022 with a new theme. The Program Week is scheduled for Saturday, October 1 – Saturday, October 8, 2022.
VENUE GRANTS
1305 Gallery
1628 Ltd.
21c Museum Hotel
Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery
Antioch College: Herndon Gallery
Art Academy of Cincinnati: Convergys Gallery
Art Academy of Cincinnati: Ruthe G. Pearlman Gallery
Art Beyond Boundaries Gallery
ArtWorks
The Baker Hunt Art & Cultural Center
BasketShop Gallery
Beeler Gallery at Columbus College of Art & Design
Behringer-Crawford Museum
Blockfort Gallery
The Blue House Gallery
Brazee Gallery at Brazee Street Studios
CampSITE Social Sculpture Park
The Carnegie
Christ Church Cathedral: Gallery South
Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati Preservation Association at the Cincinnati Museum Center
Cincinnati State Student Lounge Gallery
Clay Street Press and Gallery
Clifton Cultural Arts Center
Contemporary Art Matters
Contemporary Arts Center
The Contemporary Dayton
DAAP Galleries:: Meyers Gallery, University of Cincinnati
DAAP Galleries:: Reed Gallery, University of Cincinnati
The Dayton Art Institute
Dayton Society of Artists
Dick Waller’s ArtPlace
DIY Printing
Eisele Gallery
Eva G. Farris Gallery at Thomas More University
Evendale Cultural Arts Center
Fitton Center for Creative Arts
Hoffner Lodge Gallery
i.imagine at the Purple People Bridge
Indian Hill Gallery
Iris BookCafé and Gallery
Keily Gallery
Kennedy Heights Arts Center
Ledge Gallery at the Brew House
Lloyd Library and Museum
The Lodge KY
Manifest Drawing Center
Manifest Gallery
Memorial Hall
Miami University Art Museum
Miami University Center for Community Engagement
Miami University College of Creative Arts
Miller Gallery
The Mohawk Gallery at Robin Imaging
Mount St. Joseph University: Studio San Giuseppe Art Gallery
Northern Kentucky University: Visual Arts Galleries
Off Ludlow Gallery
OTR Bagel Bar
Oxford Community Arts Center
PAR-Projects: Studeō PAR-
PAR-Projects: The Nook
Pendleton Street Photography
PIQUE
Pizzuti Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art
POPPED ART
Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum
Redtree Art Gallery & Coffee Shop
Rosewood Arts Centre: Rosewood Gallery
ROY G BIV Gallery
Ruth’s Parkside Café
Sidewinder Coffee
Sinclair Community College: Burnell R. Roberts Triangle Gallery
St. John’s Unitarian Universalist Church: Haehnle Gallery
Stair House
Stivers School for the Arts: Fifth Street Gallery
The Summit Hotel
Taft Museum of Art
University of Cincinnati Clermont College: Park National Bank Art Gallery
University of Cincinnati: Tabula Rasa Gallery
University of Dayton: Radial Gallery
Visionaries + Voices Northside Gallery
Wash Park Art Gallery
Wave Pool
The Welcome Project
Woman’s Art Club Cultural Center: The Barn
The Woodward Theater
Wright State University: Robert and Elaine Stein Galleries
Xavier University Art Gallery at Gallagher Student Center
Xavier University Art Gallery at the A.B. Cohen Center
Xavier University Library