The Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program announced today that it will award $680,000 to nineteen recipients of its 2019 grants, including Leticia Alvarado, Aruna D’Souza, Patricia Failing, Ari Heinrich, Jillian Steinhauer, and Mimi Wong. Ranging from $15,000 to $50,000 in four categories—articles, blogs, books, and short-form writing—these awards support projects addressing both general and specialized art audiences, from scholarly studies to critical reviews and self-published blogs.

“The Warhol Foundation aims to support the full range of artistic activity in America—from exhibitions at major museums to neighborhood projects by artist collectives,” said Joel Wachs, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. “Arts writers, through the range and specialization of their individual interests, touch upon all of this activity—illuminating and interrogating it and bringing it into conversation with the public. Support for artists is not complete without support for the circulation and serious consideration of their ideas. The Arts Writers Grant program keeps artists at the center of cultural dialogue and debate—in our opinion, right where they belong.”

Commenting on the grantees’ proposals, program director Pradeep Dalal said: “The terrific range of project proposals we received this year speaks to the mobile and porous boundaries of contemporary art practice and the richly inventive ways in which writers are approaching art today.” Among the projects being funded are Heinrich’s study of how trans artists such as Jes Fan use biochemical agents like melanin and estrogen as artistic mediums; Steinhauer’s forthcoming series of articles on the late-life success of artists like Lorraine O’Grady, Mary Beth Edelson, and Carolee Schneemann; and Failing’s research on the curatorial practice of Henri Ghent, the founding director of the Brooklyn Museum’s Community Art Gallery.

The 2019 grantees are as follows:

Articles

Patricia Failing
“Remembering Henri Ghent (1926–2009)”

Nicole Woods
“Acid Visions: Bob Thompson, Abstract Figurative Painting, and the American Neo-Avant-Garde”

Blogs

Paul Schmelzer and Nicole J. Caruth
The Ostracon: Dispatches from Beyond Contemporary Art’s Center

Books

Nora M.
Alter Harun Farocki: Forms of Intelligence

Leticia Alvarado
Cut/Hoard/Suture: Aesthetics in Relation

Jace Clayton
Behold the Monkey

Ari Larissa Heinrich
Decolonial Melanin: Jes Fan's Contagious Xenophoria (A Glossary)

Robb Hernández
Alien Skins: Speculative Arts of the Americas

Jean Ma
At the Edges of Sleep

Prudence Peiffer
The Slip

Short-Form Writing

Hakim Bishara

Paul Brown

Sean J. Patrick Carney

Aruna D’Souza

Tess Edmonson

Alan Gilbert

Jillian Steinhauer

Elvia Wilk

Mimi Wong