The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), the nonprofit organization founded in 1963 by the late artist John Cage and artist Jasper Johns, announced today the eighteen individual artists who were selected to receive unrestricted $40,000 grants. Among the awardees are Tania Bruguera, Darrell Jones, Mika Tajima, and Stacy Szymaszek.

For the FCA’s Grants to Artists program, which was established in 1993, artists and arts professionals are invited to propose one artist, collective, or performing group whom they believe would benefit from an award. These submissions are then reviewed by an advisory panel—a mix of cultural figures and members of the FCA’s board of directors, which includes Agnes Gund, Glenn Ligon, and James Welling—that decides on the recipients.

This year, the board of directors were joined by Danspace Project executive director and chief curator Judy Hussie-Taylor; musician Jenny Lin; associate curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art Yasmil Raymond; and director, playwright, poet, and performer Fiona Templeton. Poet Renee Gladman and artist Trevor Winkfield also assisted with the selection process for the poetry category.

“In a climate where creative expression is fundamentally threatened, FCA provides artists with critical support and encouragement,” said Cecily Brown, a director of the foundation. “It is an honor to nurture new and diverse voices, and to help these artists sustain a practice that enriches our society in uncertain times.”

The 2019 grantees are as follows:

Dance

Darrell Jones, Chicago, Illinois

Mina Nishimura, Brooklyn, New York

taisha paggett, Los Angeles and Riverside, California (The Merce Cunningham Award)

Music/Sound

Camae Ayewa, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Sarah Hennies, Ithaca, New York

Roberto Carlos Lange, Brooklyn, New York

Tomeka Reid, Queens, New York, and Chicago, Illinois

Spencer Yeh, Queens, New York

Performance Art/Theater

Tania Bruguera, New York, New York (The Robert Rauschenberg Award)

Julie Tolentino, Joshua Tree, California

Poetry

Amy Gerstler, Los Angeles, California (The C.D. Wright Award for Poetry)

Douglas Kearney, Maple Grove, Minnesota (The Cy Twombly Award for Poetry)

Stacy Szymaszek, Missoula, Montana

Visual Arts

Trisha Donnelly, New York, New York (The Dorothea Tanning Award)

Joseph Grigely, Chicago, Illinois

Andy Robert, Brooklyn, New York (The Roy Lichtenstein Award)

Mika Tajima, New York, New York (This award is supported by the FCA Friends)

Clarissa Tossin, Los Angeles, California