MIKE KELLEY’S FOUNDATION TO GIVE $250,000 TO LOS ANGELES ARTS GROUPS

The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts will be making $250,000 worth of grants to arts organizations producing “compelling, inventive, and challenging projects by visual artists or artists’ collectives working in any medium,” reports the Los Angeles Times’ Carolina A. Miranda. Grants will probably range from $10,000 to $50,000 range, and will target organizations supporting artists’ projects.

Kelley established his foundation in 2007 and began giving discretionary grants a year later. He avoided instituting a formal application process, instead giving as he saw fit. “Mike helped establish Los Angeles as a really vibrant arts scene, and this is a part of that,” says executive director Mary Clare Stevens. “He was very explicit in the paperwork that he wanted to fund arts organizations, especially smaller ones, and ones that he believed were doing good work—work that other folks weren‘t paying attention to.”