PERFORMA RECEIVES ROCKEFELLER INNOVATION AWARD; UK HONORS CULTURE SPONSORS
Performa, the nonprofit interdisciplinary arts organization committed to the research, development, and presentation of performance by visual artists, has been honored with a Rockefeller Foundation Innovation Award for its contributions to the cultural life of New York City. This award is given by the Rockefeller Foundation’s New York City Cultural Innovation Fund. Presented in recognition of Performa’s outstanding achievements in the four years since its founding in 2004, and in support of Performa’s upcoming biennial in 2009, this honor makes Performa the youngest organization ever to receive the award. The fund “recognizes the bold, visionary creativity of vibrant New York arts organizations. Each award, of up to $250,000, celebrates the diversity, imagination, and energy that make our city a global cultural leader,” said Darren Walker, vice president for foundation initiatives. The unique structure of the Performa biennials—which bring more than forty of New York’s leading arts and cultural institutions and twenty-five different curators together to present live work in all disciplines over the course of three weeks—aims to transform the biennial format into something that links the entire city, cross-pollinating diverse audiences among different venues. “We use New York City’s incredible history of creativity as our inspiration,” said RoseLee Goldberg, founder and director of Performa. “The future of New York depends on the next generation and the next believing that this city is as edgy as it ever was. Everything we do is designed to make sure it stays that way.”
In other news, Bloomberg’s Catherine Hickley reports that Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank AG have won prizes for their culture sponsorship in the UK from Arts and Business, an organization partly funded by the government. Morgan Stanley and the British Museum won the Old Mutual A&B Cultural Branding Award, while Deutsche Bank won the Lloyd’s A&B Innovation Prize, a retrospective award for the most ground-breaking partnerships of the past thirty years. Deutsche Bank has sponsored the Frieze Art Fair, Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, the Royal Academy, and the Royal College of Arts. A prize for lifetime achievement was awarded to Michael Lynch, the chief executive of the Southbank Center, who is leaving his post in April. His achievements include raising $168 million for the refurbishment of the Royal Festival Hall, said Arts and Business in a statement.
