ANNOUNCING THE VERDANT FUND

ALABAMA ARTS ORGANIZATIONS RECEIVE $60,000 FROM THE WARHOL FOUNDATION TO DISTRIBUTE EMERGENCY RELIEF GRANTS

October 15, 2020

The Verdant Fund, a collaborative effort of Alabama Contemporary Art Center (Mobile), Coleman Center for the Arts (York), and Space One Eleven (Birmingham) in partnership with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, will distribute $60,000 in emergency grants to Alabama artists affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The fund, initiated in response to the health and financial crisis, will disperse sixty grants of $1,000 each to visual or multidisciplinary artists currently residing in the state of Alabama. 

An expansion of the Warhol Foundation’s Regional Re-granting program, the Verdant Fund supports creative practice born of and within Alabama. The Verdant Fund’s goal is to reach a broad range of artists across all geographic areas of the state to provide monetary resources to artists, aid in artist retention in the state, and deepen the network among people in creative practice.

Emergency relief grants are for independent, professional, visual artists who make some or all of their living from their art practice and who have lost income as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The grants are intended to pay for essentials like groceries, rent, childcare, and medicine.

Applications are open from October 1, 2020, through October 30, 2020. Applications are only accepted online. https://verdantfund.org/emergency-grants

After the initial emergency period, the Verdant Fund will pivot to project-based grants in 2021. It will focus its support on public-facing projects that complicate and expand narratives of creative practice born of and within Alabama and bolster contemporary art practice in its region. 

Verdant Fund joins a 16-organization expansion of the Warhol Foundation’s Regional Re-granting program. In addition to money for grants, programs receive significant funding for administration and outreach. Established in 2007, the Regional Re-granting Program has awarded $6.4 million in grants to organizations, which has resulted in $3.6 million in direct support of 848 artist projects as of 2018.

ABOUT THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS: In accordance with Andy Warhol’s will, the mission of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is the advancement of the visual arts. The Foundation manages an innovative and flexible grants program while also preserving Warhol’s legacy through creative and responsible licensing policies and extensive scholarly research for ongoing catalogue raisonné projects. To date, the Foundation has given over $200 million in cash grants to over 1,000 arts organizations in 49 states and abroad and has donated 52,786 works of art to 322 institutions worldwide.

For more information: (251) 208-5660 / info@verdantfund.org / verduntfund.org

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