HYDE PARK ART CENTER gives unrestricted funds to independent artist-run spaces

HYDE PARK ART CENTER gives unrestricted funds to independent artist-run spaces

This year, the Art Center awards 15 independent artist-run spaces grants totaling $120K. To date, the grant has provided more than $1M to over 100 independent artist-run platforms, with priority given to those led by BIPOC artists

CHICAGO, Ill. -- Hyde Park Art Center, the non-profit hub for contemporary art located on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, announces the 5th phase of Artists Run Chicago Fund, a regranting initiative providing unrestricted financial relief for Chicago’s artist community since 2021. A total of $120,000 is granted to 15 independent artist-run platforms, each awarded $8,000 in unrestricted funds. To date, the Artists Run Chicago Fund has distributed more than one million dollars to over 100 independent artists-run platforms.

This year’s recipients of Artists Run Chicago Fund include: Art Center of Englewood, Blue Station, Bridge, Chicago Art Book Fair, Fourtunehouse Art Center, Julius Caesar Gallery, LMRM (Loom Room), Mayfield, Mural Moves, noseyAF podcast, Patient Info, Pigeon Hole Press, The Plan, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and Weatherproof.

Artists Run Chicago Fund is a unique regranting initiative infusing Chicago’s contemporary art network with flexible, unrestricted financial support to strengthen their diverse and experimental programs. The fund aims to acknowledge the important contributions of artist-run platforms to the Chicago art community and strengthen artist-to-artist support networks, with an emphasis on platforms led by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) artists. Grantees include artist-run galleries, community studios, a podcast, art writing and programming platforms, furthering the grant’s goal of infusing Chicago’s visual art ecosystem with financial resources.

Leaders from the recipient organizations share how the fund makes an impact that enables their meaningful programming:

Hope Wang from LMRM (Loom Room) shares: “This has been a really vulnerable year for LMRM for so many reasons. As a young space, receiving this recognition is a vote of confidence that we are contributing to Chicago's art ecosystem in meaningful ways. There is so much pressure around continuity when it comes to artist-informed resources; we have big plans for growth and this grant really fuels us in our next steps.”

Jack Spector Bishop from Pigeon Hole Press shares: “As a small fine art publishing platform, this grant will have a transformative impact for Pigeon Hole, allowing us to work with a wider network of emerging artists without the constraints of having to raise funds solely through sales. For a start, we hope to acquire a larger etching press to provide our artists with more creative freedom in scale and technique.”

Stephanie Graham from noseyAF shared: “noseyAF is driven by a love for hearing artists open up about their lives, work, and creative processes. Thanks to the generous support of the ARC fund, noseyAF is now empowered to experiment and expand by creating spaces where people can experience these artists’ work firsthand—whether through exhibitions, zines, live interviews, or field trips that directly support their creations. It’s exciting to see how these new avenues will deepen the project’s mission, strengthen connections between artists and both new and longtime audiences, and turn even more people on to the power of art and culture.”

The 2024 Artists Run Chicago Fund is generously supported by the Good Chaos Foundation, the Local South Foundation, and The Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation.

Initiated during the challenging years of the COVID-19 outbreak, Artists Run Chicago Fund has created breathing room for artist-run projects to continue to innovate and thrive. Since then, the Fund has increased platforms’ capacity to pay artists to make new work, pay staff, develop new programs, and invest in socially engaged practices. For over two decades, Hyde Park Art Center has been an ally for independent artist-run spaces. The Art Center presented the first Artists Run Chicago exhibition in 2009 with contributions from forty spaces in existence between 1999 and 2009, and Artists Run Chicago 2.0 in 2020 to celebrate the work of fifty artist-run spaces that fuel Chicago’s independent art scene.

For more information about Hyde Park Art Center and the Artists Run Chicago Fund, please visit https://www.hydeparkart.org/.

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