The National YoungArts Foundation in Partnership with The Related Group Announces the Inauguration of the YoungArts Residency in Visual Arts

The National YoungArts Foundation, with the generous support of The Related Group, announces the inauguration of the YoungArts Residency in Visual Arts, the first of several residency programs in the visual, literary, design and performing arts the organization is developing as it expands its support of the next generation of artists in the United States and strengthens its place as a creative-catalyst for Miami's growing cultural landscape. The YoungArts Residency in Visual Arts will be extended to at least three outstanding visual artists a year, offering them the opportunity to become immersed in the Miami community while developing their work. The program will welcome the accomplished painter Suzanne McClelland as the inaugural artist in residence starting in June 2014.

"The YoungArts Residency in Visual Arts furthers our commitment to supporting and developing artistic talent by offering additional opportunities to our alumni, as well as other artists and master teachers from across the nation, while also bringing new art, culture and ideas to the Miami community," stated Paul T. Lehr, YoungArts' President & CEO. "With the generous support of Jorge Prez and The Related Group, YoungArts is proud to fill a need for residency support of visual artists in Miami, and I could not think of a better artist to launch this program than the remarkable Suzanne McClelland."

YoungArts selected McClelland after consulting with an esteemed group of advisors including Klaus Biesenbach (Director, MoMA PS1, and Chief Curator at Large, The Museum of Modern Art), Franklin Sirmans (Head of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Thom Collins (Director, Perez Art Museum Miami), Agnes Gund (President Emerita, The Museum of Modern Art) and Irving Sandler (Art Writer and Critic).

The YoungArts Residency in Visual Arts provides emerging and mid-career artists with time, space and resources; helps them forge key relationships; and gives them the chance to work in Miami and engage with its community. Artists participating in the program will receive an honorarium of up to $10,000; a stipend to cover travel, projects and other related expenses; 3 to 12 weeks of housing provided by The Related Group with studio workspace on the YoungArts campus; and the opportunity to work with some of the international art community's most noteworthy master artists, collectors, gallerists and curators. While in residence, the artists will create an original work that will be exhibited at the end of their residency or with the work of other resident artists at a future date. During the residency, each artist will also offer at least three public engagement sessions.

"It is an honor to be the first recipient of the YoungArts Residency in Visual Arts and I think this is an important new program for visual artists in this country" stated McClelland. "I am also particularly excited to learn from and work with the wide variety of Miami communities during the remarkable period of cultural growth it is experiencing. South Florida has a powerful existing cultural landscape and has always been home to newcomers."

During her residency, McClelland plans to explore the richly diverse communities of South Florida. Similar to a city like New York, where various languages are spoken alongside the constant influx of tourists and transient residents, McClelland will examine the ways in which public spaces may encourage or discourage physical encounters with one another. McClelland will also examine the impact that underutilized and abandoned urban landscapes have on relationships between the people of a city. She will observe and translate what she hears and sees in her new surroundings through multimedia using surveillance cameras, sound extractions, photographs and paint.

The YoungArts Residency in Visual Arts is made possible through the generous support of The Related Group. The program has grown out of a longstanding relationship between YoungArts and The Related Group, whose collaboration will continue to contribute to the cultural vitality of Miami.

"This program is yet another important step in solidifying our legacy of bringing art into the community, building better cities, and supporting the growth of emerging artists," says The Related Group's Chairman and CEO Jorge Prez, who is himself a prominent art collector and namesake to the Prez Art Museum Miami. "Collaborating with YoungArts will give us a wider reach in supporting artists around the country, and it will enrich the local cultural landscape by creating a platform conducive to dialogue."

The Related Group has a history of bringing art into the community through its developments, from creating the art wall along the Miami Riverwalk tied to its first downtown residential development One Miami, to bringing world-class pieces, such as a Botero sculpture, to public view outside SLS Lux; donating land to the city to save and protect the Miami Circle by Icon Brickell; to earlier collaborations with YoungArts to promote the emerging neighborhood and cultural community of East Edgewater, where the company is currently developing Icon Bay, Paraiso Bay and ONE Paraiso.

The investment that The Related Group has dedicated to YoungArts further adds to their commitment to building better cities and Mr. Prez's personal passion for the arts.

How to Apply to the YoungArts Residency in Visual Arts Program
Emerging and mid-career artists across the country are encouraged to apply online for the YoungArts Residency in Visual Arts. To complete an application, please visit youngarts.submittable.com/submit. Applications will be accepted from June 15 to August 15, 2014. Artists will be informed of their application status by the fall of 2014.

To apply, artists must submit ten images of recent work or up to two minutes of time-based work (image files should have a resolution of 72ppi and a largest dimension around 1220px). Artists must also submit a statement of purpose, preferred/available residency dates, a rsum or curriculum vitae and one reference. The $35 application fee will be waived for YoungArts alumni.

To view program requirements, please click here.

About Suzanne McClelland
Exhibiting internationally since the early 1990s, artist Suzanne McClelland is known for both large-scale gestural oil paintings and works on paper, often incorporating collaborative elements from writers and poets.McClelland's work consistently explores the symbolic and material possibilities that reside in language, be they gestural, auditory or semiotic. McClelland lives and works in Brooklyn.

About The National YoungArts Foundation
The National YoungArts Foundation was established in 1981 by Lin and Ted Arison to identify and support the next generation of artists, and to contribute to the cultural vitality of the nation by investing in the artistic development of talented young artists in the visual, literary, design and performing arts. YoungArts provides emerging artists with life-changing experiences with renowned mentors, access to significant scholarships, national recognition, and other opportunities throughout their careers to help ensure that the nation's most outstanding emerging artists are encouraged to pursue careers in the arts.

To date, YoungArts has honored more than 20,000 young artists with over $6 million in monetary awards; facilitated in excess of $150 million in college scholarship opportunities; and enabled its participants to work with master teachers who are among the most distinguished artists in the world, such as Marina Abramovi, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Plcido Domingo, Rene Fleming, Frank Gehry, Denyce Graves, Bill T. Jones, Quincy Jones, Joan Lader, Rosie Perez, Robert Redford, Martin Scorsese, Marisa Tomei, Kathleen Turner, and Rebecca Walker.

YoungArts alumni who have gone on to become leading professionals in their fields include actresses Vanessa Williams, Viola Davis, and Kerry Washington; actor, musician, and filmmaker Adrian Grenier; four-time Tony Award nominee Ral Esparza; Chief Executive Officer of American Ballet Theatre Rachel Moore; recording artists Josh Groban, Nicki Minaj and Chris Young; Metropolitan Opera star Eric Owens; musicians Terence Blanchard, Gerald Clayton and Jennifer Koh; choreographer Desmond Richardson; visual artist Hernan Bas; internationally acclaimed multimedia artist Doug Aitken; New York Times bestselling author Sam Lipsyte; and Academy Award winning director, editor, and cinematographer, Doug Blush.

For more information, please visit www.youngarts.org or watch a brief video about YoungArts.

About The Related Group
Since its inception in 1979, the privately held Related Group, founded by Chairman Jorge M. Prez, has built and managed more than 80,000 condominium and apartment residences in major markets throughout Florida. Today more than 350 people throughout South Florida are employed by The Related Group.

An award-winning company, Related has received a host of accolades, including the prestigious Honor Award from the National Building Museum given in recognition of its commitment to architecture and design excellence in new development. Related's landmark project on Brickell Avenue, Icon Brickell, has won 18 BEST awards from the BASF (Builders Association of South Florida).

In addition to its core business of real estate development, the Company operates its own real estate financing, sales and property management subsidiaries. Using its South Florida formula for success, The Related Group is broadening its reach and expanding to other markets in the United States, Latin America and abroad.

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