Creative Capital Awards $3.5 Million To 35 Artistic Projects

Creative Capital is pleased to announce the selection of 35 projects for the 2020 Creative Capital Awards. Exemplars of the sort of innovative, powerful, and challenging work that Creative Capital is dedicated to advancing, these awardees will receive up to $50,000 in project funding, supplemented by an additional $50,000 in career development services, for a total value of $100,000. The full list of recipients is below.

These 35 projects, by 41 individual artists, were drawn from a pool of more than 4,000 applications and selected by a nine-member, multidisciplinary panel composed of awardees from previous years, expert curators, producers, and other arts professionals. In a departure from traditional awards panels, Creative Capital's multi-step review process is not delineated by genre-the nine panelists deliberated together to select the awardees regardless of field.

"Though these artists come to us from very different backgrounds, work in different fields, and explore a wide range of subjects, they share a dedication to pushing boundaries, both ours and their own," said Suzy Delvalle, Creative Capital's President & Executive Director. "We are thrilled to be supporting them and their work, and cannot wait to see these projects grow and mature to fruition."

The projects that earned 2020 Creative Capital Awards are based in 15 different states and territories, from Louisiana to Alaska, Puerto Rico to Pennsylvania. Of the 41 artists, over 76 percent identify as people of color, 56 percent identify as women, and 14 percent as trans or gender nonbinary; two identify as being disabled. They range in age from 27 to 67.

This year's projects mark the first of a new decade, and the 20th anniversary of Creative Capital. In planning for the decade to come, Creative Capital recently announced its move to a new fundraising model and the launch of a 20th Anniversary Fund, evidence of the organization's continued growth and evolution in the service of artists, their work, and their communities. The organization is fortunate to receive dedicated project funding for the visual arts from the Andy Warhol Foundation, performing arts from the Doris Duke Foundation, and racial justice from the Surdna Foundation.

Drawing from the principles of venture capital to develop innovative work in the cultural sphere, Creative Capital seeks out bold, groundbreaking projects and provides the artists behind them with the tools they need to realize their visions and build sustainable careers. Since its founding in 1999, Creative Capital has supported 741 artists with nearly $50 million in funding; professional development opportunities; expert consulting; artist retreats and gatherings; and more, with the aim of fostering and developing artistic exchange and a thriving cultural commons across the United States.

Applications for the next cycle of Creative Capital Awards will open February 1, 2020. As part of Creative Capital's move to annual award cycles, beginning in 2020, artists will submit one full application in February with a complete budget and six work samples. This is a shift from previous years, in order to make the application process more efficient. The next group of Creative Capital Awards will be announced in late 2020, and annually at that time thereafter.

2020 Panelists

Cassils | Creative Capital Awardee; Artist

Ken Chen | Executive Director, Asian American Writers' Workshop

Gina Duncan | Associate VP, Film and Strategic Programming, Brooklyn Academy Of Music

Carlos Gutiérrez | Executive Director, Cinema Tropical

Angela Mattox | Performing Arts Curator; Former Artistic Director, PICA

Laleh Mehran | Creative Capital Awardee; Professor of Emergent Digital Practices at University of Denver

Roderick Schrock | Executive Director, Eyebeam

Stacy Switzer | Curator and Executive Director, Fathomers

Tara Aisha Willis | Associate Curator of Performance, MCA Chicago

For more, visit creative-capital.org.