ART CITIES:N.York 65 Works Selected By James Welling, Part II
The mission of Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), is to encourage, sponsor, and promote innovative work in the arts created and presented by individuals, groups, and organizations. Its “artists for artists” legacy continues today with Grants to Artists, supporting pioneering work across the fields of dance, music/sound, performance art/theater, poetry, and the visual arts. Emergency Grants are also made to assist artists with last-minute expenses and unexpected opportunities related to their work (Part I)
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: David Zwirner Gallery Archive
Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), presents its 15th benefit exhibition, “65 Works Selected By James Welling: Exhibition and Sale to Benefit the Foundation for Contemporary Arts” at David Zwirner in New York, the works are offered for sale (not auction; proceeds will directly benefit FCA’s grant programs. Over the past 53 years, nearly 1,000 artists have contributed work to periodic benefit exhibitions to support FCA’s grant-making programs for individual artists. Artists have generously allowed FCA to keep unsold works for future sale to benefit its programs. Welling has selected 49 works from this rich collection, and a further 16 new works have been contributed by artists at Welling’s invitation. In 1962 Jasper Johns, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and other artist came together to help Merce Cunningham and his dance company finance a proposed season on Broadway by arranging for a sale of their artworks. Their fund-raising efforts were so successful that there was money to spare, and when they asked Cunningham what he thought they should do with it, he replied, “We’re all in the same boat–why don’t you give it to other performing artists?”. Thus in 1963 Jasper Johns and John Cage established the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts based on the belief that visual artists were sufficiently concerned about the state of the performance arts enough so to donate artwork to benefit performing artists. Marcel Duchamp, Ellsworth Kelly, Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, Saul Steinberg and Andy Warhol were among the 67 artists who contributed to the Foundation’s historic first benefit exhibition, the first fund-raising benefit of this kind at the Allan Stone Gallery. Proceeds from sales enabled the Foundation to launch a significant program of assistance to performing artists who were engaged in work of a contemporary nature.
Info: David Zwirner Gallery, 533 West 19th Street, New York, Duration: 9/12/16-28/1/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.davidzwirner.com
