GIA News's Blog

(12-8-10) United States Artists today announced its 2010 Fellows. Each year, USA honors 50 of America’s finest artists with individual fellowships of $50,000 — unrestricted funds awarded across eight disciplines. We’re proud of our USA Fellows. To become a USA Fellow, one must be nominated. Each year nominations are made by a different anonymous group of arts leaders, critics, scholars, and artists chosen by USA. Nominators do not know one another; their identities remain confidential.

(12-7-10) GIA has added the 2010 Conference Proceedings page to this website. Here you'll find Photography and Video of the Chicago Conference, as well as an archived copy of the conference website. More conference-related materials will be added to this page as they become available.

(12-7-10) Registration is open for the Council on Foundations' 2011 Family Philanthropy Conference. The Conference will be held in New York City on January Sunday, 23 through Tuesday, January 25.

Complete conference details are online.

(12-7-10) On Sunday at around 1 pm, 37-year-old Washingtonian Mike Blasenstein hung an iPad around his neck, held some flyers in his hands -- and promptly got banned, or so he believes, from the Smithsonian Institution. That iPad was playing a video called “A Fire in My Belly,” by the artist David Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1992 and Blasenstein was standing at the National Portrait Gallery, just outside the entrance to a gay-themed exhibition called “Hide/Seek.”

(12-6-10) At its November meeting, the GIA Board of Directors elected Regina Smith, the Kresge Foundation, as President and Peter Handler, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, as Vice President. Smith and Handler will serve a two-year term and join Treasurer Rose Ann Cleveland, the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, and Secretary Alan Cooper, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, on the executive committee. At large members of the Executive Committee are Justin Laing, Heinz Endowments and John McGuirk, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

(12-6-10) Last week, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced $3.8 million in gifts to twenty-seven 2010 Knight Arts Challenge Miami winners. “Anyone can apply to the Knight Arts Challenge. The only requirement is that they have a great idea. [The] winners show South Florida has an abundance of them,” said Dennis Scholl, Knight Foundation’s vice president/arts. Over the past three years, the foundation has invested a total of $17.5 million in Miami-area Arts Challenge projects.

(12-6-10) Last week, Smithsonian Institution officials in Washington removed an artwork from an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. The critically acclaimed show's subject is a century of gay identity in art. The decision to remove the work caused an uproar.

(12-3-10) This National Study of Artist-Endowed Foundations, conducted for Aspen Institute's Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation and authored by Christine J. Vincent, is the first effort to define and describe the artist-endowed foundation field in the US. Though a small portion of all private foundations, these distinctively endowed entities are growing in number and, as such, represent a potential force shaping cultural philanthropy and stewarding this country's postwar and contemporary art patrimony.

(12-3-10) The International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA) this week announced preliminary plans to work with a range of partners to develop an international database of cultural policies. The announcement was made in Paris to the Intergovernmental Committee of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

(12-2-10) The first Regional Issues Forum of 2011 will be held on Thursday, January 27. The one-day seminar, sponsored by the MetLife Foundation, is open to all funders and will focus on creative arts and aging. It is a collaboration between Grantmakers in Aging, Grantmakers in the Arts, and The National Center for Creative Aging. Co-sponsors include the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, the Arizona Community Foundation and the Arizona Grantmakers Forum.