Teiger Foundation Awarded More Than $4 Million in Grants to Dozens of Curators, Funding Many Exhibitions and Projects Focused on African American Artists

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CRENSHAW DAIRY MART | Opening Reception, “JUICE WOOD: I Could Show You..,” Crenshaw Dairy Mart, Inglewood, Calif. (Sept. 24–29, 2023), Presented as part of The Crenshaw Dairy Mart Fellowship For Abolition And The Advancement of the Creative Economy (CDM-FAACE). | Courtesy the artist and Crenshaw Dairy Mart, Photo by Angel Xotlanihua / Elon Schoenholz

MAJOR MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS of Beverly Buchanan, Julien Creuzet, Renee Green, Essex Hemphill, and Martine Syms and research focusing on the legacy of John Biggers are among the many pivotal projects receiving funding from the Teiger Foundation. On Aug. 27, the foundation announced more than $4 million in grant support for dozens of contemporary art curators and their institutions.

Many of the curators receiving grants are African American and a significant amount of the work being funded focuses on Black artists. The grant announcement telegraphs key exhibitions on the horizon in 2025 and 2026.

The Teiger Foundation’s 2024 grantees include 50 curators at 33 U.S. institutions. Each received $50,000 to $150,000 to conduct research, organize new exhibitions, or host traveling shows. Support for three years of programming also went to curators at contemporary art organizations with budgets of $3.5 million or less. In Los Angeles, Crenshaw Dairy Mart and The Brick are among the institutions benefitting from the programming support. Previously known as LAXART, The Brick is directed by Hamza Walker, who is leading the reinvention and rebranding of the art space, which is inaugurating a new building this fall.

“Curators define the meaning and relevance of their visual art institutions in ways that are not always acknowledged, and their work is more complex and demanding than ever,” Teiger Foundation Executive Director Larissa Harris said in a statement. “We are proud to support established and emerging curators who are taking up the challenge with creative, humane, and nuanced projects and programs. Taking our support a step forward, our Climate Action for Curators builds on the centrality of curators to their institutions–as a former curator myself, I know how their work touches artists, coworkers, facilities, and community. We want to help their funded projects and organizations become part of a sustainable future, and empower them in their work overall.”

Select grant recipients include the following, listed based on the type of support received:

Alex Sloane, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA): “Martine Syms,” first museum survey of Los Angeles–based artist Martine Syms in her home state. | May–December 2026, $150,000

Camille Brown, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.: “Essex Hemphill: Take care of your blessings,” first exhibition of its kind to explore the relationship between the late Washington, D.C.-based poet and gay activist Essex Hemphill (1957-1995) and contemporary art. | May 17–Aug, 31, 2025, $75,000

Jennie Goldstein, Pavel S. Pyś, and Tom Finkelpearl, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y., and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minn.: “Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night,” first major museum survey of the artist, spanning 2011 to today. | Feb. 8–July 2025 & March 27–September 6, 2026, $150,000

Jordan Carter, Dia Art Foundation, New York, N.Y.: “Renée Green,” solo presentation bringing together rarely seen historical work alongside a new, site-specific commission by Renée Green. | March 1, 2025–Sept. 14, 2026, $150,000

Mo Costello and Katz Tepper, The Athenaeum, Athens, Ga.: “Beverly’s Athens,” first major exhibition of Beverly Buchanan (1940–2015) in Athens, Ga., the city where the artist lived from 1987 to 2010. | Jan. 8–March 20, 2026, $75,000

HOSTING TRAVELING EXHIBITIONS

Kate Kraczon, Céline Kopp, and Cindy Sissokho, The David Winton Bell Gallery of the Brown Arts Institute, Brown University, Providence, R.I.: “Julien Creuzet: Attila cataract your source at the feet of the green peaks will end up in the great sea blue abyss where we drowned in the tidal tears of the moon,” first solo show by French-Caribbean artist Julien Creuzet (right) in the United States was originally presented in the French Pavilion at 60th Venice Biennale in 2024. | Feb. 20–June 1, 2025 , $75,000

THREE YEARS OF PROGRAMMING

Ashley Stull Meyers, Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx), Corvallis, Ore.: The Oregon State University arts center opened in April 2024. Chief Curator Stull Meyers plans three exhibitions focused on the work of Black, Indigenous, and Asian artist-researchers in 2024-25. | $150,000

Crenshaw Dairy Mart (CDM), Inglewood, Calif.: Co-founded in 2020 by artists noé olivas, alexandre ali reza dorriz, and Patrisse Cullors, the gallery and arts organization plans a variety of programming—community workshops, panels, and an oral history project in 2025-26, with a 2027 exhibition mapping the contemporary history of its gentrifying neighborhood. | $150,000

Hamza Walker and Catherine Taft, The Brick, Los Angeles, Calif.: From fall 2024 to spring 2026, The Brick will present seven exhibitions in its new accessible, 5,000-square-foot space—solo presentation of Todd Gray, Betsy Paige Smith, Ray Anthony Barrett, and Black Mass Publishing, two Nancy Buchanan shows, and a pair of group exhibitions. | $150,000

Jova Lynne and Marie Madison-Patton, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), Detroit, Mich.: Programming in 2025 will focus on textile artist Carole Harris, Detroit artist and community storyteller Olayami Dabls, and an immersive exhibition on gun violence by Hank Willis Thomas, In 2026, shows will feature works by installation artist Karyn Olivier and painter Pat Phillips, among others. | $150,000

RESEARCH

Imani Jacqueline Brown, A Studio in the Woods, New Orleans, La.: Forest islands of our ecological diaspora, multi-year research project centered on Louisiana’s burial groves—small sections of original forest that were preserved from the ravages and deforestation of sugarcane monoculture, where historically enslaved Africans buried their loved ones. | December 2024–December 2025, $50,000

Jamaal Wright, Galveston Artist Residency, Galveston, Texas: Conduits research unites artists from Houston’s historically Black Third Ward community with broader discussions about Southern contributions to Black art and the profound influence of artist John T. Biggers (1924–2001). | Aug. 1, 2024–Aug. 31, 2025, $50,000

A total of $3,925,000 in grants were distributed. The Teiger Foundation’s newly launched Climate Action for Curators initiative provided a subset of grantees with $500,000 in additional funding and coaching support to “embed climate consciousness into their project or organization.” Each recipient was awarded $25,000 for related programming and/or operations needs.

The 2024 grantees were selected from 500 submissions received through the foundation’s annual call for proposals. Finalists were narrowed down by advisory panels of peer curators in New York and Los Angeles.

Focusing on the critical role of curators, the New York-based Teiger Foundation was established in 2008 by David Teiger (1929–2014), a museum patron and collector of contemporary art. “Our founder, David Teiger, was committed to out-of-the-box thinking within institutions and transdisciplinary thinkers who pushed art in new directions,” Teiger Foundation Board President John Silberman said in a statement. “Whether supporting the creative leadership of small organizations or curators organizing shows at major museums, Teiger Foundation has an expansive history of supporting experimentation and furthering new perspectives that result in positive shifts within the field.” CT

IMAGE: Above right, Julien Creuzet. | Photo by Virginie Ribaut

SEE FULL LIST of Teiger Foundation 2024 grant recipients

MOCAD / Jova Lynne, Marie Madison-Patton | HANK WILLIS THOMAS + MASS Design Group, Installation view of “The Gun Violence MemoriaL Project,” 2019, Chicago Architecture, Chicago Cultural Center. | Courtesy the artist and MASS Design Group

PRAx/Ashley Stull Meyers | RODELLL WARNER, “Artificial Archive, SCRYING INTIMACIES, Hallucination 1,” 2024 (still, single-channel video). | Courtesy the artist

A Studio in the Woods / Imani Jacqueline Brown | A burial grove in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, 2023 (digital photograph). | Courtesy Imani Jaqueline Brown. Photo by Imani Jacqueline Brown

MOCAD / Jova Lynne, Marie Madison-Patton | KARYN OLIVIER, Installation view of “Fortified,” 2018-2020, “Karyn Oliver: At the Intersection of Two Faults,” Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, N.Y. (June 25-July 30, 2021). | Courtesy the artist

BOOKSHELF
Forthcoming exhibitions of Martine Syms, Christine Sun Kim, and Beverly Buchanan, supported by the Teiger Foundation will be accompanied by new publications, including the first comprehensive monograph of Renée Green in the United States. Also among the volumes, “Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night” is expected in January. In addition, consider the following publications. “Karyn Olivier: Everything That’s Alive Moves” documents the artist’s first solo museum exhibition. “Martine Syms: She Mad” and “Martine Syms: Neural Swamp: The Future Fields Commission in Time-Based Media,” as well as “Renée Green: Pacing” and “Renée Green: Inevitable Distances.” were all recently published. “Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal” surveys the artist’s career and features contributions by Kellie Jones and Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, among others. Edited by John Keene and Robert F. Reid-Pharr, “Love is a Dangerous Word: the Selected Poems of Essex Hemphill” is forthcoming in March 2025.