Artforum: Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation Announce 2020 Art and Social Justice Grantees

Shannon Finnegan, Do you want us here or not 1, 2018. Design in collaboration with Charles Mathis and Chat Travieso presented by Art Beyond Sight. Fabrication by Charles Mathis. Courtesy of Claire Altizer. [image description: This image features a predominantly blue bench made of plywood, which is exposed at the joins. On the back t has text saying “This exhibition has asked me to stand for too long” and on the seat it says “Sit if you agree”]

The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation has named the 2020 recipients of its art and social justice grants. Now in its fifth cycle, the grant program will reward fifty-three New York–based cultural organizations for their artistic activism and engagement with social justice. Grants will provide direct support to exhibitions, educational programs, activist initiatives, artists’ projects, publications, and operations. 

“Our 2020 grant roster includes more grassroots organizations than ever, in recognition of their capacity to respond to the needs of their communities. As always, we look to artists, activists, and cultural producers to lead the way in thinking through how to address social justice issues with creative vision,” said Sara Reisman, executive and artistic director of the Rubin Foundation.

For the recent application cycle, the foundation received proposals for projects and programs that contend with challenges faced by a range of communities across the boroughs. Among the issues addressed are disability rights, domestic violence, gentrification, and economic inequity. First time grantees include the Asian American Arts Alliance, Triple Canopy, Outer Seed Shadow, Queer | Art, and The Latinx Project.

Other awardees are El Museo del Barrio, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, which were chosen for their role as social and community hubs; historic houses including the Lewis H. Latimer Fund, Inc. and Old Stone House & Washington Park; and organizations advocating for court diversion and recidivism prevention such as Recess, Young New Yorkers, Musicambia, viBe Theater Experience, and The Drawing Center.

The list of 2020 grant recipients is as follows:

A.I.R. Gallery
Art Beyond Sight
Artists Alliance Inc.
Artists Space
Asian American Arts Alliance
BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance
BOMB Magazine
Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute
Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education
Creative Time
CUE Art Foundation Dance/NYC
Dancing in the Streets
Design Trust for Public Space
El Museo del Barrio
FiveMyles
Friends of Materials for the Arts
Hook Arts Media
International Studio & Curatorial Program        
Josephine Herrick Project
Kinetic Light
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art     
Lewis H. Latimer Fund, Inc.          
More Art
Musicambia
Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts
Old Stone House & Washington Park
Outer Seed Shadow
Participant Inc         
PS122 Gallery         
Queens Museum    
Queer | Art    
Recess
Social Practice Queens
Socrates Sculpture Park
Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling
The Bronx Museum of the Arts     
The Drawing Center
The Feminist Press
The Kitchen
The Latinx Project
The Laundromat Project
The Luminal Theater
The Studio Museum in Harlem    
Theatre of the Oppressed NYC
Triangle Arts Association
Triple CanopyviBe Theater Experience
Visual AIDS
Weeksville Heritage Center
Wendy's Subway    
Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.)
Young New Yorkers