The Hauser & Wirth Institute, a nonprofit founded by the similarly named mega-gallery, announced on Monday that it would award $700,000 in grants and scholarships to archival projects and research initiatives.
Most of the funding went to the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Pratt Institute. The Studio Museum received $360,000 for a project that will see the New York museum digitize its archives. “The generous funding from Hauser & Wirth Institute will enable us to continue this archival work for generations to come, while furthering our commitment toward making this invaluable information an active, ongoing resource for all,” said Studio Museum director and chief curator Thelma Golden in a statement.
Meanwhile, Pratt got $280,000, which will be used to fund two full-ride scholarships for students entering the school’s art history master’s degree program. The grant is intended to support students from “underrepresented” backgrounds, the Hauser & Wirth Institute’s announcement said.
Also announced were a series of smaller grants. The Asia Art Archive received $25,000 to process and digitize the archive of Pakistani modernist Zahoor ul Akhlaq, the Chicago-based arts publication and archive Sixty Inches from Center was also granted $25,000, and the YVR Art Foundation, which supports Indigenous artists throughout western Canada, received $10,000.
“The pandemic created many challenges, but it also made space for us to step back and assess where the gaps in funding and support are, and how we could best serve those working with artists’ archives,” Hauser & Wirth Institute executive director Lisa Darms said in a statement. “It was out of this reflection and dialogue that we chose to fund The Studio Museum, student archivists, and progressive nonprofits and collectives that expand access to archives for communities that have been underfunded and underrepresented.”
