Located in Pomona, the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) is one of the few museums in the country dedicated solely to ceramic art and the only one of its kind on the West Coast.

The grant will be used to partially fund Dirk Staschke: Beyond Nature Morte.  Staschke creates transgressive and lavish sculpture inspired by 16th century Dutch vanitas still-life paintings that show a surprisingly contemporary commentary on craving, over-consumption and excess.  The show will run from April 9, 2016 through September 17, 2016.

The Armory Center for the Arts is a community arts center that offers innovative approaches to creating, exploring, and presenting the visual arts to students of all ages. In addition to providing an outlet for contemporary art exhibitions and performances, the Armory offers studio art classes and a variety of educational outreach programs to schools and in the community.

The funding will go towards “Traversing,” which will feature the work of  artists Ellen Lesperance and Helen Mirra.  The show includes distinct presentations of the two artists’ individual practices as well as collaborative, participatory components.  It will be organized around the format of a conversation, exploring topics as exchanges relating to artistic production.  Exhibition dates are June 2016 through September 2016.

Established in 1930, ArtCenter College of Design is a global leader in art and design education. The College offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in a wide range of disciplines, as well as Public Programs offering design education to all ages and levels of experience.

This grant will support two endeavors.  First, it will continue a tradition started in 1992 by supporting scholarships to dedicated Fine Art students who otherwise would be unable to pursue their educational aims and career goals in the arts. Secondly, it will support three exhibitions that will be on view at the Hillside Campus’ Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery:  “Urbanature” (reassessment of the natural in the beginning of the 21st century),  “Yoshio Ikezaki: Elements” (selected works by the artist done between 1991-2016) and “Uncertainty” (an exhibition by director Stephen Nowlin that will ponder the meaning of the term in 21st century art and life).  The exhibitions will be on view between February 2016 and January 2017.

The University Art Museum, located on the campus of California State University Long Beach, is a unique cultural institution that champions new and often challenging ideas through wide-ranging exhibitions and provocative programs.  The mission of the museum is to present education and exhibition programs that blur the boundaries between visual arts and design, technology, music, and contemporary culture.

The exhibition “Jud Fine and Barbara McCarren: AND/OR” will be the focus of this grant.  This exhibition is a two-person collaborative 20-year survey that explores the work of the artists Fine and McCarren from their series “Currency and Continental Edge Dwellers,” incorporating sound, video projects, photographs, sculpture, and performance.  More than 25 pieces will be presented exploring what it means to live on an “urban edge” of the Pacific Ocean and to dwell on the continental edge – some of the most exclusive and expensive space on the planet that is also fragile and threatened.  The show is planned for September 10, 2016 through December 17, 2016.

Clockshop is a multifaceted arts organization that works at the intersection of cultural production, politics, and urban space.  Clockshop’s projects bring people together to explore the strange particularities of Los Angeles and situate the city in its global context. The organization curates conversations and screenings, and commissions new work from contemporary visual and performing artists.

Support will go towards the group exhibition entitled “Contemporary Artists in the Archives of Octavia E. Butler,” which will take place at the Armory Center for the Arts.  The show will feature approximately ten artists who will create new artworks in response to their experience perusing Butler’s archives, which are maintained at the Huntington Library.  The exhibition is scheduled to be on view October 2016 through January 2017.

The museum serves Los Angeles through its mission to champion cultural understanding by encouraging curiosity about our diverse world through the universal lens of art.  CAFAM is the only museum in Los Angeles dedicated solely to the support of contemporary craft and folk artists.

This grant will support “Work Over School: Art from the Margins of the Inside,”  which sheds new light on the idea of the self-taught artist by examining the work of nine established and emerging artists who have developed great conceptual and technical skill through nontraditional means. Combining their training in other professional fields with their own artistic investigations, these artists produce a dynamic range of works in painting, metal, sculpture, and ceramics and share a reverence for material and a commitment to process and technique.  The show is planned for September 25, 2016 through January 8, 2017.

Descanso Gardens is a botanical garden in La Cañada Flintridge, California, with a recently added contemporary art gallery. The Sturt Haaga Gallery was conceived as an important addition to Descanso’s education mission.  Programming in the gallery derives from and seeks to illuminate the intersection between contemporary arts and the sciences represented by the garden — botany, horticulture, biology, ecology, conservation, and the study of gardens as cultural artifacts.

The grant will provide exhibition support for “Woven” in the Sturt Haaga Gallery which is a show dedicated to weaving, one of humankind’s earliest achievements that transformed plant material into fiber and cloth.  “Woven” will invite contemporary artists to explore and celebrate all aspects of  weaving, and will be on view May 2016 through August 2016.

The Fowler Museum at UCLA explores global arts and cultures with an emphasis on works from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas—past and present. The Fowler enhances understanding and appreciation of the diverse peoples, cultures, and religions of the world through dynamic exhibitions, publications, and public programs, informed by interdisciplinary approaches and the perspectives of the cultures represented. Also featured is the work of international contemporary artists presented within the complex frameworks of politics, culture and social action.

The grant will lend support for the exhibition “Nkame: A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayon.”  This show will introduce audiences to the late Cuban contemporary printmaker Belkis Ayon and her distinctive work, which has never been shown as comprehensively in North America.  The exhibition is scheduled to run October 2016 through February 2017.

The Hammer Museum is a fine arts museum and the public arts unit of the University of California, Los Angeles’s (UCLA) School of the Arts and Architecture.  The Hammer champions the art and artists who challenge us to see the world in a new light, to experience the unexpected, to ignite our imaginations, and to inspire change.

Founded in 1971, the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center is one of the largest ethnic arts and cultural centers of its kind in the United States.  The mission of the JACCC is to present, perpetuate, transmit and promote Japanese and Japanese American arts and culture to diverse audiences, and to provide a center to enhance community programs.

Partial  funding will be provided for the exhibition “Enka!,” a multi-channel media presentation, which will include a series of original digital photographs by artist Bruce Yonemoto that aim to refresh the original political content of Enka songs. As a Japanese American artist, Yonemoto identifies with the multiple influences and people of Japan who reflect the present and future impact that Asia has on world culture and art.  This show will open in February 2017.

The Japanese American National Museum is one of the nation’s premier culturally specific museums. Through the building of a comprehensive collection of material culture and development of multi-faceted exhibitions, educational activities, public programs and publications, the Museum preserves and shares for current and future generations the rich and diverse stories of Japanese Americans for national and international audiences alike.

This award will provide exhibition support for “Above the Fold: New Expressions in Origami,” which will include approximately 15 conceptual works and installations that will expand the visitor’s appreciation of the compelling contemporary art form of origami.   The exhibition is planned for May 2016 through August 2016.

Freewaves creates public media art events that bring diverse audiences and independent media artists together in dialogue on current issues.  Media arts include the work of artists who use communication technology – video, film, the web, and mobile devices.  Freewaves has pioneered every new development in the field of media art, establishing itself as one of the most respected and adventuresome advocates for raising media arts to a truly democratic vector for ideas and images.

Support will go towards “Dis…Miss,” a multi-genre, public visual art experience with media and performance arts components.  Twenty artists will be commissioned to make projects to be featured on six websites that will explore issues facing women today, with the goal to saturate Hollywood.

The Los Angeles Printmaking Society (LAPS) is a national non-profit dedicated to the encouragement of printmaking, educating the public and promoting the interests of printmaking as an art form.

The grant will support the creation of a legacy video entitled “Portraits of Six Printmakers Breaking the Mold” that will showcase the work and methods of contemporary artists who push beyond the boundaries of printmaking.

Since its inception in 1965, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has been devoted to collecting works of art that span both history and geography, in addition to representing Los Angeles’ uniquely diverse population. Today LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States, with a collection that includes over 120,000 objects dating from antiquity to the present, encompassing the geographic world and nearly the entire history of art.

Support will go towards “Beyond Bling,” an exhibition showcasing an extraordinary assemblage of contemporary studio jewelry from the United States, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.  The exhibition, which features selections from the gift of Lois and Bob Boardman, explores the use of nontraditional materials and techniques, the ways jewelry can communicate personal or political messages, and the medium’s potential to shock and delight.  The show will run from October 2, 2016 through February 5, 2017.

LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) is a non-profit organization committed to curating site-specific public art exhibitions in Los Angeles and beyond. LAND believes that all people deserve the opportunity to experience innovative contemporary art in their everyday existence, to enhance their quality of life and ways of thinking about their community. In turn, artists deserve the opportunity to realize projects in the public realm, unsupported through traditional institutions. LAND brings contemporary art outside of the walls of museums and galleries, into our shared public spaces and unique sites.

Grant resources will support “Exchange Value,” a large-scale temporary contemporary art exhibition taking place in various sites in Downtown Los Angeles.  This exhibition runs from June 2016 through December 2016.

LA><ART is the leading independent non-profit contemporary art space in Los Angeles, committed to the production of ambitious and experimental exhibitions, public art projects and publications with both emerging and mid-career artists working locally, nationally and internationally.

Two shows will be funded with this grant.  The first (February 20, 2016 through March 26, 2016) will feature the work of artist Katie Grinnan.  The second (June 4, 2016 through July 9, 2016) will be an exhibition of Kristin Calabrese’s work.  Both artists are interested in the interaction between the physical space, the artist’s work and the audience.

The Long Beach Museum of Art is a community-based organization that collects and cares for a permanent art collection, presents changing exhibitions in a variety of media, and provides engaging educational programming for youth and adults.

The funding received from this grant will support the exhibition “Vitality and Verve,” which will invite contemporary ceramic artists to transform the museum space with ephemeral, site-specific ceramic installations.  The show is expected to run June 2016 through October 2016.

Machine Project is a loose group of artist/performer collaborators who do projects together when invited by other people and institutions, usually museums.  Even though it is half their name, the word “Project”  is loosely defined. Most of the time, it means an institution has asked us them to do something to explore their space. Sometimes, they explore a topic on their own, like ping-pong. Sometimes, they turn their store-front into a forest.

Funding will be used to help support the print series “Machine Project 2016 Public Posters Project,” in which Machine Project will commission ten Southern California designers to create posters for a public performance and workshop series.  It is the hope that the posters will engage the city and national parks throughout the Los Angeles area.  The project will run from Spring 2016 through Fall 2016.

The MAK Center was established in 1994 as an alliance between MAK Vienna and Friends of the Schindler House. Unique in its role as a constellation of historic architectural sites and contemporary exhibition spaces, the MAK Center develops local, national and international projects exploring the intersection of art and architecture.

The grant will lend support to artist Stephanie Taylor’s “The Stay Funny Sailor Kong Boos,” which will include six narrative, character-based installations that Taylor has made since 2011.  A live performance will present the works together with the six songs associated with each installation, featuring tales moving from Boston to Rome to London to Texas and then to Los Angeles.  It will run from September 15, 2016 through October 25, 2016.

Materials & Applications (M&A) is an independent space for contemporary, experimental and alternative architecture. Their mission is to advance innovative and critical ideas in architecture through public programming, which includes temporary architecture, curated events, and special projects.

The funding will be used as exhibition support for “The Kid Gets Out of the Picture,” which is a cycle of three shows dealing with the language of painting and depiction that was developed in 19th Century England.  This exhibition will explore the way the picturesque functioned so that we might ask how these tactics can be deployed in reverse, moving us from picturesque images and converting them back to the real world.  The show will run from July 2016 through December 2016.

Mark Dion, “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, (Toys ‘R’ U.S.),” 1994

Founded in 1979, MOCA collects, exhibits, and interprets art created since 1940 in all media, and is dedicated to preserving it for future generations. The museum is housed in three locations, MOCA Grand Avenue, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and MOCA Pacific Design Center.

The grant will go in support of the exhibition “Don’t Look Back: The 1990’s at MOCA,” which will be a large-scale showcase of works from MOCA’s permanent collection, many of which have never been exhibited.  The show will include Southern California artists such as Paul McCarthy, Catherine Opie and Jason Rhoades and will run at The Geffen Contemporary from March 12, 2016 through July 11, 2016.

The recently formed OxyArts Office is a hub for the arts at Occidental College, supporting its exhibitions and public programming.   OxyArts engages the campus with a contemporary art dialogue via its Weingart Gallery, campus-wide art projects, and work developed by artists in residence.

Support will go towards a site-specific performance and video of the performance by Los Angeles artist Flora Wiegmann.  This piece will re-contextualize dance and grant it new possibilities for communication and to question the limitations inherent in time-based performance.  The performance and resulting video will take place in Fall 2016.

The mission of the PMCA is to present the breadth of California art and design through exhibitions that explore the cultural dynamics and influences that are unique to California.

The funding will go towards the exhibition “Claire Falkenstein: Beyond Sculpture,” a retrospective which includes 65 key works that show her mastery of many media, styles and ideas from her career of over 60 years.  The artist is described as one of America’s most experimental and productive twentieth-century artists, and the exhibition will be on view April 17, 2016 through September 11, 2016.

PCC’s Art Division offers more than 140 visual arts courses. The Boone Family Art Gallery has eight exhibitions during fall and spring semesters, which reflect professional work representing the disciplines taught in the division. These include a guest-curated show, a group faculty show, and the Artist-in-Residence exhibit.

This grant will go towards continued funding of the Pasadena Art Alliance Scholarship, Art Gallery exhibitions, Artist-in-Residence program,  and the Visiting Artist Speakers Program.  This year’s Artist-in-Residence will be Sant Khalsa whose photographic work dealing with water and drought issues is especially significant to the Southern California region.

The Pomona College Museum of Art is the primary visual art facility of Pomona College. It serves as museum and gallery, overseeing the college’s permanent art collections and mounting a variety of temporary contemporary exhibitions during the academic year.

This grant will go towards the museum’s Project Series invitational program for 2016-2017, which is designed to bring art that is experimental, and that introduces new forms, techniques or concepts that may be difficult to show in other contexts.  The series will run from January 2017 through May 2017.

Founded in 1983, the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College presents four annual exhibitions spanning a wide range of art. Whether historical or contemporary, Western or Asian, exhibitions enrich the teaching of art and humanities at Scripps as well as the cultural community of Claremont and environs.  Since 1996, the Williamson Gallery has invited guest curators to coordinate the annual ceramics exhibition.

The grant will support the color-illustrated catalogue for the 73rd Ceramics Annual, and will be curated by Joan Takayama-Ogawa.  The theme will be focusing on “A Sense of Place and Play” and will run January 2017 to April 2017.

Self Help Graphics & Art (SHG) is the leading non-profit visual arts center serving the predominantly Latino community of Los Angeles.  SHG’s mission is to develop and nurture Latino artists in printmaking.

The funding will go towards “Atelier LVIII,”  a project that focuses on LGBTQ gender identities and will provide space for artists to create in a safe space.  Curator Dalila Paola Mendez will work with local artists/activists to produce a series of prints that they hope will encourage constructive and positive dialogue between artists and the community.  The project is ongoing.

Side Street Projects is an entirely mobile artist-run organization that gives artists of all ages the ability and the means to support their creative endeavors. They teach artists how to roll up their sleeves and do things themselves with educational programs that encourage self-reliance and creative problem solving in a contemporary art context. Each year they serve over 10,000 individual (adult) artists and over 2,500 children.

The funded project works with Los Angeles based artist Nancy Popp to create site-specific installations at Side Street mobile headquarters.  The installations will consist of hammocks knitted from mason line, which will be at sites for practical use as well as a series of events that will be developed in collaboration with community partners.  The installations will be on view from July 2016 through March 2017.

Open to the public since 1996, the Skirball Cultural Center has established itself as one of the world’s most dynamic Jewish cultural institutions and among the leading cultural venues in Los Angeles. Its mission is to explore the connections between 4,000 years of Jewish heritage and the vitality of American democratic ideals.

The funding will go towards an exhibition entitled, “The Unauthorized History of Baseball in 100-odd Paintings: The Art of Ben Sakoguchi.”   The son of a grocer and avid baseball fan, Sakoguchi juxtaposes the iconic imagery of vintage orange crate labels from the 1920s to the 1950s with whimsical, eccentric, and sometimes scathing portrayals of America’s beloved sport.  The exhibition will run from April 2016 (coinciding with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ opening day) through October 2016.

Located on the campus of East Los Angeles College, VPAM provides an environment to encounter a range of aesthetic expressions that illuminate the depth and diversity of artwork produced by people of the world, both contemporary and past.

This grant will provide exhibition support for “Movements and Ofrendas: Yreina Cervantez,” a career survey of Cervantez’s ground-breaking work.  Her work explores the relationship between contemporary art and social activist art and is a model of how art has a history of revealing injustices by bearing witness.  The show will run from May 2016 to July 2016.

Venice Arts’ programs serve as a catalyst for people of all ages living in low-income or underrepresented communities, to create and share personal and community stories through photography, film and multi-media.

This grant will support “Reading Room,” an exhibition that will transform the gallery into a space for exploration and engagement with a variety of work by photographic artists working in book form.  The exhibition will take place August 2016 through September 2016.

Founded in Eagle Rock by a group of LA artists, X-TRA has been produced quarterly since 1997 by the Project X Foundation for Art & Criticism. Now found on newsstands and bookstores around the country, X-TRA is an intelligent and respected national publication based in Los Angeles. It is currently the longest running critical art journal ever published in L.A.

Funding will support the publication of commissioned Artist’s Projects and Artist’s Commentaries in four issues of X-TRA to be published between March 2016 and March 2017