VISION
With a focus on creative individuals, we are currently building upon our current portfolio of programs that fund documentary filmmakers, writers, choreographers, playwrights and scholars to include composers, choreographers, poets and visual artists. The size and number of grants is increasing, along with new professional development and networking opportunities for grantees. A national distribution network of communities and agencies is being organized to bring the works of artists and scholars to institutions around the United States.
Eye Meets Ear: Visual Arts Competition for Emerging Artists
We are currently accepting applications for the Eye Meets Ear: Visual Arts Competition for Emerging Artists sponsored by the Milken Archive. Applications must be received by Midnight EDT on Monday, November 1, 2010 to be eligible. Prize decisions will be announced at the end of December 2010.
Click here to access the online application.
Overview
Since its founding in 1990, the Milken Archive has cultivated one of the largest collections of music, and related historical and ethnographic material, that pertains to the American Jewish experience. The collection comprises more than 700 musical works, (over 500 world premier recordings), 800 hours of oral histories, 45,000 photographs and memorabilia, and thousands of hours of video footage from recording sessions, interviews, and live performances, as well as an extensive collection of program notes, essays, and articles that place the music in cultural and historical context.
On January 1, 2011, the Milken Archive will unveil its latest project, a virtual museum in which to make its vast collection available on the Internet. This virtual museum, known officially as the Milken Archive of Jewish Music: the American Experience, will serve as a resource to Jewish music enthusiasts and educators for generations to come. The museum's contents are organized into 20 volumes, each of which explores a particular historical, cultural, or musical theme.
The Milken Archive and the Foundation for Jewish Culture are holding a competition to solicit new works of art to be used as cover art for the these 20 volumes. Artists may submit works of art, in any static medium, that express and/or relate to the theme of any of the virtual museum's 20 volumes, as outlined in the provided briefings. Each of the 20 selected works will earn the artist a $2,000 cash prize, and be featured in the virtual museum (and in related products and communications).
Eligibility Requirements
- Applicant must be 18-39 years old
- Applicant must be the creator of the submitted artwork.
- Applicant must be able to relinquish all legal rights to the artwork submitted.
- All art submitted must be unpublished.
- Artwork must not contain the volume's number or title, nor a signature, initial, or copyright.
Any static medium is eligible as long as the work conforms, or can be made to conform, to a flat, two-dimensional format with a vertically oriented aspect ratio of 6:9½, suitable for viewing as an image online in JPEG, GIF, PDF, or TIF format. Minimum resolution of 300 DPI required.
An artist may submit multiple artworks. A separate application is required for each submitted artwork.
Criteria and Guidelines for Selection and Review Process
The artwork must relate to the theme of the relevant volume.
Artists are encouraged to use the final beta site of the museum (www.milkenarchive.org) as a resource for (1) learning more about the Archive's expansive collection, (2) getting a sense of the look and feel of the virtual museum, (3) learning more about the music and organizational themes, and (4) understanding the final format in which the artwork will ultimately be displayed.
An artist statement is required: Please provide a statement of up to 250 words explaining your work's connection to the particular volume's theme.
Timeline
September 1: Beta site available for viewing online; submissions accepted.
November 1: Deadline for Submissions.
November-December: Panel Review
End of December: Prize Announcements
JERUSALEM CULTURAL FELLOWSHIP
Mishkenot Sha'ananim and the Foundation for Jewish Culture are collaborating on the creation of an institute at Mishkenot, modeled after the successful American Academies in Rome and Berlin. Groups of distinguished artists and scholars, leading experts in their fields, will be in residence at Mishkenot for two ot three month periods. They will work on projects inspired by Jerusalem and connect with cultural and academic institutions, thereby enriching the city's cultural discourse. We expect they will return home with new connections and share their appreciation of the rich diversity and potential of this extraordinary city.
2010 Jewish Cultural Fellowship Pilot Program fellows included:
- Artistic Director and performer Reggie Wilson, who founded his company, Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group, in 1989. Wilson draws from the movement languages of the blues, slave and spiritual cultures of Africans in the Americas and combines them with post-modern elements and his own personal movement style to create what he now calls "post-African/Neo-HooDoo Modern dances." His work has been presented nationally and internationally.
Wilson is a graduate of New York University, Tisch School of the Arts and has lectured, taught and conducted extended workshops and community projects throughout the US, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. He is the recipient of the Minnesota Dance Alliance's McKnight National Fellow (2000-2001). Wilson is also a 2002 BESSIE New York Dance and Performance Award recipient for his work The Tie-tongued Goat and the Lightning Bug Who Tried to Put Her Foot Down and a 2002 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. He has been an artist advisor for the National Dance Project and is a Board Member of Dance Theater Workshop. Most recently, in recognition of his creative contributions to the field, Wilson was named a 2009 United States Artists Prudential Fellow and is the recipient of the 2009 Herb Alpert Award in Dance. His current work, "The Good Dance - dakar/brooklyn," had its World premiere at the Walker Art Center in November 2009 and NY premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 2009. For more information on the Company and Reggie Wilson, please email fistandheel@verizon.net.
- Oregon State University art professor Shelley Jordon, born in Brooklyn, NY, is a Portland-based artist whose work explores the intersection of interior and exterior worlds and connections between past and present experiences. She uses traditional drawing and painting media applied to two dimensional work as well as animation and animated installation that examine issues relating to vulnerability and risk. Her first animated painting, "Family History", won the "Judge's Award" at the 36th Annual Northwest Film Festival from LA Times film critic, Ken Turan and the "Silver Coyote; Critic's Choice Award" at the Gold Coyote Super Short Film Festival in Oregon and has been screened at film festivals around the world, including Hamburg, Germany and Sydney, Austalia.
A recipient of a 2010 Oregon Arts Commission Individual Fellowship Award, a Fulbright-Hayes Group Travel Research Grant to Yemen and Tunisia, and an Oregon Artist’s Fellowship Award in Painting, Jordon is a Professor of Art at Oregon State University. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including a mid-career retrospective at the Frye Museum in Seattle, Washington and inclusion in the Oregon Biennial at the Portland Art Museum. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and her MFA from Brooklyn College, also in New York. She has recently returned from the American Academy in Rome where she was a visiting artist this past spring. For more, see http://shelleyjordon.com
- Urban planner Josh Sirefman, former Director of the Mayor's Office of Economic Development and Rebuilding. Prior to that appointment, Mr. Sirefman served as Chief Operating Officer of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the primary vehicle for promoting economic growth in each of the five boroughs. Mr. Sirefman has worked and will continue to work on many of the City’s development priorities, including waterfront projects such as Brooklyn Bridge Park, Governors Island and the redevelopment of Coney Island, and the continued development of the City’s primary business districts, including Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn.
Sirefman received his Master of Urban Planning from the University's Taubman College and participated in the inaugural year of the Michigan AmeriCorps program. While here, he studied the rapid population decline and resulting effects on Detroit's industrial base and housing stock. Sirefman honed his community and economic development skills working with the Islandview Community Development Corporation on the eastside of Detroit.
- And literary power couple Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated) and Nicole Krauss (The History of Love) who were just named two of the New Yorker's "20 Under 40".
Check out the pictures of the Jerusalem Cultural Fellowship on Flickr taken by Elise, who blogged her impressions and experiences here and here, and other takes on the pilot program in news outlets like the Jerusalem Post (twice!), the Gazette Times, and the Jewish Review, as well as on blogs like the Forward's Arty Semite and Midnight East.
Initial research support for this initiative was provided by the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, and support for the pilot residency has been provided by the Bracha Foundation.
NEW JEWISH MUSIC
The New Jewish Music Initiative is underway with major support from the Polinger Foundation. It will launch in Fall 2011 with an inaugural tour by Six Points Fellow Galeet Dardashti. More details to come.
