Announcement

Art for the Now: Help Support Our Communities

COVID-19 is ravaging the cultural field to an extent not seen since the AIDS crisis. It is forcing us to re-envision how we collaborate, to consider new types of programming and interactions that can flourish in digital space, and to shift our resources as we begin to reach our publics differently.

The Vera List Center is pleased to announce a new initiative, Art for the Now, intended to provide direct support to some of the most vulnerable in our communities – artists, freelancers, teachers, and students – to ensure that we emerge from this storm resilient and strong.

Our plan is a radical one: to significantly raise the scope of our honoraria, expanding whom we pay and how much. Starting now and running through fall, for each online event we will offer both presenter fees and ten modest stipends for members of our public.

Our goal is to raise $15,000 between now and June 1. To make this possible, we are offering for sale spectacular, limited-edition, fine arts prints commissioned from artists we admire:

Dan Graham
Sarah Morris
Matt Mullican
Paul Ramírez Jonas
Fred Wilson

JOIN US!

$750 will get you a print of your choice. And the assurance that 100% of the income received by the VLC will directly be passed on to our online program participants.*

Please purchase the art print of your choice below through our agent Artspace.

If you prefer, please consider donating a higher or lower amount here.

With deep appreciation to Dan, Sarah, Matt, Paul, and Fred.

And to you!

Vera List Center for Art and Politics

* We will double the W.A.G.E.-certified honoraria we’ve already been paying to our speakers. And we will pay ten modest, one-time stipends to ten participants at each online event.

Thus Art for the Now achieves two goals: it uses the multi-directional interactivity of digital platforms to distribute resources among those in our communities most in need, i.e. the students, artists, freelancers, and adjunct faculty participating in our events. And it recognizes the significant contributions all event participants make, whether they’re on stage or in the audience. After all, a program is only as good as the people “in the room.” 

The prints have been commissioned by the Vera List Center, the List Visual Arts Center at MIT, and the Vera List Art Project at Lincoln Center to celebrate the legacy of philanthropist Vera List. Vera would be pleased that we continue the sale of this portfolio, in support of our vibrant though hurting art communities.