support For visual arts projects that propose new directions for the creation and presentation of contemporary art.
Artist H. Boone (center) and friends in front of their work.
About the Fund
Our region is the birthplace of electric power as we know it: Nikola Tesla used the power of the Niagara River to create the first alternating current and transmit electricity over a great distance – to Buffalo. Inspired by that historic development, the Generator Fund aims to support visual arts projects that propose new directions for the creation and presentation of contemporary art in our region.
What we Fund
As a part of the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Art’s Regional Regranting Program, this fund targets informal, non-incorporated artist collectives and independent organizers whose work often falls outside the scope of typical funding sources. The fund is meant to support artistic activity outside of the studio, to encourage collaboration, and to foster new connections and institutions among artists in Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and the suburban and rural areas that surround us. The fund is administered by the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art.
Types of Grants
In its first year, the Generator Fund will consist of two grant types:
KINETIC GRANTS are awards up to $2,000 to fund an artist’s production for a new project with a publicly accessible component.
Examples may include but are in no way limited to exhibitions, performances, videos or film screenings, books/zines/brochures.
POTENTIAL GRANTS are awards up to $10,000 and are intended to act as seed funds to sustain novel, long-term platforms for artistic expression and experimentation that foster collaboration, dialogue, and discourse in our region.
Examples may include exhibition spaces (from formal to informal; your bedroom to a rented space); podcasts or radio stations; zines or forums for arts writing; collective spaces; community gardens; public lecture series. This grant is meant to fund artists in collaboration to create new platforms for presentation.
In either grant type, the Jurors are looking for proposals that:
exemplify collectivity, equity, or unexpected collaboration;
which nurture and sustain our creative ecosystem;
and/or represent a distinctive or new approach to the visual arts or culture in the region.
Over time, the fund aims to increase artistic dynamism and empower artists in our community to think beyond the entrenched systems in our art world.
Round 1 Jury
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Tiffany Gaines
Tiffany D. Gaines is a curator, writer, photographer, and multimedia creator. Stemming from her experiences as a Black woman in America, her multidisciplinary practice focuses on the most fundamental elements of the human experience to engage new, diverse perspectives and activate the past in ways that can lead to a more understanding and empathetic future. Currently, she is the Curatorial and Digital Content Associate at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. She holds a BA in Journalism from SUNY Buffalo State and an MA in Visual Studies from the University at Buffalo.
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Pablo Guardiola
Pablo Guardiola is a visual artist. His work points to different modes of narration and how these are perceived and understood. Recently he curated with Yina Jiménez Suriel, one month after being known in that island (ways of working in the Caribbean). He is co-director of Beta-Local, an arts non-profit dedicated to support and promote contemporary art practices and aesthetic thought in Puerto Rico.
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Julia Dzwonkoski
Julia Dzwonkoski is a visual artist based in Buffalo, NY. She studied at SUNY Buffalo and UC San Diego. Living in Los Angeles for many years, she collaborated with Kye Potter on paintings, books and the record label, Orion Read. Her recent work explores the highs and lows of modern life though the lens of ghosts, stars, snails and inventions for the end-times.
The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art
The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (BICA) is an art and education project for Buffalo founded by Nando Alvarez-Perez and Emily Ebba Reynolds. Through innovative exhibitions, cross-disciplinary skills-based programming, and arts ecology development, BICA works with artists and creatives to sustain communities through focused, practical engagements with contemporary art. Learn more at thebica.org.
Established in 1987 in accordance with Andy Warhol’s will, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ mission is the advancement of the visual arts. The primary focus of its grant making activity is to support the creation, presentation, and documentation of contemporary visual art, particularly work that is experimental, under-recognized, or challenging in nature.
The foundation’s Regional Regranting Program, launched in 2007, aims to support vibrant, under-the-radar artistic activity by partnering with leading cultural institutions in communities across the country. The program allows the Warhol Foundation to reach the sizable population of informal, non-incorporated artist collectives and to support their alternative gathering spaces, publications, websites, events and other projects.