Application Overview
This unique regranting initiative, designed and administered by Hyde Park Art Center, has provided over one million dollars in support of the artist-run community in Chicago, and we’re still going. Since 2020, the ARC Fund has awarded one hundred and eighteen $8,000 grants to artist-run platforms, infusing Chicago’s contemporary art network with flexible financial support to strengthen their diverse and experimental programs.
This year, the Artists Run Chicago Fund (ARC Fund) seeks to award fifteen $8,000 unrestricted grants to artists-run platforms in Chicago.
Grantees will be selected through a free, juried, open call.
The 2024 Artists Run Chicago Fund is generously supported by the Good Chaos Foundation, the Local South Foundation and The Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation.
If preferred, applicants may submit their applications by Word document or PDF via email at arcfund@hydeparkart.org. If you have questions of any kind or accommodation inquiries, please contact arcfund@hydeparkart.org.
Program Goals
- Support artist-run platforms and acknowledge their important contribution to the Chicago art community;
- Strengthen the network of artist-run platforms in Chicago;
- Aid self-organizing artists that create more opportunities for other visual artists to show and develop their practice in Chicago;
- Fund platforms that deliver diverse and experimental programs; and
- Boost financial support for platforms run by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and support BIPOC artists and communities.
Eligibility Criteria
Organizations must meet the following eligibility criteria:
- Be an artist-run platform:
- Artist-run platforms are operated by one or several artists and aim to create opportunities that support other artists’ practices by providing resources, public facing presentations, and more. Artist-run platforms are different from an individual artist’s personal practice or socially engaged projects, which do not qualify. While a socially engaged project might include various participants in collective making, an artist-run platform, as defined here, has the capacity to realize other artists’ ideas. Platforms do not require a brick-and-mortar space to be eligible.
- Operate in Chicago or its neighboring suburbs.
- Must have been founded before June of 2023.
- Be led by artists with a demonstrated visual art practice. Applicants must share samples of their artwork.
- Broadly engage with artists (other than artists directing the space/platform), public audiences, and contemporary visual art.
- Must be visual arts focused (DOES NOT include the disciplines of: film, theater, dance, music, or literature unless the platform primarily presents visual art in dialog with these other disciplines).
- Have annual operating budgets of less than $100,000 (no minimum budget required).
- Past ARC Fund recipients must have submitted a grant report in order to be eligible.
- Must not have received an ARC Fund grant in 2023.
Recording of Virtual Workshop
The Jury
Gareth Thomas Kaye is an exhibition maker and art historian based in Chicago, IL. In 2018 he co-founded Apparatus Projects with Julian Van Der Moere, which they ran together until 2024. In 2023, he founded Chicago Spleen, a journal of art criticism, where he writes and serves as editor. He has organized exhibitions for ADDS DONNA and Apparatus Projects, Good Weather and David Salkin. His writings have been published by Apparatus Projects, Bird Show, Baader-Meinhoff, Chicago Artist Writers, F Magazine, Goldfinch Gallery, Journal FYI, Lumpen Magazine, Sixty Inches from Center and PLATFORM Centre for Lens Based Arts.
Bianca Marks is an arts & cultural administrator with over 15 years of professional experience in project management, and strategic communications for corporate and creative environments. She is founder+principal of Marks on Canvas, an agency at the intersection of studio and artist management for BIPOC artists and BIPOC led arts organizations. Referred to “as the engine that makes art move in Chicago,” Bianca fosters strong partnerships between artist studios and their collaborating galleries, museums & institutions, and partner organizations – impacting studio performance, exhibitions, and programs. She represents artists who drive the critical discourses that inspire and affect the city of Chicago and beyond, including: avery r. young, Brendan Fernandes, Faheem Majeed, Tonika Lewis Johnson, and the arts collective Floating Museum, where she serves as deputy director. Her previous roles of distinction include: Studio Manager for MacArthur Fellow Artist+Architect Amanda Williams (2017-2022), Manager of Curatorial Affairs for the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2023-24), and Communications & PR Liaison for the US Pavilion’s Thrival Geographies at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018). Bianca received her BA in consumer sciences with a focus on business administration from the University of Arizona (Bear Down!) and resides with her family, complete with an impressive garden, on Chicago’s Southside.
Alan Medina is an artist, filmmaker, and programmer interested in archival imaginaries, histories of labor, and alternative forms of self-organization within pedagogical frameworks. With a public practice of film programming and independent publishing, he has created autonomous learning and viewing spaces with an emphasis on accessibility and community building. He is a co-founder of Inga Books and filmfront (Chicago, IL).
