Art Matters Foundation

Art Matters began as the brainchild of philanthropist Laura Donnelley, who wanted to assist artists struggling to say something with bite and punch, artists who made "art that mattered." Incorporated in 1985 as a non-profit private foundation, Art Matters' mission was to support experimentation in art, both in media and ideas. Donnelley assembled a... board of professionals in the field with breadth and diversity of knowledge, and provided the operating and grant money for the first six years. Art Matters gave fellowships to individual artists and, to a lesser degree, funding for the organizations that sponsored and presented new work, most often the alternative and artist run spaces. The foundation tried to make it easy for artists to apply by eschewing lengthy applications, and made the turn-around time for receiving funds as short as possible. Art Matters chose to give small grants to many artists rather than larger ones to fewer. Need was simply assumed, and promise, rather than accomplishment, was the issue. By 1996 the foundation had given over $2 million to almost 2000 artists. When conservative groups started taking pot shots at art in 1989, their wrath was often directed toward precisely the younger, more experimental and more vulnerable artists that Art Matters had been funding. Art Matters responded to the government defunding and threat of censorship by making particular effort to aid artists whose message was endangered by the chilling effects of the culture wars. Art Matters became a participant in the activism of the late 1980s, supporting strong statements and actions intended to protest and to produce change. The foundation gave seed money to a number of organized efforts that directly challenged the government's position on cultural funding and AIDS, including the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression and Visual AIDS. Although Laura Donnelley understood the foundation's ardor and stood by it, the oppositional stance that Art Matters forged during that time was difficult for her. In 1991, ...Read More