RHMF YoYoYo 2015 Artist Grants
The Rema Hort Mann Foundation is excited to announce this year’s recipients of the YoYoYo Artist Grants, part of the RHMF LA Initiative. The YoYoYo Special Funds Grant Program was established in 2013, with the goal to encourage meaningful engagement between Los Angeles–based artists and their surrounding communities. Artists don’t live in a bubble – through this kind of support, our hope is that this special projects fund will promote artists to share their practice and new ideas with a broader community, shed light on relatively unknown issues, and expand the artist’s reach beyond the studio and the gallery.
We are especially interested in supporting artist collaborations, as the grant can be allocated to awarding participatory honorariums for artists involved in projects who would otherwise be donating their time.
Through careful deliberation, the evaluation committee selected 12 artist proposals that will receive funding ranging from $750-$2000 to carry out their projects that range from walking tours and discussions, to the production of publications and documentary film.
We would like to give a special thanks to this year’s YoYoYo Selection Committee for their invaluable contribution to the selection process:
Rosson Crow (artist), York Chang (artist), Vanessa Chow (artist), Travis Diehl (artist/critic), Marcy Freedman, artist/art historian), Jonathan Griffin (critic), Suzanne Hudson (writer/art historian), Soo Kim (artist), Aandrea Stang (Director, OxyArts), Christopher Ulivo (artist), Stephanie Washburn (artist)
Please help us congratulate the 2015 YoYoYo Grantees!
Carmen Argote – “Alex’s Room: Walks”
A set of walking tours, discussion, and printed map to correspond with the exhibition Alex’s Room at the LA gallery Commonwealth and Council. The walks erve to ask: what is the connection between the way we create areas for display, sharing and culture in our private and public spaces? The grant will go toward stipends for participating artists, writer’s fees, and the design and printing of maps for the tour.
Audrey Chan – “JC2”
Publication of a book that chronicles the artist’s performances since 2008 as Judy Chicago’s Chinese-American doppelganger. The book will include interviews and contextual essays by critics and art historians, as well as be accompanied by a book launch to take place at the LA Art Book Fair. The grant will go to support the book design fees.
Kelman Duran – “OAPS”
The artist, along with other artist collaborators, will imagine ways in which ids-automation can be theorized through performances, panels, and publications. The show will also invite numerous writers, artists and practitioners to write for a publication around the theme of Open Air Prison’s, namely by under-represented artists in Los Angeles, Tijuana, and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The grant will go towards paying artist panelists for their involvement.
Samantha B Goodman – “EXCERPTS”
The artist will work with ten diverse Los Angeles based artists working in the fields of dance, music, video, clothing, and lighting, to create a new evening length work designed to provoke heightened sensory experiences for performers and audience members. The grant will go toward an honorarium for each participating artists.
Iris Yirei Hu – “Baumtest”
A quarterly art publication by five first-generation American female artists and writers from Los Angeles that aims to provide a platform of support and experimentation to under-recognized artists of color and non-traditional ways of art-making who contribute to Los Angeles’ multifaceted identity. The grant will go toward the printing and distribution of their sixth issue and the development of a short-term exhibition to accompany the book release.
Bessie Kunath – “Dirty Jokes”
An exhibition by art collective Manual History Machines that focuses on humor as a philosophical device, and will primarily feature LA-based visual artists that layer humor in complex patterns. The grant will go towards shipping, production and promotional costs related to the exhibition.
Rebecca Lieb – “CollectRank”
Development of a website that will serve as a resource for artists to make informed business decisions in regards to their own work. The website will serve as a database of verified, user-compiled information provided by artists and galleries on specific collectors, art dealers and art institutions on their collecting practices, and how they rank amongst their peers. The grant will cover website setup and artist fees.
Elana Mann – “Chats About Change Part II: Acts and Conversations on Art and Politics in Los Angeles”
A series of artist dialogues and exhibitions about arts and the connection to social change, that will specifically spark discussion of recent national events. The Chats will involve the Michelada Think Tank, a group of socially conscious artists. The grant will be used towards an honorarium for artists participants.
Nicolas Miller – “Real Difference is Disruptive”
Publication of a collection of product reviews by the amazon.com user Edward G. Nilges, one of the sites most read users, who has presented a unique model of critical and philosophical engagement with a diverse group of Amazon products, with the goal to encourage serious criticality of ideological and cultural forces within online commercial products. The grant will go towards printing and writer commission for the publication.
Dylan Mira – “A Woman is not a Woman”
Publication that focuses on the research to expand on the concepts addressed in the artist’s eponymous film, including the history of Korean female divers, the destruction of Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid sculpture, and women’s experimental writing. The publication will incorporate imagery, text and interviews culled from the artist’s ongoing research. The grant will go towards printing, shipping, graphic design and artist fees.
Simone Montemurno – “Wik-Ed Women (…The next generation)”
A series of Wikiedia editing workshops for Los Angeles women in the arts to contribute their expertise to Wikipedi, specifically expanding its contents about women artists. The grant will go toward upgrading internet connection, subscription fees to periodical archives, as well as printing costs to publish the Wik-Ed Women’s ‘zine to participants and the arts community.
Albert Samreth – “Toul Sleng High School III”
Travel to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to produce a documentary film at a former high school turned prison and execution center, which is now the site of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, chronicling genocide during the war. The documentary will confront the complexities within memorial architecture, and will be preserved in the archive at the Bophana Film Center in Phnom Penh. The grant will go towards travel and board for the artist while on location.
