When the pioneering artist-run feminist nonprofit A.I.R. Gallery launched a residency fellowship for rising artists within the early Nineties, the primary cohort consisted solely of 1 particular person, summary photographer Tenesh Webber. Three many years later, this system’s cohort has expanded to 6 artists, who’re presently exhibiting work on the gallery’s area in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Over the course of the fellowship’s historical past, greater than 120 ladies and nonbinary artists have participated on this residency, receiving essential sources and work alternatives at the start of their careers.
Now, the way forward for this longstanding fellowship lies in uncertainty within the wake of rescinded grant funding from the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an company that, together with the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities, President Donald Trump is in search of to dismantle.
Like scores of arts organizations across the nation, A.I.R. obtained a discover from the federal company earlier this month that its 2025 grant of $30,000 had been terminated as a consequence of a so-called misalignment of pursuits.
Exhibition view of A.I.R fellow Zoila Andrea Coc-Chang’s (鄭慧蘭) by no means settling into the steadiness of objects (2023) on the nonprofit’s gallery (picture by Sebastian Bach)
The mass termination of grants has been decried by arts organizations across the nation, together with the nationwide collective of U.S. Regional Arts Organizations. Notably, the notices had been despatched out simply weeks after a puzzling federal court docket order that finally didn’t stop the NEA from barring funds to arts organizations whose initiatives had been deemed to advertise “gender ideology.” (After being sued by 4 arts organizations, the company stated it had dropped the extremely scrutinized funding requisite, though it has but to take away the requirement from its web site, the place it’s marked as “pending the outcome of litigation.”)
“I’m concerned about what these funding cuts will mean for artists across the country, and whose voices we’ll potentially miss out on if programs don’t continue,” she added.
“ This is not the first NEA award that we’ve lost. We lost our first grant in the late ’80s,” A.I.R’s Government Director Christian Camacho-Gentle instructed Hyperallergic in a telephone name. On the time, the NEA pulled grants from scores of particular person artists and cultural organizations in response to pressures from conservative lawmakers and Christian extremist lobbyists that accused the company of funding “obscene or indecent” artwork.
This isn’t the primary time that A.I.R. has misplaced federal funding: Within the late Eighties and ‘90s, the NEA pulled grants from the nonprofit alongside scores of individual artists and cultural organizations in response to pressures from conservative lawmakers and Christian extremist lobbyists that accused the agency of funding “obscene or indecent” art.
In the last few years, however, the NEA award has become a crucial resource for A.I.R’s fellowship program. Since 2021, the funding has accounted for roughly 20% of this system’s finances. It largely funds the solo exhibitions of the collaborating fellows, a key side of this system which additionally supplies sources like curatorial assist, skilled growth workshops, and mentorship alternatives. (The fellowship residency can be supported by funding from town, the state, in addition to a mixture of particular person donors and philanthropic foundations.)
The grant has additionally allowed A.I.R. to additional develop this system in different methods, similar to quadrupling stipends for fellows and including extra skilled growth alternatives for traditionally underrepresented artists, Camacho-Gentle stated.
Exhibition view of present A.I.R fellow Maria RJ’s Hunter, Healer, Warrior, Demise (2025) on the nonprofit’s gallery final month (picture by Matthew Sherman)
María de los Angeles Rodríguez Jiménez, one in every of A.I.R’s present fellows, described the steerage and assist supplied by this system as “invaluable.” Her solo present Hunter, Healer, Warrior, Demise, which drew on Afro-Cuban oral histories and Yorùbá non secular practices, ran for a month throughout March and April.
The nonprofit has submitted an attraction to the NEA to rethink its resolution, however Camacho-Gentle doesn’t count on that the company will reverse its resolution.
“ Our appeal letter points to the fact that in addition to A.I.R being a historically important and vital alternative art space and support system for women artists, women artists are inextricable from American art history from American stories,” Camacho-Gentle added.
A.I.R. has additionally reached out to the general public for donations, and to date raised at the very least $5,000 of the $30,000 misplaced funding, Camacho-Gentle stated. They emphasised that even within the absence of federal assist, the nonprofit is not going to roll again on its assist for girls and nonbinary artists, together with these within the present fellowship cohort and subsequent yr’s cohort.
“ A.I.R has lived through moments in which the gains of feminism and women and non-binary folks have faced headwinds, but it has always stuck to its mission,” Camacho-Gentle stated, including that there’s nonetheless “rampant inequity” for girls and nonbinary folks within the arts and in broader society.
“There’s a need, and we’re going to continue meeting that need.”
