The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, a nonprofit organization founded in 1963 by artists John Cage and Jasper Johns to benefit other artists, has chosen Andrea Fraser, professor of art at UCLA, to receive one of 16 unrestricted grants in 2017. The winners include a formidable mix of established and emerging artists in a range of disciplines ranging from dance to poetry and the performance art/theater.
Fraser was selected as one of four artists in the field of visual arts to receive a $40,000 grant. She's an artist whose work has been identified with performance, feminism and institutional critique. Her notable works include "Museum HIghlights" (1989), in which the artist posed as a tour guide at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and led visitors to consider "artworks" such as drinking fountain.
Fraser has created performances for a number of institutions, including the New Museum, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford. She is a founding member of the feminist performance group The V-Girls, who presented panel-like performances at galleries, museums and universities. Her essays and performance scripts have appeared in "Art in America," "Artforum" and many other publications.
She was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship in 1991, the Wolfgang Hahn Prize in 2013 and the Oskar Kokoschka Prize in 2016, among others. She is a visiting faculty member of the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program.
View the complete list of 2017 awardees here.
