Foundation for Contemporary Arts
Our Mission

FCA encourages, sponsors, and promotes innovative work in the arts

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News

Foundation for Contemporary Arts Receives Almost $10 Million in Gifts, Expanding its Grant-Making to Artists

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Foundation for Contemporary Arts Receives Almost $10 Million in Gifts, Expanding its Grant-Making to Artists

Viola Farber cutting Jasper Johns' hair at BAM, 1969. Photo by James Klosty.

FCA: Artists for Artists
About FCA

FCA: Artists for Artists

In 1962 Jasper Johns, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and other painters and sculptors came together to help Merce Cunningham and his dance company finance a proposed season on Broadway by arranging for a sale of their artworks. Their fund-raising efforts were so successful that there was money to spare, and when they asked Cunningham what he thought they should do with it, he replied, “We’re all in the same boat—why don’t you give it to other performing artists?” Thus in 1963 Jasper Johns and John Cage established the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts based on the belief that visual artists—painters and sculptors—were sufficiently concerned about the state of the performance arts—dance, theater, and music—enough so to donate artwork to benefit performing artists. 

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Grant Impact

“The greatest benefit of the award was having the luxury to develop work slowly and to experiment. Instead of rushing through my work under pressure to produce, I chose to work slowly, thoughtfully, spontaneously, and sometimes recklessly, taking time to look for something new instead of using old patterns and processes.”

— Annie Gosfield, composer
2008 Grants to Artists | Music/Sound

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