FCA Friends

The FCA Friends is a group of thoughtful and serious arts patrons committed to supporting contemporary visual and performing artists. Co-chaired by Caroline Hoffman and Paul Leong, the group funds one prestigious Grants to Artists award each year and directly selects the recipient of the FCA Friends Award. In 2024, Nile Harris was selected as the Grants to Artists recipient to be supported by the group. In previous years, Friends members selected Grants to Artists recipients Kenneth Tam (2023), JJJJJerome Ellis (2022), Du Yun (2021), Andrew Schneider (2020), Mika Tajima (2019), and Carissa Rodriguez (2018).

Members connect with FCA's rich community of artist supporters and recipients at private events and special programs. To provide an intimate and interactive experience, the FCA Friends membership goal is just 45 people. Recent events have included:

Private tour of FCA Director Emerita Agnes Gund's collection and home.
Day trips to Ellsworth Kelly's Studio in Columbia County, New York, Universal Limited Art Editions on Long Island, and The Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut
Studio visits with Cecily Brown, Robert Gober, Nate Lowman, Amy Sillman, 2019 Grantee Mika Tajima, and William Wegman
Gallery talks with Cecily Brown, Jennie C. Jones, James Welling, and T.J. Wilcox, 1995 Grantee Joan Jonas, and 2019 Grantee Trisha Donnelly at her inaugural installation at The Shed.
Artist talks with 2006 Grantee Paul Chan, 2018 Grantee Sam Lewitt, and 2019 Grantee C. Spencer Yeh
Private tours of Donald Judd's home and studio at 101 Spring Street and Louise Bourgeois’s home and studio in Chelsea
Performance by 2022 Grantee JJJJJerome Ellis at The Shed.
Private tours of museum exhibitions including member: Pope.L at The Museum of Modern Art with Stuart Comer, The Lonti Ebers Chief Curator of Media and Performance, Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror at The Whitney Museum of American Art with Curatorial Assistant Lauren Young, and Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid with Ian Alteveer, former Curator, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

If you are interested in learning more about the FCA Friends, please contact: kf@contemporary-arts.org or 212-807-7077.

Performance still from A Monkey on One's Back (Love Laboratory) at the Watermill Center, Water Mill, NY, 2017. Performer: Nile Harris. Photo by Chloe Bellemere.

2023 FCA Friends-supported grantee Kenneth Tam, installation view of All of M at Sculpture Center, Queens, NY, 2019. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

2022 FCA Friends-supported grantee JJJJJerome Ellis, performance still from Harriet Tubman (Brandon Ross, Melvin Gibbs, JT Lewis) / JJJJJerome Ellis & Holland Andrews, at Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn, 2021. Photo by Cameron Kelly Mcleod, courtesy of ISSUE Project Room.

2021 FCA Friends-supported grantee Du Yun, performance still from Sweet Land, at Los Angeles State Historic Park, Los Angeles, 2020. Photo by Casey Kringlen, courtesy of The Industry.

2020 FCA Friends-supported grantee Andrew Schneider, performance still from AFTER, at the Public Theater, New York, 2018. Performers: Andrew Schneider, Alicia ayo Ohs. Photo by Maria Baranova.

2019 FCA Friends-supported grantee Mika Tajima, installation view of Meridian (Gold), at Hunter's Point South Park, Long Island City, 2016. Commissioned by SculptureCenter. Photo by Yasunori Matsui.

2018 FCA Friends-supported grantee Carissa Rodriguez, installation view, I'm normal, I have a garden, I'm a person, CCA Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, 2015.

"The single-most valuable asset for an artist is time. Time is the most sought after, misunderstood, surreptitiously commodified, and indefinable medium an artist has. The Grants to Artists award has given me this—above all else—time."

— Andrew Schneider
2020 Grants to Artists | Performance Art/Theater
This award was supported by the FCA Friends