Wexner Center for the Arts to receive $45,000 in grants from the National Endowment for the Arts

The Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University has received two awards from the National Endowment for the Arts in its second round of funding for fiscal year 2018.

The grants, provided through the NEA’s largest funding category, Art Works, will support a multidisciplinary programming initiative that audiences will be able to experience in 2019 and the continuation of efforts to provide crucial assistance to filmmakers. The Wex is the only arts organization in Ohio to secure two grants in this funding cycle.

A grant of $25,000 in “Presenting and Multidisciplinary Works” will support the center’s co-commission of The Last Jazz Fest, a live interdisciplinary performance spanning the fields of music, video, theater, and sculptural installation. The work, a collaboration between award-winning jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran and Ohio-based video and visual art duo Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch, is designed to explore the state of modern jazz and upend audience expectations of what encompasses a jazz festival. Its appearance at the Wex will coincide with the center’s spring 2019 presentation of Jason Moran, the first museum show focused on Moran’s visual art, organized by the Walker Art Center.

An additional award of $20,000 in “Media Arts” will support post-production residencies for up to 20 artists in the coming fiscal year through the Wexner Center Film/Video Studio Program, as well as supplement the Wexner Center Artist Residency Awards in Film/Video for 2018-19. The funds will also support equipment upgrades and continuing development of an online archive of the 400-plus works created with the Film/Video Studio Program’s assistance.

Jason Moran image (above) courtesy of the artist, photo: Clay Patrick McBride.