ASU Art Museum receives $2.5M grant to support international artist residency

The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts has received a $2.5 million challenge grant from the Windgate Charitable Foundation in support of the ASU Art Museum. 

For each dollar donated in the next three years to the ASU Art Museum and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, the Windgate Charitable Foundation will provide a dollar-for-dollar match, with the matched portion going to support the ASU Art Museum International Artist Residency Program at Combine Studios.

The impact of each gift will in effect be doubled by this grant, and will assist the ASU Art Museum in its mission to be a center for the exchange of new ideas, perspectives and experiences among artists, students and the public, as well as fulfill the mission of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts to educate the designers, artists, architects, performers and creative scholars who are essential to developing solutions to current and future issues facing society.

The ASU Art Museum’s relationship with the Windgate Charitable Foundation has been strong for well over fifteen years prior to this current gift, with the foundation providing financial support for several museum exhibitions, ranging from "Turned Wood Now: Redefining the Lathe-Turned Object IV" (1997) to the recent "Wayne Higby: Infinite Place" (2013) and "Crafting a Continuum: Rethinking Contemporary Craft" (2013). Also in 2013, support from the Windgate made possible the museum’s symposium "FlashBackForward: Rethinking Craft," which explored critical issues facing the field of contemporary craft locally, nationally and internationally.

Windgate has also supported the museum in providing two paid curatorial internships each year since January 2005. Art and art history graduate and undergraduate students in the ASU Herberger Institute School of Art are eligible for the annual internships. These interns are integrated into departments across the museum, working hands-on alongside the museum’s staff. After their graduation, many have continued on to become staff members at the ASU Art Museum and at other museums across the country.

“Due in great part to the generous support from the Windgate Charitable Foundation, the ASU Art Museum has become an international force in contemporary craft and a recognized supporter of artists accomplishing their artistic vision through residencies, exhibitions, commissions and acquisitions,” says Gordon Knox, the ASU Art Museum’s director.

Established Feb. 14, 2011, the ASU Art Museum International Artist Residency Program brings accomplished professional artists from around the world to develop new work in partnership with the intellectual resources of Arizona State University and the diverse communities within Arizona. Through the program, artists develop work in collaboration with scientists, technologists, social agencies and community organizations that investigate the pressing issues of our time.

For more information, or to give to the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, contact Shawn Richards, director of development, at Shawn.Richards@asu.edu or 480.965.8985; or Rossi Todorova, development coordinator for the ASU Art Museum, at Rossi.Todorova@asu.edu or 480.965.5299.