Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award Grant

The Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award, established in 1998, supports innovative, thematic exhibitions that present contemporary art within unconventional frameworks. It fosters creativity by offering funding up to $200,000 for curators partnering with non-profit spaces. The award encourages exploration of critical ideas, emphasizing intellectual quality and public impact. Eligible applicants include established curators and institutions, aiming to promote artistic expression while enhancing community engagement and discourse through diverse projects.

The Exhibition Award was created in 1998 to honor the talent and artistic vision of our founder, Emily Hall Tremaine. Her passion for art and support of living artists inspired, challenged, and brought joy to those around her.
The proposal should be for a strong, thematic exhibition that puts the works of contemporary art and/or architecture in a new or unconventional aesthetic, historical, cultural, and/or social framework. Applicants are encouraged to think expansively and challenge conventional thought through the exploration of critical ideas in the context of contemporary art. The award is intended to provide support for exhibitions at the beginning stage of their development and to offer the curator the support needed to fully explore a concept and realize an exhibition.
Review Criteria for the Jury
For each award cycle, established contemporary art curators are selected to serve as jury panelists to review the applications. The criteria that the jury panel will use to determine the award recipients include:

• Intellectual quality of the proposal's premise
• Degree of innovation
• Distinction from other major art exhibitions either planned or mounted within the last 15 years with a similar topic
• Potential for both professional and public impact
• Feasibility of implementation
• Quality and excellence of the works of art to be included
• Capacity of the exhibition space to physically accomplish the vision of the concept
• Funding
• The Exhibition Award includes four components:
• Core Exhibition & Publication - up to $150,000
• Living Artist Honorariums - up to $10,000
• Enhanced Engagement Fund - up to $20,000
• Post-Opening Opportunity Fund - up to $20,000

The three components that supplement the Core Exhibition are automatically available to the Award recipient and do not need to be defined or committed to in the initial proposal. If an applicant utilizes all four components at the highest levels, the maximum award possible is $200,000.
Core Exhibition & Publication
The core exhibition funding ranges from $50,000-$150,000, depending on the amount requested by the applicant. Core funding is intended to support the following items:

• Opportunities for a curator (or multiple curators) to research and fully explore a concept.

Full development and opening of a thematic exhibition that put the works of contemporary art and/or architecture in a new or unconventional aesthetic, or in historical, cultural, and/or social frameworks that challenge conventional thought.
Commission new works for the exhibition.
Living Artists Honorariums (existing works)
In honor of Emily Hall Tremaine’s dedication to supporting living artists, the Foundation will make available up to $10,000 for the exhibiting institution to provide direct benefits to living artists lending, installing, or in any other way showing their existing work in the exhibition.
The suggested structure is to provide $1,000 per artist or per artist collaborative or artist collective (regardless of the number of pieces involved). The living artist support may be combined with artist fees or any other payments made related to securing existing works.
Note 1: Because exhibitions proposals will be in early conceptual stages, the estimate of existing work and living artist supports will be finalized when the final exhibition checklist is submitted. In addition, the Foundation will issue a single check for the total amount of living artist supports to the exhibiting institution. After the opening, the exhibiting institution, in accordance with any and all IRS regulations, is responsible for distributing the living artist supports to each artist, artist collaborative, and/or artist collective whose existing work is exhibited.
Note 2: Curators commissioning new work for an exhibition should reflect associated commissioning fees in the Core Exhibition budget line (under artists).
Enhanced Engagement Fund
Up to $20,000 is designated to elevate the exhibition reach beyond the institution’s standard marketing/outreach. Uses may include interactive websites, 3D online tours, video documentation, etc.
Post-Opening Opportunity Fund (previously the Touring Incentive)
This $20,000 fund can be utilized for unbudgeted, post-opening opportunities that further impact and social discourse. For example, based on feedback additional talks may be scheduled that require artists to travel to the institution, hours may be extended, more community or school groups can be underwritten, etc.

Eligibility

Applications are accepted on a triennial basis from any curator, or curatorial team, applying in partnership with an established non-profit exhibition space, whether a traditional gallery or museum, or an alternative non-profit venue. The curator can be on staff at the partnering exhibition space or a guest/independent curator working with the partnering space for this exhibit. Applications are accepted from established (five or more years old) non-profit exhibition spaces, traditional galleries and museums and are generally completed by that institution’s grants/development team based on the vision and input of the curator or curators of the proposed exhibition.

Ineligibility

What is not eligible:Single artist exhibitions, retrospectives, re-installations, permanent exhibitions, and artist collective exhibitions
Exhibitions composed solely of works of graduate students/faculty at a university
Exhibitions that do not involve contemporary art (post 1950)
Exhibition spaces based outside of the United States
Exhibitions with multiple large funding sourcesThe Exhibition Award does not need to be the sole or primary source of funding for the exhibition but should receive top credit.Curators who have received the Exhibition Award in the previous four years Note: The partner exhibiting institution is exempt from this restriction. They may serve as a partner institution on an application submitted at the next Exhibition Award round.