THE GREAT RIVERS BIENNIAL PROGRAM

The Great Rivers Biennial Visual Awards Program is a collaboration between the Contemporary and the Gateway Foundation, established in 2003 with a mission to strengthen and support the local artists of St. Louis. The goal of this program is to identify talented emerging and mid-career local artists, provide them financial assistance, raise the visibility of their work in both the Midwest and national arts community, and provide them with the professional support of visiting critics, curators, and dealers.

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the Gateway Foundation are committed to energizing the spirit of the art scene in St. Louis and feel the Great Rivers Biennial Awards Program does just that by providing emerging artists with a tremendous platform to the national art world. As many as three artists will be selected by a panel of nationally recognized jurors to receive a grant of newly increased amount of $20,000 from the previous $15,000 each and the invaluable opportunity to exhibit at the Contemporary. With the exhibition space provided by the Contemporary, the Great Rivers program hopes to raise the visibility of the artists’ work by providing them with professional support from visiting critics, curators, and dealers, as well as connecting the artists to the St. Louis public. The program is generously funded by the Gateway Foundation.

The inaugural Great Rivers Biennial was in 2004. Past winners include Juan William Chavez, Jill Downen, Corey Escoto, Adam Frelin, Kim Humphries, Moses, Michelle Oosterbaan, Matthew Strauss, and Jason Wallace Triefenbach. The distinguished jurors for the past Great Rivers Biennial include Cheryl Brutvan, Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Lisa Corrin, Director, Williams College Museum of Art, Elizabeth Dunbar, Curator at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; Gary Garrels, Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, Director and Chief Curator of the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado; Helen Molesworth, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Harvard University Art Museums, Debra Singer, Executive Director and Chief Curator, The Kitchen; Lilian Tone, Assistant Curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Hamza Walker, Education Director, Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago.