GREAT RIVERS BIENNIAL

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 $20,000 each and the invaluable opportunity to exhibit at the Contemporary. With the exhibition space provided by the Contemporary, the Great Rivers Biennial 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 inaugural Great Rivers Biennial was in 2004. Past winners include Juan William Chávez, 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.

Great Rivers Biennial 2010

The Great Rivers Biennial 2010 will take place in April 2010.

The submission deadline for the Great Rivers Biennial 2010 closed on August 15, 2009.

The jurors for the Great Rivers Biennial 2010 are Douglas Fogle, Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; Melissa Franklin, Director of the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, Philadelphia; and, Laura Steward, Phillips Director of SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jurors will review all submissions that meet the eligibility requirements and will select up to three artists meeting the biennial’s criteria.

The Great Rivers Biennial winners will produce new work for an exhibition that occupies the entirety of the Contemporary’s Main Galleries.

The Great Rivers Biennial is generously supported by the Gateway Foundation.

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization. The Contemporary’s exhibitions, programming, and operations are member supported and privately funded through contributions from generous individuals, corporations, public funders, and foundations. Additional General Exhibition support is generously provided by the Whitaker Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; William E. Weiss Foundation; Nancy Reynolds and Dwyer Brown; Regional Arts Commission; Missouri Arts Council, a state agency; Arts and Education Council; and members of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.