On October 18th, the Children’s Museum of the Arts (CMA) will host its fall gala, “An Utterly Ambitious Evening,” at David Zwirner on 69th Street. Combined with a benefit auction hosted by Artsy, the event will serve as the Museum’s key fundraising event supporting the Emergency Arts Education Fund.
New York State proposed a 56% cut to arts funding in 2024, putting unprecedented strain on the city’s art education. Many public school arts programs are seeing severe cutbacks or face the possibility of being phased out entirely.
“An Utterly Ambitious Evening” will feature an auction open for bidding exclusively on Artsy, which will benefit the Emergency Arts Education Fund, an institution formed to work with schools to revitalize arts programs. The fund is an extension of CMA’s long-established In-School Residency Program, which, for over 15 years, brought local artists and art educators into low-income schools citywide. Recently, the museum closed its in-person location, transitioning into a mobile, entirely free arts initiative, reaching out to students across all five NYC boroughs. In addition to the fundraiser, the gala marks the launch of the Ambassador Program, offering patrons a firsthand look at the schools and community-based organizations directly benefiting from the fund.
The auction will feature lots from artists such as Calida Rawles, Emilie Louise Gossiaux, and Arlene Schechet. Tomashi Jackson, who has produced a self-portrait specifically for the benefit auction, wrote in an Instagram post: “My life is absolutely the product of rigorous arts centered education facilitated by teaching artists in my public schools grades 1-6 and 10-12.”
Executive director of the Children’s Museum of the Arts Seth Cameron commented, “What little art education exists today in public schools is a desert mirage, deluding us into the false sense that we’re just a few nickels short of something acceptable. This is an abject failure of imagination. So, our goal is to create a few utterly ambitious art education programs in schools that need it most that can serve as models for a new public imagination. What is really possible when we commit real time, money, and brain power to arts education?”
“We’re on a mission to expand the frame of the art world to include the contributions of children,” Cameron continued. “This is a two-way street that needs opening up, bringing children and their families into the galleries, museums, and alternative spaces for art that make NYC a crucible of culture and raising the profile of children’s art for a wider audience. And it starts with arts education.”
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/rbM3m81
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