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Andy Warhol Foundation Awards UTEP Rubin Center $100K for Exhibition Support

EL PASO, Texas (July 1, 2024) – The Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at The University of Texas at El Paso has been awarded a multi-year $100,000 grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The grant is designated to support upcoming exhibitions at the center, enhancing its role as a vital hub for contemporary art in the borderlands.

In the summer of 2023, UTEP’s Rubin Center for the Visual Arts hosted the exhibition Instant Exposure: A Habit of Documenting, which featured polaroids taken by acclaimed visual artist Andy Warhol. The polaroids were a gift to the Rubin Center from the Andy Warhol Foundation. Credit: Julio Barrera
In the summer of 2023, UTEP’s Rubin Center for the Visual Arts hosted the exhibition Instant Exposure: A Habit of Documenting, which featured polaroids taken by acclaimed visual artist Andy Warhol. The polaroids were a gift to the Rubin Center from the Andy Warhol Foundation. Credit: Julio Barrera

“We are grateful for the many ways the Warhol Foundation has supported our contemporary exhibitions and programming over the years,” said Rubin Center Director Kerry Doyle. “This grant recognizes a new era at the Rubin Center under the curatorial vision of Dr. Laura Augusta, and deepens our understanding of this place through expanded discourse and engagement with a broader concept of the Americas.”

This is the Rubin Center’s fifth grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation, which is renowned for its commitment to supporting innovative and experimental artistic endeavors that push the boundaries of contemporary art practices. Doyle said the latest grant underscores the Rubin Center’s dedication to presenting thought-provoking exhibitions that engage diverse audiences and foster critical dialogue within our arts communities.

According to the Warhol Foundation, the projects to be supported are “a series of exhibitions which focus on the historical interdependence between the U.S. and Central America, in fields as diverse as agriculture and armed conflict as well as the impact of geography, climate, and economic precarity on the visual arts at the U.S./Mexico border.” 

This includes a series of artist micro-residencies at the Rubin Center which coincide with the exhibition Mud + Corn + Stone + Blue, as well as an exhibition on the Salvadoran diaspora in the U.S., new activations and performances in the Rubin Center auditorium, and solo exhibitions by practitioners working across the region of Central America.

“Artists are at the center of all of our grantmaking efforts; we seek to uplift organizations and institutions that consistently amplify artists’ voices and facilitate artists’ visions,” said Joel Wachs, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. “The voices of artists keep our cultural conversations dynamic and evolving; their unique perspectives resist the stagnation that comes with polarization and suggest new ways of moving into and through turbulent times.”

The Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, located on the UTEP campus, has been a cornerstone of the El Paso-Juarez cultural scene since 2005. The Rubin Center has a widely-recognized history of presenting critical projects by international artists that respond to its location at the epicenter of the Americas, engaging a unique cross-section of campus and community audiences. 

For more information about the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts and its upcoming exhibitions, please visit www.utep.edu/rubin.

About the Andy Warhol Foundation

In accordance with Andy Warhol’s will, the mission of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is the advancement of the visual arts. The foundation manages a dynamic grants program while also preserving Warhol’s legacy through creative and responsible licensing policies and extensive scholarly research for ongoing catalogue raisonné projects. To date, the foundation has given nearly $300 million in cash grants to over 1,000 arts organizations across the country and abroad and has donated 52,786 works of art to 322 institutions worldwide. 

About The University of Texas at El Paso 

The University of Texas at El Paso is America’s leading Hispanic-serving university. Located at the westernmost tip of Texas, where three states and two countries converge along the Rio Grande, 84% of our 24,000 students are Hispanic, and more than half are the first in their families to go to college. UTEP offers 170 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs at the only open-access, top-tier research university in America.

Last Updated on July 01, 2024 at 12:00 AM | Originally published July 01, 2024

By MC Staff UTEP Marketing and Communications