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Frankenthaler Climate Initiative announces $2.7 million worth of clean energy funding to 48 arts institutions

2023-08-10T16:56:00-04:00

The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation has just announced the third cycle of its Frankenthaler Climate Initiative (FCI), representing a total of $2.7 million in funding to 48 different visual arts organizations across the country for 2023.

Along with the announcement of this year’s awardees, the FCI is also now expanding its footprint to $15 million and extending itself to additional 2024 and 2025 cycles. The Foundation shares it has now conferred more than $10.8 million worth of funding since the program was first initiated in 2021.

The list of organizations receiving funding this year includes Maine’s expanding Portland Museum of Art; The Noguchi Museum and Pratt Institute in New York City; SITE Santa Fe; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, among others in the cultural and education realms.

The Charles H. Wright Museum of African History in Detroit. Photo: Charles H. Wright Museum of African History

"2023 saw the largest number and most sophisticated project proposals to date, ...

49 arts institutions will receive much-needed clean energy grants through the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative

2022-08-22T09:00:00-04:00

A group of 49 arts institutions has been awarded a total of $3 million in clean energy grants as part of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation’s Frankenthaler Climate Initiative (FCI), now in its second year.

The Initiative is part of a larger $10 million effort being developed along with RMI and claims to be the largest grant-making program of its kind in the country.

“The first round of FCI’s funding helped museums actualize climate neutrality commitments, prepare for and respond to climate-driven disasters, and create avenues to achieve long-term operational sustainability, among other key goals,” the Foundation's Lise Motherwell explained. “This second phase expands our reach and impact by advancing current projects in development and providing a new roster of visual art institutions with the support needed to meet their climate goals.”

Among the greater New York area institutions awarded, the Storm King Art Center will receive $100,000 for photovoltaic panels and a building enve...

The Judd Foundation's 101 Spring Street building is among the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation's first Climate Initiative grant recipients

2021-08-04T13:10:00-04:00

The Judd Foundation is getting a boost thanks to a first-of-its-kind grant from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation’s new Climate Initiative that will help the 25-year-old institution achieve its ambitious sustainable conservation goals over the next decade.

The foundation, located in the historic 101 Spring Street building, will put the grant money toward commissioning a study of its New York office’s energy use and mechanical systems. The Judd Foundation has been committed to maintaining both it and the organization’s Marfa campus at a great cost since the artist’s death in 1994 at age 65.

Donald Judd moved to the cast-iron building in 1968 as a budding minimalist sculptor and helped marshall in the image of SoHo as an arts district comparable to Montmartre or London’s Square Mile. Judd eventually came to disdain the commercialism created in the neighborhood created by the influx of the professionalized art world, which had begun its second wave transformation into a shopping cent...