A.I.R. Fellowship Program

Founded in 1972, A.I.R. is the first artist-run, not-for-profit gallery for women artists in the country. The announcement for the gallery’s first exhibition in September of 1972 elaborates our founding concept: “A.I.R. does not sell art; it changes attitudes about art by women. A.I.R. offers women artists a space to show work as innovative, transitory or unsaleable as the artists’ conceptions demands.” Based on the feminist principles of economic cooperation and decision by consensus, A.I.R. continues to offer an alternative venue for women that protects the creative process and the individual voice of the artist.

The A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship Program, in place since 1993, provides under-represented and emerging artists with a visible gallery space while focusing on building relationships with other more experienced artists and art professionals. By removing the financial responsibilities of membership, the Fellowship Program includes a younger and more diverse group of women artists in the artist-run nature of the gallery. A panel of outside curators, critics and established artists selects participating artists annually. Panelists visit the individual artists’ studios in preparation for their solo shows. 2010 Panel: Lowery Stokes Sims, Curator, Museum of Art and Design; Harriet Senie, Art Critic and Art Historian; and Catherine Morris, Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at The Brooklyn Museum Each participating artist works with the gallery artists to staff gallery programs and activities, as well as to plan and implement a public program or special project for the gallery during their tenure. The program is structured to give the involved artists the opportunity to develop their work in preparation for a solo show, to build relationships with other artists and arts professionals, and to learn about not-for-profit gallery operations. They leave the program with a series of naturally forged relationships, experiences and skill sets useful in continuing their careers as visual artists.

As art critic Holland Cotter recently wrote in the New York Times, “Most of the interesting American artists of the last 30 years are as interesting as they are in part because of the feminist art movement of the early 1970’s. It changed everything . . . . What art in the next 30 years will look like I don’t know, but feminist influences will be at its source.” Building on A.I.R.’s historical influence on contemporary art, the Fellowship Program uses the relationship between the gallery’s existing members and the new fellows to create an inter-generational dialogue critical to guaranteeing a future for A.I.R. as an alternative space for women artists.

Click here for bios of past Fellowship Recipients

The A.I.R Gallery Fellowship Program is made possible through generous support from the 2010 JPMorgan Chase Regrant Program, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc (BAC), The Bernheim Foundation, The Dawman Fund, The Gifford Foundation, The Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Louise McCagg, The New York Women's Agenda, Barbara Roux, LMCC Fund for Creative Communities, The Milton and Sally Avery Foundation, The Department of Cultural Affairs, Materials for the Arts, and the A.I.R Gallery Artists.