CREATIVE CAPITAL RECEIVES GRANT FROM THE TOBY FUND TO SUPPORT EMERGING FIELDS ARTISTS

$540,000 to benefit artists working in alternative gaming, internet-based activism, new media installations, robotics, and more

NEW YORK, NY (March 20, 2008) — Creative Capital, the premier national artist support organization, is the recipient of a major, three-year gift from The TOBY Fund, established by collector, philanthropist, and former curator Toby Devan Lewis. This $540,000 gift specifically supports the production costs of Creative Capital emerging fields artists, a category that encompasses artists whose work includes imaginative uses of new technologies, as well as genre-blurring applications of familiar creative practices.

“From our very first grant round in 1999, Creative Capital was committed to artists whose work doesn’t neatly fit the usual discipline categories,” said Creative Capital’s president Ruby Lerner, “While the sometimes indefinable nature of these projects is tremendously exciting, it also creates a handicap, as this kind of work often lacks the support infrastructure of more traditionally defined disciplines. Ms. Lewis has always had a similar passion for artists who boldly cross all sorts of boundaries — discipline, aesthetic, thematic — and we’re thrilled that The TOBY Fund for Emerging Fields at Creative Capital will draw more attention to how these artists challenge the very landscape of the contemporary arts.”

The TOBY Fund grant will allow Creative Capital to support more of its emerging fields grantees at the $50,000 level, the organization’s maximum award. These artists will also benefit from the organization’s trademark program of artist services, which is valued at an additional $25,000 per artist. To date, Creative Capital has funded 48 emerging fields projects representing 65 artists, with $1.1 million in direct funding and more than $1 million in artist services. Artists previously supported through this category include Cory Arcangel, Luca Buvoli, Hasan Elahi, Marie Sester and art collectives such as The Yes Men and SubRosa. The organization is currently conducting a grant round that will result in another class of emerging fields grantees being announced in early 2009.