Seattle Art Museum receives National Endowment for the Arts Grant

Great news! SAM’s upcoming summer blockbuster exhibition, Disguise: Masks and Global African Art recently received a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

On view June 18, 2015 through September 6, 2015 Disguise provides an updated look at 21st-century evolutions of the mask and explores contemporary forms of disguise.

For this exhibition, SAM’s Curator of African and Oceanic Art Pamela McClusky, and Consultant Curator Erika Dalya Massaquoi sought out contemporary artists from Africa and of African descent to create new installations, visions, and sounds for the exhibition. These artists fill the galleries with inventive avatars and provocative new myths, taking us on mysterious journeys through city streets and futuristic landscapes.

Through its grant-making to thousands of nonprofits each year, the NEA promotes opportunities for people in communities across America to experience the arts and exercise their creativity.

NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, “The NEA is committed to advancing learning, fueling creativity, and celebrating the arts in cities and towns across the United States. Funding these new projects like the one from Seattle Art Museum represents an investment in both local communities and our nation’s creative vitality.”

Image: Chimera, from the Empathic Series, 2013, Saya Woolfalk, United States, b. 1979, single-channel video, 4:12 minutes, filmmaker: Rachel Lears. © Saya Woolfalk, Photo: Natali Wiseman.