VIA Art Fund, 219 West 19th Street, New York, NY (2026)

08/22/2026

VIA patron Maja Kristin recently celebrated public school teachers from the Ross Valley School District in Marin County, California, by awarding each teacher funds above and beyond their salaries. A local resident, Kristin was concerned to learn that the district ranks in the bottom 4% of California school funding, despite being in one of the wealthiest counties in the country, so personally wrote checks of $9,161.70 to one hundred teachers. Reported in People, she told the outlet that she hopes her actions will inspire others to “step forward one way or another — whether it’s a direct gift or a political act, or foundation pool” and make similar donations.

VIA is honored to share a vision of philanthropy and supporting education and be a beneficiary of Maja Kristin’s generosity through a recent $150,000 gift made the Women Moving Millions Art Catalyst Fund, which is directing significant new support to women artists.

08/19/2026

A few weeks ago, Grantee Precious Okoyomon’s (Precious Okoyomon) VIA-Supported Commission “Among the Flowers I Learned to Love: A Garden of Decreation” officially opened at MoMA PS1 (MoMA PS1). VIA Partners were thrilled to celebrate with the artist as the artwork was unveiled.

The artist and poet has transformed the MoMA PS1 courtyard into a living forest of plants, sculpture, and sound creating their largest outdoor installation to date and the first of its kind in New York City, featuring a wild garden that evolves with the seasons and a giant teddy bear sculpture that visitors can enter and climb through.

The installation features a landscape of grasses, flowers, weeds, sedges, pollinators, and vines, developed in collaboration with specialty nursery issima and accompanied by a sound piece composed by Oliver Leith. The garden brings together species often viewed as oppositional, but which in reality can co-exist: native and invasive plants, annuals and perennials, cultivated and wild growth. Anticipating the landscapes of the near future, in consideration of the unpredictabilities of climate changes and other instabilities, Okoyomon proposes a garden of mutation and adaptability for the city.

This installation inaugurates MoMA PS1’s Courtyard Commission series, a new biannual program inviting artists to create site-specific, large-scale works for the museum’s outdoor courtyard, reimagining how experimental art can transform public space. Organized by Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs Ruba Katrib, the work will be on view for two years and accessible to the public as part of MoMA PS1’s new free admission for all program.

📷: VIA Art Fund
📷: Installation View of Courtyard Commission Precious Okoyomon, Courtesy MoMA PS1. Photos John Kim.

08/14/2026

A full year since the artwork debuted, VIA Art Fund gathered in Williamstown, MA at the Clark Art Institute (The Clark) to revisit Grantee Hugh Hayden’s (Hugh Hayden) VIA-supported “the End” as well as other site-specific artworks commissioned as part of Ground/Work 2025.

Crafted from cedar lumber and hemlock trees uniquely milled to preserve protruding branches, “the End” blends into its surroundings and takes the shape of an enormous ribcage, evoking the remains of a massive, mysterious creature. Camouflaged within the very woods from which its materials were sourced, Hayden’s gargantuan, anthropomorphized tree carcass may cause viewers to wonder what kind of being left behind such unique remains and prompt further consideration of the interconnectedness of humanity and nature.

The work touches on ecological themes of climate change and extinction, expanding on two prevalent motifs in Hayden’s work: skeletal forms and camouflage. For Hayden, the skeleton is a recurring symbol, as he is drawn to its anonymizing quality, stripped as it is of external indicators of identity such as race or gender.

Ground/Work 2025 features six newly commissioned site specific artworks curated by independent curator Glenn Adamson () and is on view through October 12, 2026.

📷: Thomas Clark and Brooke Davis Anderson

08/12/2026

Congratulations to 2018 VIA Curatorial Fellow Cathleen Chaffee (Cathleen Chaffee) on her recent promotion to Buffalo AKG Art Museum’s (Buffalo AKG Art Museum) Artistic Director and Co-leader alongside her colleague Jillian Jones (Jillian Jones). She will step into this new role on November 1.

Chaffee joined the Buffalo Museum (formerly called the Albright-Knox Art Gallery until 2022) in 2014 as Senior Curator, and was named Chief Curator in 2017. During her tenure, she organized a major rehang of the museum’s permanent collection and staged a traveling retrospective of “Marisol,” among others. Chaffee’s previous curatorial roles include those at Yale University Art Gallery (Yale University Art Gallery); the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA The Museum of Modern Art), New York; and the Cleveland Museum of Art (The Cleveland Museum of Art). She holds a Ph.D. from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts (The Institute of Fine Arts NYU) and an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art (Courtauld), University of London as well as a Fulbright Fellowship (The Fulbright Program).

Chaffe used her VIA Grant to conduct research into new artistic communities in Lebanon, the UAE, South Africa, Jordan, and Egypt. These trips allowed her to build relationships with a new pool of artists, broaden the array of voices with whom she works, and build on her areas of expertise in abstract painting and conceptual art.
Congratulations once again, Cathleen! We look forward to following along all that you accomplish in your new role and loved celebrating with you at our recent Toast to $10,000,000 Celebration this spring!

📷: Cathleen Chaffee and Jillian Jones taken by Nina Grenga, Courtesy ARTFORUM (Artforum) and Buffalo AKG Museum
📷: 2018 VIA Curatorial Fellow Cathleen Chaffee and 2021 VIA Curatorial Fellow Wassan Al-Khudhairi (وسن) at VIA Art Fund’s Toast to $10,000,000 Celebration May 2026 taken by Alycia Kravitz (Alycia Kravitz)

08/10/2026

We are thrilled to see so many VIA Grantees included in the New York Times’ “25 Sculptures That Define the Modern Age” list carefully compiled by Adam Pendleton (Adam Pendleton), Firelei Baez (Firelei Báez), and VIA Grantees Charles Gaines (Charles Gaines), Ruba Katrib, and Arlene Shechet (Arlene Shechet)!

We’re honored that Martin Puryear’s “Swallowed Sun (Monstrance and Volute)”, 2019, presented as a part of Puryear’s VIA-supported 2019 Venice Biennale Presentation is included on this list alongside important works by VIA Grantees Kara Walker (Kara Walker), David Hammond (David Hammons), and Pope.L.

Congratulations to all included!

***l

08/03/2026

2016 VIA Grantee Doug Aitkin’s (Doug Aitken Workshop) “Lightscape” recently opened at NYC’s The Shed (The Shed). The new film-based seven-screen art installation was produced with the LA Phil (Los Angeles Philharmonic) and LA Master Chorale (Los Angeles Master Chorale) and considers our landscape of diversity, creating a vulnerable and humanistic portrait that chronicles the search to find one’s individuality in a world of continuous transformation. In this work, Aitken creates a modern mythology propelled by music, film, and architecture. It follows multiple characters that take us on a journey that explores a landscape in the midst of extreme change and includes original recordings—conducted by Gustavo Dudamel (Gustavo Dudamel) —of iconic minimalist composers and artists such as Philip Glass (Philip Glass), Steve Reich, Meredith Monk (Meredith Monk), and original scores by Beck (Beck) & LA LOM (LA LOM) and Doug Aitken with Grant Gershon (Grant Gershon).

On View through September 13, the work will be activated by a series of ongoing live musical performances, blending the Lightscape installation with live improvisations.

07/20/2026

More scenes from our “Toast to $10 Million” cocktail party this spring, where we celebrated artists and curators as well as our organization’s philanthropy surpassing $10,000,000!

Commitment to artists and curators whose work expands the possibilities of contemporary art while fostering the most urgent ideas shaping culture today got us to this exciting moment!

Bridgitt Evans (Bridgitt Evans), VIA Art Fund’s founder shares “Reaching $10 million in grantmaking fulfills a goal we set from VIA’s founding. By bringing artists and patrons into direct dialogue, VIA helps realize ambitious creative projects while cultivating long-term investment in the arts. This milestone reflects the vision of the artists we support and the longtime commitment and dedication of our Partners.”

📸: Alycia Kravitz + Brooke Davis Anderson

07/07/2026

VIA Art Fund’s Spring 2026 Artistic Production Grants, totaling $390,000, bring our organization’s total giving to over $10,000,000! This major milestone also coincides with the announcement of a $150,000 grant from Women Moving Millions (Women Moving Millions), a gift spearheaded by philanthropist Maja Kristin.

To celebrate, VIA hosted a “Toast to $10 Million” cocktail party attended by current and past VIA Partners and Grantees at the home of VIA Partners Erin Leider-Pariser and Paul Pariser. VIA’s Executive Director Brooke Davis Anderson (Brooke Davis Anderson) shares “We are so proud to mark this important moment in our history. It is inspiring to see the significant impact that a community of focused, dedicated arts patrons can have when they share a set of values and come together to amplify their philanthropy. We are also honored to be among the first grant recipients from the Women Moving Millions Art Catalyst Fund, which is directing significant new support to women artists.”

06/30/2026

VIA Art Fund is thrilled to celebrate our recent Artistic Production Grant Awardees, including Ronald Rael’s (RRAEL) “LIMINAL,” presented by the Harwood Museum of Art (Harwood Museum) in Taos, NM, and on view through February 28.

A central commission of the exhibition “Unearthing Futures/Desenterrando Futuros,” that opened this weekend, which explores adobe as a material rooted in what Rael describes as “Ancestral Intelligence” and reimagined for ecological and social transformation. “LIMINAL” redefines the museum’s entrance with a massive 3D printed adobe form. Built live by robotic fabrication throughout this past month, the work transforms earth-building into public performance. Through this architectural intervention, Rael activates adobe as both medium and message—inviting reflection on borders, climate, and belonging through immersive sensorial encounters with earth, sky, and alternative spatial passage.

The installation is constructed using soil sourced from the borderlands of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, regions historically connected through Indigenous trade routes, Indo-Hispano Settlement, and shared land-based practices. These soils are combined through a twisting, interwoven formation that resists linear division, materially enacting Rael’s long-standing investigation of borders as lived, contested, and permeable structures rather than fixed lines. The design incorporates public seating as well as an horno, an adobe-built outdoor oven, and will be activated throughout the exhibition on monthly community days, offering space to gather and celebrate.

🖼️: Ronald Rael, “Skylos,” 2022, 3D-printed adobe structures, Center, Colorado. Photo Joshua Ware. Courtesy Southwest Contemporary and Harwood Museum of Art.

06/23/2026

VIA Art Fund is thrilled to celebrate our recent Artistic Production Grant Awardees, including Kiyan William’s (Kiyan Williams) “Entanglements,” a new multi-part commission presented by the City of Boston, MA.

“Entanglements” is a series of sculptural and architectural interventions that trace the histories embedded in the landscape and built environment of Boston. “Stone Map (Ruttier for the Dispossessed),” is an earthwork composed of monolithic stones that will be situated on the North End’s Copp’s Hills Terrace, at the heart of the former New Guinea settlement, one of the first Black communities in Boston. Adjacent is Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, where 1000+ Black Bostonians are buried in unmarked graves, including who is believed to be Phillis Wheatley Peters, the first Black woman to publish a book of poetry, and her child.

As a point of departure, Williams retraced the transatlantic voyage of the ship “The Phillis” that trafficked Wheatley Peters from her birthplace of Senegambia to Boston in 1761, gathering volcanic basalt stones from along coastal ports in West Africa, including Gorée Island, a colonial-era trading post. The stones are arranged in an “X” to form a cosmogram that aligns with the sun and other celestial bodies during the summer and winter solstices to trace the nautical routes between Boston, London, and Senegambia, mapping the transatlantic networks that shaped the lives of Wheatley Peters and those who lived in New Guinea, and more broadly the landscape of Boston.

The second intervention will consist of a braided installation suspended from the façade of a 18th century marketplace. The sculpture transforms the historic structure in response to its symbolic and economic functions as a place of commerce and its origins as a site marked by legacies of subjugation. Unfolding across public spaces near the waterfront and drawing on the material and conceptual languages of land art and post-Minimalist sculpture, the two interventions compel audiences to consider the maritime economies that shape the city and the histories that hum beneath the surface of the soil.

📸: Kiyan Williams Artist Portrait by Clifford Prince King.

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