About

ARTISTS BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH COLLABORATION, EXPERIMENTATION, AND ADVOCACY

Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) is a nonprofit incubator for artist-organized projects.


Artists curate all of our programming—as an extension of their own research and experimentation.

CORE BELIEF

A thriving arts community is essential to the enduring health of our society.

Vision

We envision our nation’s capital as a place that welcomes, values, and respects the presence and contributions of contemporary artists.

Mission

WPA supports artist-driven projects, advocacy, and dialogue so that artists can live, work, and flourish.

Values

Collaboration — We believe there is strength in people working together in partnership.

Inclusion — We believe in the power of critical thinking and a diversity of viewpoints.

Experimentation — We believe in the courage to experiment, innovate, and face the unfamiliar.

 

ABOUT OUR PROGRAMS

Our program model provides artists with the opportunity to expand their practices and experiment without absorbing additional financial burdens or capacity barriers. We provide resources to create critical connections and long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships that build artistic communities around knowledge-sharing.

Our programs are organized across four different areas:

  1. Project Residencies that support collaborative research, experimentation, and public presentations of artist-organized projects.
  2. Publications highlighting discoveries that emerge from select project residencies, providing context for further research and experimentation.
  3. Wherewithal Grants, a funding source exclusive to artists in the region—to support research and self-produced presentations. Generously funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as part of its Regional Re-Granting Program.
  4. Open Call, our annual call for events organized by DC-area artists, taking place in and around DC and produced by WPA.
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.ARTISTS SUPPORTING ARTISTS

Additionally we organize opportunities for regional artists through two major annual special events:

  1. Hickok Cole Art Night, an annual benefit taking place each fall and organized in collaboration with architecture firm Hickok Cole, which supports sales of artwork.
  2. Collectors’ Night, WPA’s annual auction taking place each spring, which also supports sales of artwork.

All proceeds are split evenly between artists and WPA, annually raising over $300k in direct sales.

 

W.A.G.E. CERTIFIED

Our commitment to artist compensation is why WPA is the first arts organization between New York and Miami to be honored with W.A.G.E. certification.

In the past decade alone WPA has paid more than $200,000 in honorariums to artists and $1,000,000 in sales commissions to artists. We’ve put even more money into artists’ pockets by hiring them on staff, or on a contract basis for art handling and transport, fabrication, graphic design, installation, and photography.

We value artists. We pay artists.

 

HISTORY

WPA was founded in 1975 by the art impresario Alice Denney, organizer of the legendary NOW Festival in 1966. Over the past four decades, WPA has presented more than 500 exhibitions; 1,000 performances; 700 lectures, workshops, and symposia; 250 screenings; and 58 public art projects. Nearly every major visual artist in the District between 1975 and today has had some connection with WPA. Many have sat on WPA’s Board of Directors, including William Christenberry, Gene Davis, Sherman Fleming, Sam Gilliam, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, and Maida Withers. Walter Hopps, the legendary curator, was also a board member.

WPA has brought hundreds of extraordinary artists and curators from outside the area to DC over the years. They include Robert Ashley, Alice Aycock, Eric Bogosian, Chris Burden, John Cage, Ullises Carrion, CoLab, Lucinda Childs, Simone Forti, Hollis Frampton, Group Material, Doug Hall, Deborah Hay, Jenny Holzer, David Ireland, Danny Lyon, Meredith Monk, Antonio Muntadas, Steve Paxton, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Piper, Nancy Rubins, Allison Saar, Jacolby Satterwhite, Carolee Schneemann, Joyce Scott, Alan Sekula, Nancy Spero, Haim Stainbach, Alan Suicide, Saya Woolfalk, Robert Wilson, Zanele Muholi, Alisha B. Wormsley, among many others.

Washington Project for the Arts is today perhaps most familiar to those outside of DC for its role in modeling a resistance to censorship during the 90s culture wars when Robert Mapplethorpe’s exhibition The Perfect Moment was canceled at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1989 (due to the Corcoran’s fears of losing their NEA funding on the basis of visual obscenity). WPA stepped up within less than 24 hours to present the exhibition. In 2019, Tiona Nekkia McClodden was invited to revisit this historic event in WPA’s history with the exhibition There Are No Shadows Here: The Perfect Moment at 30. In the decades since the Mapplethorpe exhibition, WPA has remained a dynamic hub for presenting work by DC artists and providing resources for supporting the local creative community. After renewing its mission in 2018, WPA has carved out a new identity with a national and international scope, while simultaneously uplifting values of collaboration, experimentation, and inclusivity in all of its programmatic and operational activities.

 

The WPA staff includes artists, curators, and arts workers.

member

Travis Chamberlain

Director
member

Emily Fussner

Events Manager & Resident Designer
member

Gelila Kassa

Gallery Assistant
member

Jordan Martin

Curatorial Production Manager
member

Alexandra Silverthorne

Resident Historian & Bookkeeper
member

Nathalie von Veh

Storyteller & Regrants Manager

WPA’s board of directors is comprised of artists, arts patrons, and arts professionals with a shared commitment to supporting contemporary artists as intellectuals, and advancing their art and thought through collaboration and experimentation.

member

Ashley Givens

Ph.D. (Co-Chair) is an independent curator and academic
member

Jocelyn Sigue

(Co-Chair) is a media producer and performer
member

Brittany Bansak

(Co-Chair, Auction) is a Vice President at Goldman Sachs
member

Martha Blalock

is the Creative Director with Medical Arts at the National Institutes of Health
member

Nora Severson Cafritz

is Senior Director of Collections at Glenstone Museum
member

Zoë Charlton

(Co-Chair, Ethics) is an artist who creates drawings that explore the ironies of contemporary social and cultural stereotypes
member

Kate Christenberry

(Secretary) is Director of the William Christenberry Studio and manages artist William Christenberry’s Estate
member

Ryan Dattilo

is an antitrust and bankruptcy attorney
member

Nekisha Durrett

is a DC-based artist and educator who creates installations and public art
member

Michael Hickok FAIA

(Treasurer; Chair, Audit Committee) is the founding principal and owner of Hickok Cole Architects
member

Lauren Hilyard

(Co-Chair, Development) is the founder of Hilyard Art Advisory
member

Sam Lewis

(Co-Chair, Finance) is an associate at Wilkie Farrar & Gallagher, specializing in regulatory and transactional matters in the cable, internet, and spectrum industries
member

Madeline Locke

(Co-Chair, Auction) is the founder of Locke Contemporary, an art advisory firm
member

Deirdre Ehlen MacWilliams

(Co-Chair, Governance) serves as public art project manager for Arlington’s nationally-renowned Public Art program
member

Maria del Carmen Montoya

is an artist, educator, collaborator, and activist who believes that art can be a potent crucible for social change
member

Suhitha Reddy

(Co-Chair, Finance) is an investment and finance professional focused on emerging markets and infrastructure
member

Debbie Tang

(Co-Chair, Governance) is a Partner at Bridge Partners LLC, a Black-owned executive search firm specializing in diversity, equity, and inclusion for C-level and Board positions
member

Kim Tignor

(Co-Chair, Development) is a DC-native and the creator and founder of Take Creative Control and executive director of the Institute for Intellectual Property & Social Justice
member

Frederick P. Ognibene, M.D.

(Emeritus) is a collector, arts patron, and former deputy director for Educational Affairs and Strategic Partnerships, and Director, Office of Clinical Research Training and Medical Education at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center
member

William C. Paley

(Emeritus) is the founder of La Palina Cigars and the President of the William C. Paley Foundation

None at this time.

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Contact Us Want to learn more? Contact Us Plan a visit Contact Us Have a question?
Contact Us Want to learn more? Contact Us Plan a visit Contact Us Have a question?