With the aim of finding new ways of looking at art history, the Ford Foundation will team up with the Museum of Modern Art to launch a scholars in residence program at that New York institution. Set to kick off in September 2022, the first iteration of the program will see three scholars conduct research at MoMA over the course of a year-long period.
MoMA said in its announcement that it was looking for scholars whose work deals with “historically underrepresented artists, moments, movements, and geographies, or offers new perspectives on art-historical topics.” Each scholar selected will receive an annual stipend of $185,000. The museum is currently seeking nominations on its website.
The new MoMA program was formed by way of a grant from the Ford Foundation, although the museum did not specify the amount it had received.
The Ford Foundation regularly makes grants to museums in support of efforts focused on diversity. In 2020, the foundation gave funding to Black, Latinx, Asian and Indigenous arts organizations, among them El Museo del Barrio, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Project Row Houses. It is rare, however, for the Ford Foundation to provide grant money to museums of MoMA’s scale, however.
Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, said in a statement, “Museums and cultural scholars are critical to our understanding of the arts, and in turn our perspective of the world around us. We are honored to support the Ford Foundation Scholars in Residents Program at MoMA and advance creative, diverse, and innovative thinking about the role contemporary and modern art plays in our society today.”
