Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and Artsy Launch Competition Aimed at Elevating Student Curators

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
Sep 22, 2014 2:58PM

NEW YORK, NY – The Robert Rauschenberg Emerging Curator Competition opens today to graduate and undergraduate students worldwide. The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has partnered with Artsy to create the competition with the goal of fostering digital scholarship. Students are asked to submit proposals for online exhibitions focusing on the work of Rauschenberg and can include work by other artists.

The winner will receive the opportunity to curate a Rauschenberg exhibition at his or her college or university with Rauschenberg Foundation support, a curatorial fellowship at the Rauschenberg Foundation, and an honorarium to offset travel and research costs. Three finalists will be selected by five leading figures in the art world: John Elderfield, Branden Joseph, Shirin Neshat, Christopher Rauschenberg, and Sarah Roberts. The public will vote via social media on the top three to select the winner. 

“Like its founder, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is future focused. We are interested in providing opportunities for students to engage closely with Rauschenberg’s work, while advancing the use of digital resources toward art scholarship,” said Christy MacLear, Executive Director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.  "The Emerging Curator Competition aligns with the core values of our mission as defined by Bob Rauschenberg's legacy -- to be global, pioneering, and generous in our support to artists, educators and those involved in positive change.  Moving scholarship to a world-wide audience in the digital realm is a perfect alignment for the foundation’s goals."

Participants should submit proposals through Artsy, where a selection of works chosen by the Rauschenberg Foundation and over 40,000 images provided by Artsy’s 300+ museum and institutional partners will be available for their use. Online research can begin by using the Rauschenberg Foundation’s newly launched website in addition to SFMoMA’s online Rauschenberg Research Project. In a career that spanned more than fifty years, Rauschenberg continually pushed boundaries by using a multidisciplinary approach and defying expectation. His commitment to innovation and his fearless approach to art are characteristics that the judges will evaluate in the online exhibition proposals. 

"We are excited to collaborate with the Rauschenberg Foundation, not only to share an important body of Rauschenberg’s work with the public, but also to push the boundaries of research and curatorial work by spurring students across the globe to imagine new exhibitions and dialogues,” said Christine Kuan, Chief Curator of Artsy. “Only through the visionary leadership of our institutional partners can Artsy pioneer these new learning opportunities.”

Proposals will be accepted until October 20, 2014 at 11:59 PM ET. The judges will review submissions and announce finalists on November 11, 2014. After voting by members of the public, a winner will be announced on November 21, 2014. For submission guidelines and more information, please visit: artsy.net/emergingcurator

About the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation fosters the legacy of the artist’s life, work, and philosophy, including the belief that art can change the world. The foundation supports initiatives at the intersection of arts and issues, which embody the fearlessness, innovation, and multidisciplinary approach that Rauschenberg exemplified in both his art and his philanthropic endeavors. Most recently, the foundation has broadened its philanthropic efforts from seven legacy grantees to ninety-five grantees across the United States; supported hundreds of artists who suffered the impact of Hurricane Sandy; and converted Rauschenberg’s home and studio in Florida into a dynamic residency program for emerging and recognized artists. 

About Artsy

Artsy is the leading resource for art collecting and education. Artsy provides free access via its website (Artsy.net) and iPhone app to international exhibitions, museum collections, galleries, art fairs, curated sales, and benefit auctions. It currently features over 190,000 images of art and architecture by 25,000 artists from over 2,000 leading galleries and over 300 museum and institutional partners, which includes the world’s largest online database of contemporary art. Artsy's encyclopedic database spans historical works, such as the Rosetta Stone and the Colosseum, to modern and contemporary works by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Willem de Kooning, Richard Serra, Lucien Smith, Sarah Lucas, and Cindy Sherman. Powered by The Art Genome Project, a classification system that maps the connections between artists and artworks, Artsy fosters new generations of art lovers, museum-goers, patrons, and collectors.

Media contacts  

Taylor Maxwell, BerlinRosen Public Affairs 
+1 646 200 5330 / [email protected] 

Tania Cavallo, Artsy
+1 914 484 6409 / [email protected]

Image caption: Rauschenberg and curator Walter Hopps, installing Minutiae (1954) for the retrospective exhibition, Robert Rauschenberg, National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1976. Photo: Gianfranco Gorgoni 

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation