For Immediate Release
Contact: Amy Day
Tel: 515.271.0344 (o)
515.612.0775 (c)
aday@desmoinesartcenter.org
DES MOINES, IOWA (August 2024) – The Des Moines Art Center has received a $5,000 grant award from the esteemed Teiger Foundation for the second year in a row. Based in New York City and founded in 2008 by renowned art collector and patron David Teiger, the Teiger Foundation supports contemporary visual art and innovative curatorial work across the country and around the world.
The Des Moines Art Center is home to an extraordinary, much-heralded collection of 5,986 works of modern and contemporary art, examples of which are routinely requested for loan by major institutions in the United States and Europe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Centre Pompidou. Several hundred examples from the collection are on display at any given time, for review and reflection by the hundreds of thousands who visit each year from across the state, the US, and the world. The grant from the Teiger Foundation will help support the Art Center’s mission to remain an accessible resource, providing free admission to this world-class collection, as well as temporary exhibitions, educational programs, special events, and the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park in downtown Des Moines.
About the Des Moines Art Center
The Des Moines Art Center is a vibrant, AAM-accredited (American Association of Museums) institution located in the capital city of Iowa that welcomes over 300,000 visitors annually from across the country and around the globe. Its historic campus consists of three buildings designed by major architects of the 20th century—Eliel Saarinen, I. M. Pei, and Richard Meier—incorporated into the natural landscape of Greenwood Park. The Art Center is home to one of the strongest collections of 20th- and 21st-century art in the region, and it hosts a series of ground-breaking exhibitions and lectures each year featuring artists known regionally, nationally, and internationally. The experimental art for which the Art Center cares is reflected in its creative offerings, including a celebrated education program that prioritizes access and collaboration, an art school with studio classes for all ages, and the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park, situated on 4.4 acres in downtown Des Moines. The Art Center is committed to the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion, which are incorporated into every facet of its mission and identity.
About Teiger Foundation
The Teiger Foundation supports contemporary visual art with a primary focus on curators. It honors the vision of founder David Teiger, who, in his lifetime, championed professionals who pursued their own paths in making exhibitions, leading organizations, conducting research, and pursuing other aspects of curatorial practice. In dialogue with artists and other art workers, curators are thinkers and leaders who play multiple and changing roles in their organizations and communities. Teiger Foundation’s goal is to support these activities and their continued reinvention. Acknowledging uncertainty, fear, and loss in a time of enormous change, Teiger Foundation is committed to experimentation and creativity in exhibitions and programs; widely varied, innovative curatorial research and partnerships; and new perspectives on community-building and positive structural change within the field of visual art.
###