The Ford Foundation announced the opening of its new art gallery, a major new public feature of the renovated Center for Social Justice that will explore multidisciplinary art, performance, and public programming by artists committed to exploring issues of justice and injustice. Below is a collection of select media coverage about the gallery opening.

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Published in New York Observer | February 8, 2019

Lisa Kim Prepares to Launch the Ford Foundation’s Gallery Promoting Art for Social Justice

By Daniel Grant

A bit removed from the usual haunts of those who seek out art, a new nonprofit gallery space is opening in Manhattan next month just a short walk from the United Nations. The Ford Foundation Gallery will be located in the recently renovated, 50-year-old building of the Ford Foundation on East 43rd Street, now dubbed the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, with an aim of exhibiting artwork that parallels the work and ideals of the foundation itself.

“The goal of the gallery is to show the work of artists who are using art as a medium of social change,” said Lisa Kim, who has been guiding the development of the gallery since January of last year. “The Center for Social Justice strives to better the welfare of humanity, supporting democracy around the world and combatting economic, gender, and racial inequality.” The exhibitions planned for this space further this mission, she noted. Identifying global problems will be the focus of the inaugural show, called “Perilous Bodies” (March 5 through May 11), solutions to some of these problems will be proposed in “Revolutionary Love,” opening in June, while September’s “Utopian Imagination” envisions a world that’s the product of this work: free from inequality.

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Published in Artnet | February 7, 2019

The Ford Foundation Is Launching a Gallery in Manhattan Next Month Dedicated to Art and Social Justice

By Henri Neuendorf

The Ford Foundation—the fifth-wealthiest charitable foundation in the world—is launching an art gallery at its headquarters in Manhattan on March 5. The rotating program of exhibitions will focus on artists who address themes of social justice.

While the organization has a long track record of supporting art through grantmaking, such as the establishment of the $100 million Art for Justice fund launched in collaboration with collector Agnes Gund, this is the first time the foundation has had a dedicated platform for arts programming.

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Published in Hyperallergic | February 7, 2019

Ford Foundation Fosters Independent Curators and New Talent with Social Practice Gallery

By Jasmine Weber

The Ford Foundation has announced the spring 2019 opening of the Ford Foundation Gallery, a 2,000-square foot exhibition space to present artists exploring issues of justice and injustice as these subjects relate to marginalized populations.

The gallery’s first exhibition, PERILOUS BODIES, will open March 5 to kick off the gallery’s annual theme: “Utopian Imagination.” The gallery will host three exhibitions in 2019, organized by independent curators Jaishri Abichandani and Natasha Becker and focusing on futuristic renderings of “craft, activism, data visualization, and agitprop.

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Published in The New York Times | February 6, 2019

Ford Foundation Announces Art Gallery Opening

By Peter Libbey

The Ford Foundation Gallery will open on March 5 with “Perilous Bodies,” an exhibition that explores the injustices of social stratification and discrimination, the foundation announced Wednesday.

The artists in the show come from all over the world, in a reflection of the foundation’s commitment to approaching social and political problems globally, the gallery’s director, Lisa Kim, said in an interview. “Problems like systemic racism and gender bias and classism are not unique to the U.S. or India or Mexico,” she said. But, she added, “As we talk about these problems that cross continents we can also talk about the shared humanity that begins to heal them.”