Art Overview / Curators on the Cusp • Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award • Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Research Grant
Exhibition Award / Components • Guidelines & Eligibility • FAQs • Recent Grants
Exhibition Award / Components • Guidelines & Eligibility • FAQs • Recent Grants
Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award Guidelines & Eligibility
Applications are accepted on a triennial basis from any curator, or curatorial team, applying in partnership with an established non-profit exhibition space, whether a traditional gallery or museum, or an alternative non-profit venue. The curator can be on staff at the partnering exhibition space or a guest/independent curator working with the partnering space for this exhibit. The proposal should be for a strong, thematic exhibition that puts the works of contemporary art and/or architecture in a new or unconventional aesthetic, historical, cultural, and/or social framework. Applicants are encouraged to think expansively and challenge conventional thought through the exploration of critical ideas in the context of contemporary art. The award is intended to provide support for exhibitions at the beginning stage of their development and to offer the curator the support needed to fully explore a concept and realize an exhibition.
What is NOT eligible?
Timeline
Application deadline: February 21, 2025 - 11:59pm ET (for both the Exhibition Award and the Exhibition Research Grant)
Awards announced in May 2025
Awarded exhibition should not open before January 2027
Next deadline: February 2028
Review Criteria for the Jury
For each award cycle, established contemporary art curators are selected to serve as jury panelists to review the applications. The criteria that the jury panel will use to determine the award recipients include:
What is NOT eligible?
- Single artist exhibitions, retrospectives, re-installations, permanent exhibitions, and artist collective exhibitions
- Exhibitions composed solely of works of graduate students/faculty at a university
- Exhibitions that do not involve contemporary art (post 1950)
- Exhibitions that are past the early stage of development
- Residency programs
- Exhibition spaces based outside of the United States
- Exhibitions with multiple large funding sources (The Exhibition Award does not need to be the sole or primary source of funding for the exhibition but should receive top credit.)
- Curators who have received the Exhibition Award in the previous four years (Note that the partner exhibiting institution is exempt from this restriction. They may serve as a partner institution on an application submitted at the next Exhibition Award round.)
Timeline
Application deadline: February 21, 2025 - 11:59pm ET (for both the Exhibition Award and the Exhibition Research Grant)
Awards announced in May 2025
Awarded exhibition should not open before January 2027
Next deadline: February 2028
Review Criteria for the Jury
For each award cycle, established contemporary art curators are selected to serve as jury panelists to review the applications. The criteria that the jury panel will use to determine the award recipients include:
- Intellectual quality of the proposal's premise
- Degree of innovation
- Distinction from other major art exhibitions either planned or mounted within the last 15 years with a similar topic
- Potential for both professional and public impact
- Feasibility of implementation
- Quality and excellence of the works of art to be included
- Capacity of the exhibition space to physically accomplish the vision of the concept