Catskill Art Space Awarded $80,000 Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Livingston Manor, NY — Catskill Art Space (CAS) is pleased to announce that it has been awarded an $80,000 grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, to be distributed over two years. This significant support will strengthen CAS’s ongoing commitment to presenting ambitious contemporary art, supporting artists, and expanding access to innovative cultural programming in the Catskills.

The grant will provide vital operating and programmatic support, enabling Catskill Art Space to continue commissioning new work, presenting exhibitions and performances, and fostering meaningful engagement between artists and audiences in a rural context. The award recognizes CAS’s role as a leading contemporary arts organization that connects local and international artistic practices while remaining deeply rooted in place.

“Catskill Art Space demonstrates how ambitious contemporary art can thrive outside major urban centers while remaining deeply connected to place,” says Rachel Bers, Program Director of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. “It is an important space for experimentation, dialogue, and meaningful engagement, contributing significantly to the cultural vitality of the region and beyond.”

Following Andy Warhol’s will, the mission of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is the advancement of the visual arts. The foundation manages an innovative and dynamic grants program while also preserving Warhol’s legacy through creative and responsible licensing policies and extensive scholarly research for ongoing catalogue raisonné projects. To date, the foundation has given nearly $330 million in cash grants to over 1,000 arts organizations around the country and abroad and has donated 52,786 works of art to 322 institutions worldwide.

“This generous support from The Andy Warhol Foundation affirms the importance of sustained investment in contemporary art spaces outside major urban centers,” said Sally Wright, Executive Director of Catskill Art Space. “The grant will allow us to deepen our support for artists and continue offering rigorous, experimental programming that serves our community while contributing to national and international conversations in contemporary art.”

Catskill Art Space extends its sincere gratitude to The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for this transformative support and looks forward to the continued impact this funding will have on artists, audiences, and the cultural life of the region.

Long-term Installations

Following a major renovation and expansion, Catskill Art Space reopened in October 2022 with a long-term presentation of James Turrell’s Avaar (1982) in a custom-built gallery on the building’s second floor. A room-sized installation, Avaar is an important example of the artist’s early, wall-based “aperture” works, which function by creating two areas within a room. There is a “viewing space,” where one stands to see and experience the work, and a “sensing space,” which is an ambiguously defined area of diffused light. Avaar is one of the rare examples of Turrell’s aperture works to make use of white lighting only; no colors will be present in the installation. This work is in the collection of the Seattle Art Museum, which has granted CAS a special long-term loan to exhibit the work. The presentation at CAS marks the first time the work has been shown since the 1970s, giving audiences from the Catskills and beyond the rare opportunity to experience a major Turrell work that has not been seen in nearly five decades.

On the second floor’s central landing, Sol LeWitt’s vibrant Wall Drawing #992 unfolds in three sections, each consisting of 10,000 straight lines drawn in color marker, to create a mesmerizing arrangement of primary colors. On the fourth wall, presenting LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #991, straight, arced, and organic lines will encompass the wall in black marker and pencil. The conceptual, minimalist artist conceived guidelines for his two-dimensional works to be drawn directly on the wall. Much like Turrell’s Avaar, the LeWitt works were realized for CAS’s space; in this instance, they are generously loaned by the artist’s estate. This work was overseen by a draftsperson, who determines the length and placement of the lines, and executed by five artists local to the area over nearly two weeks.

The newly realized performance space on CAS’s second floor hosts British sculptor Francis Cape’s A Gathering of Utopian Benches—an installation of meticulous copies of benches built and used by communal societies. Cape’s installations have always argued that design and craft express belief. Utopian Benches, which has toured extensively throughout the US, was built from poplar grown near Cape’s studio in Narrowsburg, NY. To be considered both as contemporary sculpture as well as furniture that visitors can actively use, the benches reference the societies who first used them, inviting visitors to utilize them for exchange, discourse, and community. The installation, which is meant to be used by visitors both for contemplation and may be used for performance seating, overlooks an expansive wall of windows onto the Willowemoc Creek.

Ellen Brooks inaugurates an intimate gallery space, framed by a partially open staircase, with Hang (2022), an installation suspending over 30 feet of scrolls of film negatives from the ceiling. The artist hangs transparencies and negatives in all formats and from clips attached to the ceiling, mimicking the practice of film photography. Hanging negatives reference the surrounding natural landscaping, evoking a cascading waterfall with coils of film collecting on the ground floor gallery.

About Catskill Art Space

Catskill Art Space (CAS) explores contemporary art practices of emerging and established artists. Through exhibitions, performances, classes, lectures, and screenings, CAS fosters creative community in the Catskills.

Established as Catskill Art Society in 1971, CAS reopened in October 2022 as Catskill Art Space following a major renovation and expansion of its multi-arts center, located in the picturesque hamlet of Livingston Manor in the Western Catskills. CAS presents a rotating slate of exhibitions, performances and other events featuring national and regional talents, alongside long-term installations of works by James Turrell, Sol LeWitt, Francis Cape, and Ellen Brooks. Learn more at catskillartspace.org.

Notes to Editor

Richard Barlow, Lisa Crafts and Ellen Driscoll Opening date: January 17, 2026

Address: Catskill Art Space, 48 Main St. Livingston Manor, NY 12758
Opening: Saturday, January 17. Artists talk 3-4pm, Reception 4-5pm

Exhibition on-view: January 17 – February 28, 2026

Long-term installations on view: Long-term presentation (through 2027) of James Turrell’s light installation Avaar (1982) and two site-specific wall drawings from Sol LeWitt, as well as solo presentations of well-established artists from the local area, Francis Cape (through 2027) and Ellen Brooks (through 2027).

Instagram: @catskillartspace

For media inquiries, please contact:

Sally Wright, Executive Director

sally@catskillartspace.org

646-696-1044