The Brooklyn Museum Open Call for Brooklyn Artists

 

 

The Brooklyn Museum Announces Open Call for Brooklyn Artists to Participate in a Major Upcoming Exhibition Celebrating the Museum’s 200th Anniversary 

 

Artists can apply now through April 7, 2024, to take part in this historic exhibition spotlighting the enormous creative talent of the borough 

 

In celebration of its 200th anniversary, the Brooklyn Museum will present The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition, a major group show of work by Brooklyn artists, honoring the wideranging creativity of the borough. Opening on October 4, 2024, the sweeping exhibition will fill more than 15,000 square feet of the Museum’s Great Hall with artworks in all mediums by hundreds of artists, curated by an Artist Committee that includes Jeffrey Gibson, Vik Muniz, Mickalene Thomas, and Fred Tomaselli.

 

Artists for the exhibition will be selected in two rounds: 1) by invitation from the Artist Committee and 2) by a public open call in which participants will be chosen anonymously. To qualify for the open call, artists must have maintained primary residence and/or an art studio in Brooklyn during the past five years (2019–24). Artists working in all disciplines are encouraged to apply, including drawing and printmaking, painting, sculpture, textiles, mixed media, video and new media, performance, and more. 

 

Submitted artwork must have been created within the last five years or otherwise not published or exhibited within that period. Artists must be eighteen or older to apply.

 

The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition builds on the Museum’s long history as a platform for local artists, from juried exhibitions in the 1930s to the 1950s to the Working in Brooklyn exhibitions of the 1980s and the 1990s, as well as more recent large-scale exhibitions like Open House (2004); GO: a community-curated open studio project (2012–13); and Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond (2014–15). The largest of its kind, The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition will highlight the unparalleled breadth and depth of talent from local Brooklyn communities and the borough’s position as a beacon in today’s artistic landscape.

 

To Apply

The application deadline for The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition open call is Sunday, April 7, 2024, at 11:59 pm ET. Applications must be submitted on or before the deadline to be considered for the review period. Late submissions will not be accepted. Submissions will only be accepted via the Brooklyn Museum’s Submittable application. Email submissions, phone calls, or walk-ins will not be considered. There is no fee for applying to this exhibition open call.

 

Information sessions for how to submit an application will be held over Zoom on Monday, March 4, 4–5 pm ET, and Wednesday, March 6, 12–1 pm ET. A recording of these sessions will be available if you are not able to attend.

 

Application review will take place from late April through June. Applicants will be notified of the status of their applications in July 2024.

 

For more information on eligibility and application requirements, please visit our website.

 

About the Brooklyn Museum

At the Brooklyn Museum, we see art as a vital force for personal transformation and social change. For two hundred years, the Museum has worked to expand the definitions of art by revealing untold stories and uplifting our shared humanity. As one of the oldest, largest, and boldest art museums in the United States, the Brooklyn Museum holds an encyclopedic collection of over 500,000 objects representing more than 5,500 years of creativity—housed in a grand 560,000-square-foot Beaux-Arts building designed by McKim, Mead & White. Highlights include the ancient Egyptian holdings and the Arts of the Americas collection, unrivaled in its diverse range, from Native American art and artifacts to Spanish colonial painting to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American

painting, sculpture, and decorative objects. The Museum is also home to the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, which is dedicated to the study and exhibition of feminist art and is the only curatorial center of its kind.

 

Always an innovator, the Brooklyn Museum has long been a leader in the field, from our groundbreaking survey of African art in 1923 to our participation in the World War II–era Monuments Men, a group devoted to returning stolen artworks to their rightful owners. We were also among the first art museums in the United States to institute a formal education program, an in-house conservation department, and a photography school.

 

We opened a Community Gallery during the rise of the Black Arts Movement in 1968 to meet the needs of local citizens and artists, a tradition of social action we carry on today. 

 

Two centuries ago, our founders built an institution that brought world culture and history to a manifold population of immigrants, with the hope of forming better neighbors, a better city, and a better country. Today, the Museum continues to welcome and celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of its home borough. Our trailblazing educational programming remains a cornerstone of our mission, allowing people of all ages and walks of life to tap into the transformative power of their own creativity. Our premier First Saturdays series has become one of Brooklyn’s most beloved public programs, hosting approximately 1.5 million visitors since its debut in 1998. Through partnerships with local organizations, we’ve supported the work and needs of important community activists

focused on social justice, climate change, food insecurity, and mass incarceration, among other crucial issues. As we enter our third century, the Brooklyn Museum is more committed than ever to presenting art and experiences that inspire celebration, compassion, courage, and the will to act.