AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

from Franklin Furnace

APPLICATIONS FOR THE ROBERT GIARD GRANT FOR EMERGING LGBTQ+ PHOTOGRAPHERS OPEN TODAY!

INTERNATIONAL GRANT INCLUDES $10K FOR WINNER AND $5K FOR RUNNER-UP

The Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Photographers supports the creation of work by photographers whose projects address issues of sexuality, gender, or LGBTQ+ identity. In partnership with The Robert Giard Foundation, the international grant provides an award of $10,000 for the winner, and $5,000 for the runner-up, to support the creation of new work by emerging LGBTQ+ photographers.

Named in honor of photographer Robert Giard (1939-2002), a portrait, landscape, and figure photographer whose work focused on LGBTQ+ lives and issues, the grant focuses on supporting emerging LGBTQ+ photographers whose projects address issues of sexuality, gender, or LGBTQ+ identity.

The Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Photographers is made possible entirely through support provided by The Robert Giard Foundation. Funds can be requested to support new or ongoing work at any stage of development.

Applications close January 21, 2021.
Apply: https://www.queer-art.org/giard-grant?mc_cid=5edf4eab60&mc_eid=dd4f433ef0

Robert Giard (1939-2002) was a portrait, landscape, and figure photographer who came to the practice of photography relatively late in life. In 1972 he began to take photographs, concentrating on landscapes of the South Fork of Long Island, portraits of friends, many of them artists and writers in the region, and the nude figure. He is best known for photographing over 500 LGBTQ+ writers and activists. A selection from this project, "Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers", was published in 1997 by MIT Press and lead to a groundbreaking exhibit at the New York Public Library the following year.

In 1985, after seeing a performance of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, as the AIDS crisis raged, Giard decided to turn his camera towards the LGBTQ+ literary community to preserve a record of queer lives and histories. He began documenting LGBTQ+ literary figures, both established and emerging, in a series of unadorned, yet sometimes witty and playful portraits that would eventually number over 500 by the time of his death.
The Robert Giard Foundation was formed in 2002 to preserve Robert Giard’s photographic legacy and to make the full range of his work accessible to a wide audience. The Foundation promotes the use of Giard’s work for educational purposes and supports public programs and continued scholarship focusing on queer literature in America and LGBTIQ+ cultural and political movements. The Foundation also arranges for the permanent preservation of Giard’s photographs, writing and ephemera in museums, libraries, and other cultural institutions.

Through the Robert Giard Grant for Emerging Photographers, the Foundation extends Giard’s legacy by encouraging current and future generations to document, depict, and interrogate past and present LGBTIQ+ cultures. The grant was first established in 2008 in collaboration with the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the City University of New York Graduate Center.
Call for artists, Newport Beach, CA, deadline Dec. 8