The organisation United States Artists (USA) has announced its 2025 cohort of fellows: 50 US-based artists and performers of all kinds from 21 states. Among the recipients are the visual artists Caroline Kent, Gala Porras-Kim, Kahlil Robert Irving, Karyn Olivier, Rashaad Newsome, Sadie Barnette and Sherrill Roland.
The influential programme honours artists working in each of ten disciplines—visual art, craft, media, film, traditional arts, architecture and design, theatre and performance, music, dance and writing. Each fellow receives an unrestricted grant of $50,000.
“The fellowship has always been at its core for artists working across disciplines,” Judilee Reed, USA’s president, tells The Art Newspaper. She notes that the organisation asks each artist to choose the discipline in which they would like to be considered: “This allows them to approach their practice through any lens depending on the shape their work transforms into.”
In addition to the cash prize, a critical component of USA’s fellowships is professional support. Winners often put their grant money towards art production or personal needs, while the supplementary consultation (valued at an additional $6,000, according to USA) includes help with taxes, financial planning and legal advice.
“Artists can build perspective around how they pursue the opportunities enabled by the grant,” Reed says, adding that there has been continuous growth in the variety of services requested by USA fellows.
Gala Porras-Kim Photo: Emman Montalvan
“What was appealing to me about being an artist in the first place was to be able to do all of the above,” says Porras-Kim, whose practice includes drawing, sculpture, film and museology. The Los Angeles-based artist’s new exhibition A Hand In Nature at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland in Ohio (until 1 June) examines institutions’ methods of preserving and displaying natural phenomena and their histories. “We go to school to learn how to make art but not how to run a business,” Porras-Kim says.
Newsome agrees: “People sometimes forget that artists are small businesses.” The Oakland, California-based artist’s new film, Assembly, will premiere at South by Southwest in March. The project expands Newsome’s 2022 Park Avenue Armory residency by the same name, which featured a 30-ft-tall vogueing hologram inspired by Harlem’s ballroom culture and traditional African rituals. Newsome plans to use a portion of his USA award to help promote Assembly. “In a time when Black, queer, non-binary and trans folks are under siege, this film will hopefully serve as a lightning rod,” he says.
USA’s fellowship programme first launched in 2006. Each year, fellows are selected from a pool of nominees suggested by around 1,000 industry experts and former grantees from across the country. In its 19-year history, USA’s fellowship programme has distributed more than $41m to over 1,000 cultural practitioners.