Opportunities

Radius: Professional Practice Series for Artists

Radius has entered its second decade! Radius is a professional development program organized by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in conjunction with the Ridgefield Guild of Artists to promote the growth and interests of regional artists. The Radius program has multiple components, including a professional practice forum, biennial juried exhibition, workshops, and networking events.

Radius Professional Practice Series is supported, in part, by The Gage Fund and the Wadsworth Russell Lewis Trust Fund.

Radius Professional Practice Series
Radius offers an annual workshop series to promote the growth and interests of regional artists. In these workshops, art professionals lead sessions for practicing artists on professional development issues. Radius has partnered with regional arts organizations to extend these workshops to a wider audience, and this year the workshops will be hosted by Artspace, New Haven; Ridgefield Guild of Artists; and Washington Art Association, Washington Depot.

Radius Workshop #3
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Ridgefield Guild of Artists
34 Halpin Lane, Ridgefield, CT 06877
203.438.8863; www.rgoa.org

For Artists Only!
An Open House for Artists and Related Professionals
Saturday, May 15, 2010

Join us at The Aldrich to make and renew friendships with other area artists. Bring a small portfolio of your work to share with our guests, discuss what you’re working on in the studio, learn about Radius and other professional programs, and view the current Aldrich exhibitions. Docent-led tours will be available and refreshments will be served. Take advantage of this great networking and professional development opportunity!

Radius Professional Practice Forum
In the annual Professional Practice Forum, art professionals offer candid thoughts about the art marketplace and strategies for succeeding in it. The Forum is open to the public and, every other year, precedes the opening reception of the Radius exhibition.

Past Forum speakers have included Jackie Battenfield, artist and professional development leader; Sean Elwood, grantmaking and artists' services director of Creative Capital; George Fifield, founder and director of the Boston Cyberarts Festival; artists Eva Lee and David Opdyke; Rene Lynch, artist and art dealer of Metaphor Contemporary Art; Jessica Murray, art dealer of Jessica Murray Projects; Aldrich director Harry Philbrick; Kay Takeda, director of grants & services of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; Steven Sacks, director of bitforms gallery; and Cheryl A. Young, executive director of the MacDowell Colony.

Radius Biennial Juried Exhibition
Artists who participate in the Radius exhibition are chosen from a review of submissions received following an open call for entries. In addition to the group exhibition, the selected artists receive an individual exchange with a curator, during which their portfolios and original work are reviewed, focusing on professional development. Radius also includes networking opportunities, workshops, and a public forum to address important issues for professional advancement.

Applications for the Radius exhibition are accepted every two years. Applications for the next Radius exhibition will be available in 2011 and will appear here as they become available. All applications will be reviewed by the Radius Selection Committee, and are only accepted online. Qualified applicants may submit applications to Radius every two years.

Artist Opportunities

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum's mission is to present the most significant and engaging contemporary art to the public; opportunities for inclusion in our exhibition program are very limited and highly competitive. At the present time, we do not review any unsolicited materials sent by artists as the administrative time needed to properly review such materials is beyond the Museum's capacity. We do, however, consider submissions via two routes:

1) Emerging artists who live in Connecticut, or Westchester, Putnam, and Duchess Counties in New York can submit biennially to the Museum's Radius program. This year we will not be accepting applications for Radius, but we will do so in 2011. Please refer to this page in December 2010 for more information on Radius applications. See above for this year's Radius programs.

2) The Aldrich's curators will review materials on specific artists only if they are recommended to us by gallerists, curators from other institutions, the professional staff of visual arts organizations (such as residency programs), or artists who have shown at The Aldrich. If such recommendations are of interest, the submission of more materials will then be requested.

The Museum's curators view literally thousands of exhibitions every year, not just in the northeast, but also nationally and internationally, in addition to acquiring information on art from the above mentioned sources. As our resources are limited, we can only pursue studio visits with a limited number of artists. Visits are based on positive response to viewing the work either in person or through secondary means, such as personal recommendations, or through print or Web-based information.

Please note that we are not responsible for any unsolicited artists' materials sent to the Museum and that such submissions will not be reviewed.

Top of page: Thomas Doyle, A Corrective, 2009. Courtesy of the artist.
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