Washington Project for the Arts

12/03/2025

Help us raise $25k for 2025! WPA is a home to artists driven by collective work and a vision for a more inclusive, equitable future.

This moment—in which many small nonprofits have been impacted by the actions of the current administration—demands an art space where artists and audiences can experiment freely and engage in an open exchange of ideas and limitless creativity… a space to imagine new paths forward together...!

This is the work that WPA does so well and the work that we’re excited to take further in collaboration with you and the hundreds of artists your donations will support in the year ahead.

This giving season, please consider supporting the imaginative futures WPA is making possible right here in DC. Working together we will sustain DC’s legacy as a vibrant hub for contemporary art and thought!

Your support today ensures that we will be here to sustain risk-taking art in DC for many years to come.

You can donate here:
https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/peer-to-peer/breaking-new-ground-today-exploring-new-ideas-forever-support-the-future-of-wpa?fbclid=IwY2xjawOdcIdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFac3NtaURoTEwwN2F6MzZsc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHtWLbiQVzW9d3bOSqjvtQ_oc3O6ghILrsvehhQAKC8cEtn5xgCj9ypNgSgCn_aem_BdpXKtw0o51wN_vX0X3-gA

04/22/2025

WPA’s annual Benefit Auction is ✨Open for Bidding ✨

The two-week auction, hosted online on from April 18 – May 2, features more than 150 artworks by some of the most exciting artists working in the region today.

Proceeds from the auction directly benefit the participating artists and WPA, as all sales are split 50/50.

Washington Project for the Arts Collectors' Night 2025 Benefit Auction Washington Project for the Arts x Artsy are proud to...

05/04/2024

Today’s the day! This is your last chance to bid on all of the incredible artworks that are included in our 43rd annual Collectors’ Night benefit auction on Artsy. Bidding ends TONIGHT at 10:30pm during our Collectors’ Night 2024 gala.

Proceeds from the sale are split between the artists and WPA, so your purchase directly supports artists and our artist-driven programming. So bid, bid, bid!

https://www.artsy.net/wpabenefit

Featuring work by Oreoluwa Akinyode • Polly Apfelbaum • Sondra N. Arkin • Mary Anne Arntzen • Abol Bahadori • Svetlana Bailey • Rush Baker IV • Ama BE • Sophia Belkin • Joan Belmar • Jessi Binder • Rachael Bohlander • Michael A. Booker • Arden Bendler Browning • Tom Bunnell • Ainsley Burrows • Jermaine “jET” Carter • Cecile Chong • William Christenberry • Hannah Cohen • Michèle Colburn • Will Connally • Sheila Crider • Marco DaSilva • Delna Dastur • Frank Day • Bria Edwards • Edgar Endress • Amy Finkelstein • Justyne Fischer • Emily Fussner • Janis Goodman • McKenzie Grant-Gordon • Xenia Gray • Jason Gubbiotti • Khaleelah I. L. Harris • Misha Ilin • Sarah Irvin • Roberto Jamora • Charles Philippe Jean Pierre • Traci Johnson • Debbi Kenote • Don Kimes • Zofie King • Shana Kohnstamm • Chee Keong Kung • Andrew Kung • Galina Kurlat • Anthony Le • Mehves Lelic • sTo Len • Barbara Liotta • Giulia Piera Livi • Kim Llerena • Jon Malis • Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann • Matthew Mann • Charles Mason III • Jeanette May • Lindsay McCulloch • Bryan McGinnis • Mercedes • Jonathan Monaghan • Maria del Carmen Montoya • Ali Newhard • Lisa Noble • Nazanin Noroozi • Cory Oberndorfer • Betsy Packard • Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Eric Heist • Lauren Portada • Mojdeh Rezaeipour • Samuel Richardson • Carolyn Rogers • Esther Ruiz • Kim Sandara • Sharon Shapiro • Alexandra Silverthorne • Manavi Singh • Noreen Smith ‘Justis’ • Christopher “Puma” Smith • Susan Stacks • Marisa Stratton • Kat Thompson • Vincent Tilney • Eleanor Mahin Thorp • Mehmet Uskul • Tina Villadolid • Jenny Walton • Sandy Williams IV • Redeat Wondemu • Chen Xiangyun • Bahar Yürükoğlu • Ying Zhu

04/20/2024

WPA’s Annual Benefit Auction is now ✨ Open for Bidding ✨

The two-week auction, hosted online on Artsy from April 19 – May 4, features more than 150 artworks by some of the most exciting artists working in the region today. All artworks will be exhibited at the Collectors’ Night gala for guests’ exclusive viewing.

Proceeds from the auction directly benefit the participating artists and WPA, as all sales are split 50/50.

➡️ Register to bid at artsy.net/wpabenefit

➡️ For more information and to buy tickets for Collectors’ Night🌴 on Saturday, May 4, visit wpadc.org/events/2024-collectors-night-gala/

Washington Project for the Arts x Artsy present Washington Project for the Arts:Annual Collectors' Night Benefit Auction. Founded...

02/14/2024

Introducing the 2024 Wherewithal Grantees! 💜💙🩵

We are so excited to announce the 10 grant recipients for the 2024 funding cycle of Wherewithal Grants. Six artists have been awarded with research grants of $5,000 each, and four artists have been awarded with project & presentation grants of $7,500 each, for a total disbursement of $60,000 this cycle.

2024 Research grantees: Adrienne Gaither, Jessica Valoris, Krista Schlyer, Madyha J. Leghari, Sanam Emami, and Taylor Johnson.

2024 Project Presentation grantees are: Anthony Le, Fid Thompson, Mēlani N. Douglass, and nwaọ.

Over the next year, these artists will organize projects and conduct research around fascinating and timely topics such as: poetic inquiry; the inheritance of language; failure; pollution in the Anacostia River; local histories of enslaved resistance and fugitive practice; and the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War.

An independent panel of four artists and curators reviewed 139 applications and recommended the final ten for funding. The adjudication panel for this funding cycle consisted of Kalaija Mallery, Curator, Executive Director, The Luminary (St. Louis, MO); Anisa Olufemi, Curator, Hamiltonian Artists (Washington, DC); Mojdeh Rezaeipour, Artist (Washington, DC); and Robert Weisenberger, Curator, Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, MA). Proposals were evaluated based on the criteria of Artistic Impact, Context/Audience, Collaboration, Feasibility, and Budget.

Thanks so much to the The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of this grant through their

(February 13, 2024) We are pleased to announce the 10 grant recipients for the 2024 funding cycle of Wherewithal Grants, providing financial support and peer mentorship for DC-area artists in areas of research and project presentations. Six artists have been awarded with research grants of $5,000 ea...

11/30/2023

Over Thanksgiving break, we learned of the passing of WPA’s incredible founder Alice Denney. She was 101 years old and lived a truly remarkable life that left a deep imprint on DC, contemporary art, and all who knew her. It’s an honor to carry forward her legacy through our work.

As we move closer to WPA’s 50th anniversary year in 2025, we are developing a digital archive and will be prioritizing an early chapter of our research on Alice and her extensive work and vision with WPA. For those who knew and loved Alice, we look forward to hearing from you about your memories and stories.

You can read more about Alice Denney’s inspiring life and legacy here: https://wapo.st/46zgmVz

“Mrs. Denney’s most enduring creation was the Washington Project for the Arts, an organization that she founded in 1975 to provide workshop, exhibition and performance space for experimental artists.

Initially functioning from a condemned storefront space downtown that charged $1 a year in rent, the initiative received funding from the Cafritz Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and remains in operation today.

Mrs. Denney stepped down as director in 1979 to become board chairman. The WPA, as the project is known, rose to national attention in 1989 when it presented a retrospective exhibit of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, many of them sexually explicit, that had been canceled by the Corcoran amid a political furor over the exhibit’s partial federal funding.

“Imagine what we would have missed, imagine how much duller the art scene here would be,” Post art critic Paul Richard once wrote, “had there never been a WPA.”

Photo Credit: Alice Denney, Founder and Director of Washington Project for the Arts at the Punk Art Exhibition in 1978. Photo by Paul Fineberg.

10/24/2023

Washington Project for the Arts is pleased to present meta-meta: book of instructions by DC/NYC-based artist Misha Ilin (he/him), with an exhibition on view October 14–November 18 at WPA’s Project Space

09/25/2023

The application portal for the next cycle of Wherewithal Grants is now open! DC-area artists may apply for support in areas of Project & Presentation and Research depending on which best supports your practice at this time. This year we are increasing the amount of Project & Presentation grants to $7,500! The deadline for applications is November 14.

Wherewithal provides project-based support for visual art projects within the Beltway of Washington, DC. Courtesy of Washington Project for the Arts and The Warhol Foundation.

09/21/2023

Thank you Washington City Paper & Stephanie Rudig for spotlighting Travis Chamberlain and celebrating his arrival to DC!

WPA’s new executive director Travis Chamberlain wants to build bridges between local artists and outside creators and institutions.

07/12/2023

We're so excited to share this news with you! Today, our Board announced the appointment of Travis Chamberlain as WPA's next Director. Chamberlain—a curator and director with more than 20 years of experience in museum, non-profit, and for-profit contemporary arts spaces in New York City—will begin his new role on September 1, 2023, becoming WPA's 12th Director.

Chamberlain assumes the role as WPA’s principal executive leader after five years as Executive Director at Queer|Art , a community-based nonprofit with a mission to connect and empower generations of LGBTQ+ artists throughout the nation. Prior to this position, Chamberlain spent ten years as a curator of performance at the New Museum in New York City.

This appointment follows an extensive national search supported by Claire Huschle of Good Insight. His arrival coincides with WPA’s 2023–2024 Season Kick-Off and BBQ on Saturday, September 9. The event will introduce the roster of 2023–2024 Artist-Organizers and the projects they will be producing through collaboration with WPA, invited artists, and local communities. All are welcome to attend!

Please join us in giving Travis a warm welcome to DC!

06/30/2023

https://vimeo.com/841294189?share=copy

to our magical Symposium, “How can we gather now?” which occurred 3 months ago and was co-directed by Asad Raza and Prem Krishnamurthy. We’re currently working on a publication about this gathering now and are excited to share it with you all later this year! 💚🌱

In the meantime, if you’d like to support WPA’s future imaginative artist-organized programs, donate through the link on our website (www.wpadc.org). Your support helps us to pay artists and produce rigorous programs.

Reel credits:
~ still photos by McKenzie Grant-Gordon
~ videos by WPA staff
~ editing by Matt Francisco
~ music by Smoke & Tea

An experimental symposium co-directed by Asad Raza & Prem Krishnamurthy. We are living through a moment marked by many forms of fragmentation, political division,…