Today Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies—or CCS Bard, as it’s commonly styled—announced that it has received a $1 million grant from the Brant Foundation, a nonprofit headed by Peter Brant, who—full disclosure—recently announced he was acquiring part of the parent company of this magazine, ARTnews S.A., as part of a merger.
The grant will go toward supporting “curatorial studies and art history” at the curatorial school in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, according to a news release, and will see the art historian Alex Kitnick serving as Brant Foundation Fellow in Contemporary Arts, teaching classes both at CCS Bard and Bard College. (He is currently a visiting assistant professor or art history at Bard College.) The money will also be used to fund acquisitions for CCS Bard’s library and archive.
Kitnick earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University, where he studied with Hal Foster, whose most recent volume of art criticism was recently reviewed by Rachel Wetzler for this magazine. “Alex Kitnick is a distinguished historian who adds a new and distinct voice to our programs,” Tom Eccles, the executive director of CCS Bard, said in a statement.
The Brant Foundation is perhaps best known for its Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich, Connecticut, where it has hosted shows by artists like Nate Lowman, Julian Schnabel, Urs Fischer, and Karen Kilimnik.