ProyectArte

ProyectArte is a New York City-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that creates, develops, and supports innovative arts projects in the Americas.

Our first such program is the ProyectArte School in Buenos Aires, Argentina, whose mission is to discover, nurture and develop promising young artists in that country. There, students ages 15 to 18 are given scholarships for intensive, long term art instruction from some of Argentina’s most distinguished professional artists and educators, whose work can be found in important museums and collections around the world (e.g. MoMA in NY, Fundacion Joan Miro in Barcelona, Maison de L’Amerique Latine in Paris, etc.). In its less than three-year history, ProyectArte’s students have exhibited at Centro Cultural Recoleta, Argentina’s most-visited public exhibition space, as well as the Chelsea Art Museum in New York. ProyectArte’s students have sold dozens of works to collectors in Buenos Aires and New York.

The school’s students are selected after a rigorous selection process based primarily on artistic merit, as well as commitment and financial need. Full scholarships for an 18-month, three-semester course are awarded to deserving students who show both promise and dedication. This process produces a student body that is artistically gifted across the board, and from varied economic backgrounds. By teaching these young people to express themselves artistically, ProyectArte is giving a voice and an opportunity to a talented, new generation of artists. Furthermore, by teaming these same capable young people with accomplished masters, ProyectArte is providing them with successful role models they can look to on their journey to success in the arts as well as other life endeavors.

In response to the increasing polarization of Argentine society, accelerated by the recent economic crisis, an important element of ProyectArte Argentina’s social mission is to create a diverse student body where young people interact with one another via their shared passion and artistic ability. ProyectArte fosters dialogue across Argentina’s rigid social and economic boundaries, thereby broadening the way its students look at their world and each other. Indeed, one tremendous success of ProyectArte’s inaugural class was the profound relationships that formed among students of radically different backgrounds. ProyectArte has shown that high level art education for motivated, talented young people is a very effective way of bridging socio-economic divides.

In November 2004, to dramatically expand ProyectArte’s impact and encourage scholarship-recipients giving back to their communities, a new element was added to ProyectArte’s social mission. Older ProyectArte students who’ve been studying at the school for more than two years began a new program of student-led art workshops for young kids in some of Argentina’s poorest public schools. Entitled Proyectar (to project) the program, now sponsored by Kimberly-Clark, reached over 2500 schoolchildren in 18 of Buenos Aires' poorest public schools in 2005-2006.

During 2006, ProyectArte moved into larger studio spaces with an on-site gallery, began a new exchange program with the San Francisco Art Institute, and held numerous exhibitions in galleries and puclic spaces in the US and Argentina.

In the future, ProyectArte seeks to expand the number of promising young artists it reaches in Argentina and other parts of the Americas. To do so, ProyectArte is asking for your help. To find out more about this unique organization, and how you can get involved, please visit www.proyectarte.org.