Announcing 2026 Creative Capital Awards & State of the Art Prize Artists
Friday, January 9, 2025 (New York, NY)—Creative Capital, the nonprofit organization dedicated to championing artistic freedom of expression by supporting individual artists across the United States, announced that it will award $2.9 million in grants to 109 artists residing in all 50 states and territories. Since its founding in 1999, Creative Capital has provided $55 million in grants and services to 1,119 artists across the country.
For the first time in Creative Capital’s 25-year history, the inaugural State of the Art Prize will provide a $10,000 unrestricted grant to 53 individual artists, one in every state, as well as Guam, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. With this new grant, Creative Capital extends its democratic, national, open call to serve more artists at the grassroots level and to foster creativity and innovation in a broad range of rural, regional, and urban communities.
The 2026 Creative Capital Award, renowned for its recognition of original, ambitious project proposals for new artistic ideas, will support the creation of 49 new works in visual arts, film, dance, theater, music/jazz, and literature, as well as technology, multidisciplinary, and socially engaged forms in all disciplines. The Creative Capital Award supports the creation of risk-taking, groundbreaking new works by providing the awarded artist up to $50,000 in unrestricted project funding, plus professional development services and community-building opportunities.
“Creative Capital remains unwavering in our mission to support individual artists creating new work as a powerful catalyst for freedom of thought and freedom of expression in our democracy. In this moment of urgent and widespread need for arts funding, generous supporters have helped Creative Capital expand our open call, national grant program to serve innovative artists in all 50 states. This will be the first year Creative Capital is supporting artists in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”— Christine Kuan, President & Executive Director, Creative Capital
The artists receiving the 2026 Creative Capital Award and 2026 State of the Art Prize were selected from a pool of 4,546 applications from all 50 states and regions in the United States via a democratic, national open call. Project proposals were evaluated through an external review process that included 107 industry leaders, programmers, cultural producers, and artists, and culminated in discipline-specific final panels.
“The 2026 Creative Capital Awarded projects boldly push artistic form and ideas forward, from an Arabic-language jazz opera; to a family-owned grocery store transformed into a community space in gentrifying Washington, D.C., to a film meditation on the color blue.” Angela Mattox, Director of Artist Initiatives, Creative Capital
These ambitious new works explore a range of topics including: state violence, democracy, poverty, the fentanyl/opioid crisis, consumerism, autism, healthcare, labor, conservation, dementia, ageism, patriarchy, the Altadena fires, gentrification, family, nightlife, deafness, sex, color theory, bull-fighting, urbanism, religion, famine, and war.
