Arts Foundation celebrates ten years of giving

Media release for immediate use

Arts Foundation celebrates ten years of giving

The Arts Foundation will celebrate its tenth anniversary at the 2009 Arts Foundation Laureate Awards, presented by Forsyth Barr, being held in Auckland on November 17.

The Foundation will name the five 2009 Laureates at the ceremony. Each of the new Arts Foundation Laureates will receive a $50,000, no-strings-attached donation to celebrate their past achievements and invest in their future.

The five new Laureates will join 44 others who have received the award since the Arts Foundation was founded in 2000 to help grow private support for the arts. The total value of the 49 Laureateships is $2.12 million.

“We’re delighted to be celebrating our tenth birthday, and ten years of giving to so many talented New Zealand artists,” says Arts Foundation executive director Simon Bowden. “The Laureate awards are about honouring established artists, and about helping them to keep achieving in the future.”

The 2009 Arts Foundation Laureates Award ceremony on November 17 is being sponsored by investment banking company Forsyth Barr. Performers at the ceremony will include several previous Laureates, such as singer Moana Maniapoto and ta mōko artist Derek Lardelli. Experimental musician Alastair Galbraith, a 2006 Laureate, will unveil the latest version of his glass-tube fire organ.

The Arts Foundation will also launch its new-look website, www.thearts.co.nz, at the ceremony. The website has been designed by Wellington company Origin Design.

The Arts Foundation is now one of New Zealand’s largest arts patronage organisations. It has an endowment fund of just over $6 million, which is managed by Forsyth Barr and grows through the support of individual and corporate donors. The Foundation has been promised another $10 million in legacies.

As well as the Laureate Awards, the Foundation administers six other awards: the Icon Awards; the Governors’ Award; the Award for Patronage; the New Generation Award; the Marti Friedlander Photographic Award, and the Harriet Friedlander New York Residency.

Through these different awards the Foundation has now honoured 96 artists and has made financial awards totaling $2.66 million.
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