Amid National Funding Cuts, Grant Saves Ocean City Arts Center Exhibit

OCEAN CITY, NJ — As National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding cuts threaten organizations across the U.S., one local art exhibit is being saved thanks to two foundations stepping in with a $10,000 grant.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation will contribute $10,000 to save an Ocean City Arts Center art exhibit, the center announced in a news release.

The two major visual arts foundations announced a joint commitment of $800,000 to provide immediate support to 80 small and mid-sized cultural organization across the United States to "advance critical, community-based visual arts programs in jeopardy of being cancelled to financial uncertainties."

The programs the foundations are supporting were selected to receive grants from Challenge America, a longstanding NEA initiative designed to extend the arts to underserved communities that was suspended earlier this year. Further funding is threatened as the Trump administration has proposed to eliminate the NEA entirely by 2026.

"As a first-time NEA grantee, Ocean City Arts Center has been sitting on pins and needles with concern on the status of our grant," said the center's executive director, Chase Jackson. "There is the possibility of our NEA grant being rescinded.

Ocean City Arts Center had received a Challenge America grant for its 2026 exhibit, "More than Touch, A Connection." The project is a new, interactive art exhibit transforming the traditional gallery presentation to be more inclusive by having tactile, auditory and spatial experience for visually impaired individuals and sighted alike. Ancillary activities will include presentations and panel discussion featuring visually impaired artists and the advisors from the arts and visually impaired communities on their collective wisdom and shared ideas used in creating this exhibit.

"We have been trying to find meaning and new possibilities in adversity, seeing that for every loss, a greater opportunity may emerge," Jackson said. "That's what has happened through the graciousness of the Warhol and Frankenthaler Foundations. We were stunned and thrilled when we were notified the Arts Center is a beneficiary of their initiative. Because of these two national visual arts foundations, our project can move forward. We are sincerely grateful."

The exhibit is planned for wider exposure. After opening at the Ocean City Arts Center, it will be featured at the Riverfront Renaissance Arts Center in Millville and at Stockton University's Arts Garage in Atlantic City. The grant from the Warhol and Frankenthaler Foundations helps to assure that the exhibit will come to fruition.