Most art grants fund a specific, describable finished work. LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab Grant is built around a different premise: funding artists to explore technology they may have never used before, with the explicit expectation that the deliverable might be a prototype, a dataset, or working code rather than a completed piece. This year’s application window closed April 22, with selections due to be announced this month.
Watch: LACMA Art + Technology Lab — Artist Grant Info Session (YouTube)
What the program actually funds
Grants go up to $50,000 per project, typically spanning a two-year timeline, open to individuals and collectives located anywhere in the world. Prior technical expertise isn’t a prerequisite — the program is explicitly framed around artists exploring how emerging technology might expand a practice they already have, not around already-established technologists who happen to make art. Beyond direct funding, selected artists get access to in-kind support and mentorship from partner companies, which for past and current cycles have included Hyundai Motor, Snap Inc., and Anthropic.
Why funding “not a finished work” is the actual design choice
The application explicitly asks for a project description, artistic merit, a public engagement plan, and a budget — the standard components of any grant application — but the stated goal is generating “models, prototypes, data, code” that the broader art-and-technology community can use, not necessarily a gallery-ready final piece. That’s a deliberate bet that the most valuable output of an artist experimenting seriously with new technology often isn’t the finished artwork at all, but the reusable groundwork — a technique, a dataset, a working method — that other artists and technologists can build on afterward. Few grant programs are structured to value that kind of output as highly as a completed piece.
Why this program’s track record matters
LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab has quietly served as an early support structure for artists working seriously with emerging technology well before that work became fashionable or commercially obvious — a reputation that gives real weight to a grant explicitly built around experimentation rather than a safe, pre-validated proposal. With this year’s selections landing imminently, it’s worth watching not just who gets funded, but what they choose to build with technology they’ve explicitly never used before.