NEW YORK, NY.- Foundwork, the new online platform designed to connect emerging and mid-career artists with curators, gallerists, and other collaborators across the contemporary art community, is now expanding globally. Foundwork is significantly broadening its reach and is inviting international artists to create profiles and exhibit their work on the site—including students and alumni from graduate and undgraduate studio art programs worldwide. The site launched in November 2017 with an initial opening to artists from US MFA programs. The current expansion furthers Foundwork’s purpose to increase visibility for artists and enable new contacts and collaborations between artists and exhibitors wherever they reside. The Brooklyn-based company has also announced its strategic advisers, a group of accomplished contemporary art professionals.

Inspired by Founder Adam Yokell’s experience running a gallery in Brooklyn and working with emerging artists, Foundwork was created to address the limitations that artists, curators, and gallerists all face in their search for potential collaborators. The site currently features artists from over 80 US MFA programs, including alumni based throughout the US and abroad.

“Since we launched in November, it’s been wonderful to see a wide range of artists start to share their work through the site, and we’re thrilled to invite this more global group to participate going forward,” Yokell said. “Whether people live in the same city or halfway around the world from one another, many potential opportunities are missed due to a basic lack of access and visibility between artists and exhibitors. It’s exciting to consider the new relationships that Foundwork can facilitate.”

Foundwork also names as its initial strategic advisors: DeWitt Godfrey, Artist, Professor, Colgate University, Past President, College Art Association; Tod Lippy, Editor, ESOPUS, President, Esopus Foundation Ltd., Brooklyn; Manuela Paz, Director of Development and Strategic Planning, Independent Curators International (ICI), New York, Co-Founder and Director, Embajada Gallery, San Juan; and Helen Toomer, Co-Founder and Artistic Director, STONELEAF RETREAT, Kingston, NY, Adjunct Professor, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, former Director, PULSE Contemporary Art Fair. “I’m delighted to be working with this dynamic group, all of whom have devoted their practices to supporting and building communities around artists. Each brings invaluable perspective to the project,” said Yokell. As Helen Toomer also remarks, “artists, curators, and gallerists are often limited by geography and other factors that can make it challenging to branch out and find new collaborators. Foundwork is responding to these needs and is positioned to be a powerful connective tool.”

Foundwork is a new platform designed to connect emerging and mid-career artists with curators, gallerists, and other collaborators wherever they are based. Foundwork is a dedicated venue for artists to share their work with the global contemporary art community—and a tool for curators, gallerists, and others to effectively research and engage with practicing artists. Artists create and manage their own profiles on the platform, which is searchable across a range of key criteria including school, class year, degree type, artwork format, descriptive attributes, and artist location. Foundwork seeks to support existing practices, increase visibility for artists, and enable new contacts and collaborations between artists and exhibitors.

Adam Yokell is the Founder and CEO of Foundwork. Prior to launching the platform, Adam founded Hometown, a Brooklyn-based art gallery where he exhibited and collaborated with emerging artists from the US and abroad. Also a lawyer by training, Adam was previously Counsel to the online platform Artsy, where he managed legal affairs and provided operational and strategic guidance across the company from 2011 through 2015. Adam is an active member of industry groups and organizations including the SculptureCenter Ambassadors, Independent Curators International (ICI) Independents, New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA), and the Art Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association, where he is part of the subcommittee on Artists' Rights.