Thanks to everyone who came out for AFP's Summer Grooove Cruise on Thursday night. It was so much fun!

Our next big event is coming up on Tuesday, September 9th during New York Fashion Week when AFP presents "Fashion::Interaction", an alternative fashion week event at 320 Studios in NYC.

Many more details coming next week.

August 3rd

We're just a few days away from AFP's Summer Grooove Cruise and we decided to give away 50 T-shirts to the first 50 people who board the Star of Palm Beach. These are limited edition T-shirts from AFP artists($25 value).

If you haven't bought your tickets yet, what are you waiting for?

Weather forecast: 85 degrees and sunny.

3 hours of live music, dance performances and DJ's spinning on two levels.

Advance tickets will be on sale through Wednesday. Come out and support AFP and enjoy a beautiful night on the water!

July 23rd

Art For Progress Launches New Health Insurance Program

Art For Progress is pleased to partner with Atlantis Health Plans and Vista Health Solutions to provide affordable access to health insurance for AFP artists and their families.

Art For Progress was able to negotiate directly with the health plan to assure some of the best rates available to self employed individuals. All of the application and processing fees have been waived for AFP members. You can apply on-line without having to file most of the tedious paperwork commonly found with similar programs.

If you have any questions about the program, feel free to contact Vista Health Solutions by telephone at 845.753.2320 or by e-mail at info@nyhealthinsurer.com.

Visit Vista Health Solutions for more information.

July 20, 2008

Emperor City Motorcade to Perform at AFP's Summer Grooove Cruise

Check out this performance from Clash of the Artists 2008: Emperor City Motorcade

July 13th

Art For Progress Soon to Launch a New Health Insurance Program for Artists.

Art For Progress will be launching a new health insurance program that will provide access to affordable health insurance for our artist and supporting members.

Through a partnership with Atlantis Health Plan we will be offering health insurance to individuals and familys at some of the lowest rates in the State of New York.

We will have more details in the near future.

July 11

Grooove Cruise update..

Thanks to Ommegang Beer we have an open bar from 6 - 7pm. We'll also have some light food on board for our exciting ride around NYC.

July 1

We're pleased to announce two dance performances to be showcased at AFP's Summer Grooove Cruise" on August 7th:

>SHBA Danceworks

>Nina Buisson Contemporary Move Dance Company

>collaborating with SeBiArt: Photographic Evolution

We have more to come. Check back for more information.
June 27

Tickets are now available for the Grooove Cruise on Augsut 7th! You can find the link by taking a look at the event page located in the drop down menu above.

We have many exciting announcements still to come including sponsors and giveaways.

Stay tuned..

June 19

We just added the lovely Miz Metro to the line-up for our Summer Grooove Cruise along with reggae band Thunda Vida. AFP's Barry Komitor will be playing with the band.DJ Dennis Sebayan has also been confirmed as well as performances from SeBiArt.

We checked out the Global Frequencies boat party last night headlined by DJ Luke Fair. We had a great time and it reminded us of how much people love boat parties!

Of course, our event will be quite a bit more diverse. We're super-excited for this one and we'll have music to suit anyone's taste. Tickets will be available this week.

June 9th

Our Summer Groove Cruise is starting to shape up with the confirmation of two bands and a few DJ's too. Winners of Clash of the Artists 2008, Emperor City Motorcade is set to play along with our newest music act to join the AFP roster Encursus. On the dance music side of things, we have Rob Paterson, Jimmy Sky and Doug Gomez confirmed. We'll have many more details to come over the next few days so check back for the latest updates.

The Art For Progress Grant Program was launched last week! We're pleased to be able to offer grants to our artists as we continue to expand our program.

We have several new artists who have joined AFP recently. They include sculptor Rocco Alberico, painter & illustrator Amy Rowland, mixed media artist Kerri Alycia Daniel, painter Joseph Manutti and a new band Encursus.

AFP's Summer Groove Cruise is coming up on Thursday, August 7th. Tickets will soon be available here on the site. You won't want to miss this event.

Our new health insurance program is set to launch soon along with other new member benefits.

May 24th

Summer is finally upon us and this is typically a quiet time in NYC as everyone heads to the beaches. Though, everyone at AFP will be working hard this summer on our developing art education program.

After much success piloting our arts and humanities education initiative at Landmark High School this school year, we are planning to offer this program to many schools across NYC over the summer. We believe this is a GREAT opportunity for our program and we are excited for what's ahead. Along with our outreach to schools we are beginning a major recruiting program for teaching artists and artists who are interested in possibly becoming a teacher. We are in the process of putting together a rather nice package of incentives for artists who work in the program. Some of these include free AFP memberships, special events featuring our teaching artists and other great stuff.

If interested please contact Annie Branson, our art education coordinator, via e-mail at annie@artforprogress.org.

Our next big event will be the Art For Progress "Summer Groove Cruise" which will take place on Thursday, August 7th after work. The evening will feature musical performances, performance art, and DJ's from our fine roster of artists. Many more details coming soon. Let us not forget September fashion week is quickly approaching too and we are going to put together something different this year. We think it will be very exciting!

AFP's Artist Grant Program is soon to be launched too. A lot of exciting stuff happening at AFP. The launch of our new health insurance program is just arounf the corner.

Enjoy the beautiful weather! Ciao.

May 6th

We're sorry to report the cancellation of our symposium which was scheduled for May 13th. A number of factors contributed to this decision and it was a difficult one. We apologize to our fine group of panelists and we hope we will have the opportunity to work with them in the future.

Artist Membership Program News: We recently added two new partnerships for our artist members. The first is Zipcar and the newest is with Moo Cards.

The Zipcar deal is a good one. They are waiving $50 of the membership fee and giving our members discounted hourly and daily rates. The membership is international so you can use it wherever you may travel. Oh, and insurance and gas are included. Good stuff.

Moo Cards is offering our members 10% off of their first purchase. If you haven't heard of this company, they are a little different than your average printer.

Here's a few details:

1. They use a special printing technique that allows every single card or sticker in a pack to carry a different image. So you can choose a selection of photos or designs in one pack, rather than just one
image, as with all other printers.

2. They're products are of the highest quality. The printing and the card and sticker stock that we use is first class.

3. Moo Cards is truly global. Not only do we ship all over the world, but we have a flat rate to anywhere in the world.

More details here: http://www.moo.com

On another note, we just received an e-mail from Legros Cultural Arts

Legros Cultural Arts, Inc is seeking film/video project submissions for the Queens Youth Multicultural Film Festival. We are seeking submissions from youth and young adults ages 14-23.

More information can be found here: www.legrosculturalarts.org

One more thing: Art For Progress will soon be launching its artist grant program that will provide grants up to $500 for small community based art education initiatives implemented by AFP artists. All of the details are forthcoming on our site by May 31st.

Art Education Program Update: We're pleased to announce that our pilot art and humanities education initiative is receiving great reviews and we will be expanding the program to accomodate several new schools for next school year.

We are currently recruiting teaching artists for our program. If interested in participating and possibly becoming part of our artist in residence program, please send us an e-mail with your resume to arteducation@artforprogress.org. More information can be found above in our "art education" section.

Next Event: AFP's Summer Boat Party featuring live music performances, performance art, and DJs spinning on different levels. It is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, August 7th with many more details coming.

Enjoy the sunshine!

April 13

We're packing and getting ready to move our headquarters in the coming weeks. After five years in Little Italy, we'll be relocating to the East Village in the summer. Little Italy has treated us well and it's been great having a 1,300 Sq. Ft. loft in the heart of downtown NYC, but the rents keep going up and we've had enough!

We ask everyone to join us on Friday and Saturday April 25th and 26th for a special art sale from 6PM until 9PM both evenings. Much of the work will be affordable with prints available for as little as $25.

So come by and have a drink with us, check out the art and maybe we'll wrap something up for you to enjoy for years to come. This sale will ONLY be for people who receive our regular mailings and e-mails. If you're not on that list, sign-up for our e-mail list right away and you will get an invite.

We are very excited about our upcoming sympsoium at NYU Law School on Tuesday, May 13th. All of the details can be found in our event section.

April 1

We had to take a couple of weeks to relax a bit from our busy schedule, and the timing was good as we were able to attend some of the art shows this past weekend.

We checked out The Armory Show and Bridge Art Fair. The Armory Show was impressive as always, but Bridge Art Fair left a little to be desired. Also, the $25 fee was a bit hefty for the size and scope of the show.

AFP will be hosting its first symposium on Tuesday May 13th at NYU Law School. We are excited to have this opportunity to present a fantastic panel of speakers and we think the subject matter is refreshing. With the fall of the almighty dollar, art is becoming even more attractive as an investment, but this isn't the only reason to buy art. We will be covering a whole range of topics that explore why people purchase art and what to look for when buying artwork.

Our confirmed list of panelists includes:

Christel Dahlén, Director of International Relations, Chelsea Art Museum

Giovanni Garcia-Fenech, Communication Manager, 2008 Armory Show

Peter Reginato, Sculptor, Instructor

Michael Mendelsohn, New York Collector/Art-world Consultant/Briddge Art Strategies

Paige West, Mixed Greens Gallery Owner/Author of “The Art of Buying Art: Insider’s Guide to Collecting Contemporary Art”

Helene Forbes, Forbes Fine Art Consultants

Peter Hastings Falk, Hastings Art Management Services

Our moderator for the evening will be Mr. Michael Cohn of the Appraisers Association of America and Michael Cohn Asian Antiquities LLC.

We'll have more information in our events section very soon.

March 17

We have our winners for Clash of the Artists 2008!

Fashion:
Ricardo Ramos
Prizy Sebastian
Ritu K. Yellai

Visual Arts:
Juan Salgado
Berry Breene
Ana Canet

Live Music:
Emperor City Motorcade
Redheadphone

Film:
Michael Brettler
Ryan Ullman
Arth

DJs:
Jimmy Sky
Nickmatic
Kym Serrano

Congratulations to all of these artists and everyone who participated in Clash 2008.

After several months, many rounds of competition, and the big finals event on Saturday, we have a whole new crew of Art For Progress' artists. Everyone at AFP is excited to have this new group of artists on board as we approach 100 members.

In addition to these great artists we also have some other exciting new members who joined during and after the competitions. We also had the opportunity to meet quite a few artists who participated in Clash at the event on Saturday. We appreciate your support!

We believe that every artist who participated in this unique virtual and real world competition is a winner.

Thanks to all of our sponsors, volunteers, interns and everyone who came out on Saturday!

Our next event is Art For Progress' Young Art Collector's Symposium at NYU Law School in May. With a distinguished panel of curators, writers, artists and consultants, this promises to be an incredible evening. The specific details are coming soon right here on our site.

March 2

Tickets are selling fast for our big event on March 15th! Come out, support and make your vote count!

This is our one and only art education fundraiser for 2008. Our program is now making a difference for New York City kids through our work in the classroom and after-school. AFP artists are teaching in Manhattan and Brooklyn and we are receiving new program opportunities every week. Now that Art For Progress is a vendor for the Department of Education, we plan to expand our program next school year with hopes of placing artists-in-residence throughout the five boroughs of NYC.

If you're an artist and you're interested in working with us, contact Annie Branson, annie@artforprogress.org.

We have many updates and a new artist grant program that we'll be rolling out in the next few weeks.

February 21

The results are in and we have our finalists for Clash of the Artists 2008. Everything will be posted later tonight along with our honorable mentions. We will also have more information about the finals event on March 15th. Advance tickets will be on sale tommorow.

We snuck out to the Shinjo Ito opening last night at Milk Studios. If you have the opportunity to see this exhibition you must see it. This work has never been viewed in the U.S. before. Go to the events menu above for more information.

February 20

We have just over 24 hours left to vote. It's not too late to make your vote count.

March 15th - 320 Studios - Clash of the Artists 2008 - Fashion, Music, Visual Art, Film, Performance.

February 13-

We need everyone to vote! There's only one week left to vote in Clash of the Artists.

We're proud to announce that AFP will be supporting the upcoming Shinjo Ito exhibition at Milk Studios. The exhibition opens February 21st, and from what we've seen it's going to be an incredible show not to be missed. You'll be seeing many more details about the exhibition right here in the next couple weeks.

Let's not forget Clash of the Artists event is coming up on Saturday, March 15th. 320 Studios is the spot this year. Emerging artists, views across the Hudson river, sponsored open bar all night, continuous entertainment and many surprises.

February 8

Thanks to everyone who came out to nublu last night! We had a great time chilling with everyone and hearing some top quality music from Ze Luis Quartet, Roja, Barry Komitor, and Zef Noise. Thanks to the good people at nublu as well. We hope to be back soon for another AFP night.

It's already February so our big 'Clash of the Artist's' event is coming up soon. We are determined to make this event even bigger and more exciting than last year. The venue, 320 Studios in Manhattan, is an incredible space with views of the Hudson River and a beautiful terrace. We are thankful for John Stavros support.

Also, we have several new artists who have joined AFP in the last few weeks. Mookrulz, MaRiinX, Jan Alpert, and Cheryl Tapp.

Dates of Interest:

March 15, Clash of the Artists

March 25 - 30, Winter Music Conference, Miami Beach

May 13, AFP's Young Art Collectors Symposium, NYU Law School

January 20-

We hope you're enjoying all of the great art, music, films and designs. Voting for 'Clash of the Artists' will continue through February 20th.

As you can see on your left, our featured artist is Drew Maillard. Drew is a Brooklyn based artist who was recently part of our group show in November.

Join us on Thursday, February 7th at nublu for a night of live music featuring Art For Progress' artists. Check the event section for details.

January 16-

For the past two months, emerging artists have been sending Art For Progress(AFP) their best, and now it's time for the virtual art community to do its part. AFP's annual arts competition, Clash of the Artists, is the first of its kind, where artists in six categories compete in an interactive on-line environment. People from New York to Japan can visit the AFP site and vote for their favorites while viewing short films, listening to music, and seeing new work from emerging artists and fashion designers. The top three artists in each category will compete on Saturday, March 15th at a live finals event in New York City.

In 2007, over 5,000 people voted on-line, and over 300 people attended the memorable live event. The five-week voting period begins January 15th and runs through February 20th.

January 5-



Check out our video for Clash of the Artists!

It's a new year and it brings so much excitement for the folks at AFP.

Submissions for our incredible comeptitions end on Tuesday January 7th and we can't wait to share all of the impressive art with everyone. The competitions have a much larger international presence this year, and on January 15th you'll get to experience all of it. We are close to securing the space for the event which is scheduled for Saturday, March 15th. Last year's Clash event brought back feelings of old New York nightlife that many of us miss.

Other news: AFP's 'Music for Progress' event is being planned for mid- to late February. It's been a long time coming since we've had our last live music focused event. We'll have many more details to come soon.

Artist News: Juan Manuel Pajares' will be participating in 'Art Brussels', a contemporary art fair. Juan has recently updated his AFP space with a whole bunch of new paintings.

Melanie Propopoulos is participating in two shows here in NYC right now. One is a group show at the Agora Gallery and the other is at the Broadway Gallery owned by NY Arts Magazine.

Gabe Kirchheimer has another show coming up in Paris this month. Gabe will be showing at Galerie d"Art de Creteil from January 12th through February 16th.

AFP artist Quitzow is performing at Mercury Lounge on Sunday January 27th. AFP people will be attending this show.

Our artists our very busy, and AFP will be here to support them through all of their ventures in 2008.

It's going to be a great year!

December 21-

Happy Holidays and thank you for your support!

Everyone at Art For Progress is looking forward to 2008 and another great year.

We produced seven major events in 2007 including our first theater production, Dossier: Ronald Akkerman. Our roster of artists has grown to 75 with the addition of 37 new members in 2006. In the new year we will be introducing several new program initiatives.

Stay tuned..

December 9-

As you can see, our new featured artist for the month of December is Miru Kim. Miru has been getting quite a bit of well deserved press lately. Being named one of the Best and Brightest by Esquire Magazine as well as a recent feature in London's Financial Times weekend magazine. We're pleased that she is part of the AFP community.

The submissions are rolling in for Clash of the Artists 2008. With all of the fantastic prizes, our expectations are huge for this year. If the quality of the submissions so far is any indication, we won't be disappointed.

On Thursday night we're hosting our holiday bash at Sullivan Room. This is going to be a fun night, and if you haven't heard Larry Tee spin before this is your chance.

2-4-1 drinks from 9-11pm will get you in the groove as the AFP DJ's warm it up.

Happy Holidays to everyone and thank you for your support in 2007!!


November 28-

Thanks to our sponsors: Sony, Dubspot, Rodriguez-Amat Center, Audio Technica, People's Revolution, Magnum P.R, Dick Blick, Absolute Arts, FashionTribes.com, and Myriad Enterprises.

We're very excited about this year's competitions.

Join us for our big holiday party and DJ showcase on Thursday, December 13th at Sullivan Room.

featuring special guest Larry Tee and a live performance from the legendary Paloma.


2 for 1 drinks 9-11pm and of course it's FREE for AFP members.

If you have been thinking about joining AFP, this is the time to do it! With all of the great things happening for AFP and its artists, it's hard to keep up with it all.

Incredibly, we have produced 7 major events this year, and we expect to do even more next year.

November 17-

Submissions for Clash of the Artists 2008 are now open! We'll have all of the exciting prizes listed on the site next week. Check out our new open category this year, 'Creative'.

AFP hosted the closing party this past Thursday for 'A New Spirit of Progress'. We had two wonderful performances from Barry Komitor and Seiji Nakano. If you weren't able to check out this year's group art exhibition, we're sorry you missed it.

Our next major event will be AFP's holiday party and DJ showcase at Sullivan Room on Thursday, December 13th.

November 7-

Thanks to everyone who helped make opening night of 'A New Spirit of Progress' a special evening. We hope you'll join us again on Thursday, November 15th for the closing party. We have one of our new musical artists performing, Barry Komitor performing along with a set of traditional Japanese music from Seiji Nakano playing the shamisen.

Also, this Saturday, the 10th may be your last chance to check out 'Dossier: Ronald Akkerman' for a while. The performance will take place at World Culture Open gallery at 8pm. For more information see the listing in our events section.

'Clash of the Artists 2008' will launch next week right here on the site. We are hard at work finishing up some final details. We have some incredible prizes for this year that are very exciting!

AFP's DJ showcase is being planned or next month! More details coming soon.


October 30-

AFP congratulates the winners of our first screenplay competition!

1st Place: "Virt.Gen" by Holly Dupej
She wins $100 cash, a one-year membership to AFP and a written critique by Barbara Feinstein.

2nd Place: "Grace's Pawn" by Billy Maddox and Danny Russell. They win $50 cash, a one-year membership to AFP and a written critique by Barbara Feinstein.

3rd Place: "Voices" by Susan Klos. Susan wins a one-year membership to AFP.

Join us this Friday, November 2nd for the opening of our group art exhibition featuring work from 23 of AFP's visual artists. World Culture Open, 19 West 26th Street(Broadway & 5th Ave), 5th Floor. The show will run from November 2nd - November 15th.

On both Saturdays the 3rd and 10th we'll present our small play, "Dossier: Ronald Akkerman" at 8pm at the space.

Also, Art for Progress is holding its second annual “Clash of the Artists”, where emerging artists from around the globe unite online to unearth the greatest talent in the visual arts, live music, fashion design, short film and DJ talent for the true progressives of the avant-garde world, who cannot classified into a one of the above categories, we have a category that we lovingly like to call, “creative”. Creative—we know, but that’s your job, not ours.

The competition culminates with an event held in New York City in March 2008 to showcase all winners. Proceeds of “Clash of the Artists” go to Art for Progress’ Art Education Program based in New York City.

Hold your tongue. Save the postage. And breathe a sigh of relief. Starting November 15, 2007, we’ll be accepting your submissions online.

October 16-

We are patiently waiting for the results of our first screenwriters competition. We really had some great submissions. The results will be available in the next couple of days.

Our new intern Seiji Nakano is hard at work on this years 'Clash of the Artists' competition. Seiji is a musician and student from Liverpool's LIPA where he studies art, music and entertainment management. He's not only a great help for us at AFP, he's a really nice guy too!

On Friday, November 2nd, AFP presents, "A New Spirit of Progress", our group art show. We will have all of the details up on the site by the end of the week.

The news is now updated every 5 or 6 days.

October 10-

AFP is pleased to announce our soon to be launched artist grant program. All AFP member artists will be eligible for the program. The focus will be on community education initiatives. Artists will have the opportunity to apply in 2008. We'll have more details in the coming months.

Tommorow night we'll be back at Gallerybar for our collective night. Rob Paterson will be treating us to his selections all night.

Stop by and say hello!

October 5th-

Join us tonight for the opening of 'Dossier: Ronald Akkerman' @ Pure Project, 205 Mulberry Street, 8pm. There will be a matinee tommorow afternoon at 3pm and another performance at 8pm as well.

November 2nd is opening night for AFP's group art exhibition, 'A New Spirit of Progress'. We're planning a number of special performances to go along with our 2 week show which ends on November 16th. AFP visual artist Pete Nawara, who recently painted live on tour with singer, song writer Citizen Cope, will be painting live at the opening of the show. Plus, we're hoping to have one of our musical artists perform on opening night. On Saturday, we'll host a performance of 'Dossier: Ronald Akkerman' at the gallery.

AFP's 'Clash of the Artists' competitions are coming up real soon. We're adding a sixth category this year to make it even bigger. Many more details to come..

September 28-

Gabe Kirchheimer is our featured artist for the month of October. The shots presented in our virtual gallery are from 'Burning Man 2007' which ended earlier this month.

We hope you enjoy these great photos!

September 19-

Fashion Week has come and gone and it was another intense week of shows and parties.

Our event, 'The Art of Design' was a great success! We really appreciate all of the wonderful feedback! Thank you to everyone who made the show, and the ridiculously fun after-party at Lotus. The place was jumping, and the elaborate drink list was exceptional too.

We promise to continue to present the best in emerging artist talent. In fact, we have our group art exhibition, 'A New Spirit of Progress' opening Friday, November 2nd and 'Dossier: Ronald Akkerman', our first theater production, premiering on October 5th. Can you believe a small group of artists can keep up with this rigorous schedule? That's not to mention the school year has begun, and our team of teaching artists is about to take on our second school year of workshops. Is there more? Yes... Our annual DJ showcase is being planned along with a year ending music benefit.

Our artist collective night at Gallerybar keeps humming along. AFP artists Phillip Simmons, Patrice Miller, Kenny Yee, and Don Sipley stopped by, and the artwork from Shalom Newman is an interesting change of pace for the gallery. On Thursday the 27th, come check out a live performance and the first photography exhibition at the gallery.

Burning Man photographer Gabe Kirchheimer has returned from his yearly adventure in the desert. He's posted a bunch of shots from this year in his gallery.

We are working on a number of new partnerships for our artists. Stay tuned for more..

Be sure to check out AFP's "Member Calendar" for cool events featuring AFP artists.

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The clip above is from NBC Channel 4 that features AFP's Art Education Program! It includes some footage from one of our workshops at PS 15.

Check back often. We update this section regularly.