Australia Council Commence Allocation Of Extra Funding To The Arts

Australia Council for the Arts CEO Tony Grybowski has announced that work to allocate additional funds to local artists and art organisations has already begun, just days after the new board was revealed.

One of their first tasks was setting up new Peer Assessment Panels and Grybowski has confirmed that the ones targeted at Visual Arts and Literature were priorities in the board's first meeting, with the Music panel to meet next week.

“I am delighted to report that in addition to core funding, decisions made by the Visual Arts and Literature Peer Assessment Panels in the first week of the new financial year will see around $400,000 of the additional $15 million to support unfunded excellence in 2013/14 begin to flow to the successful artists and organisations without delay," Grybowski said.

The panels consist of Chairs and members the art community boards, something Grybowski believes is a huge assistance to them making the correct decisons.

“We are very fortunate at present to have artists of rich and diverse backgrounds and experience represented in each of our Peer Assessment Panels,” Mr Grybowski said. “For example, the Visual Arts Peer Assessment Panel this week engaged 10 peers from across the country, including artists, curators, craft designers and an arts writer.

Grybowski also added that the council's Grants Program review is well underway and a new program could come to fruition in 2015. It was just over a month ago that $860,000 was handed out across eleven artists in the dance, visual art, performance and composing fields as part of the Creative Australia Fellowships initiative.