.
Promoting CETA Arts History
Exhibitions, Media Appearances, Panels and Presentations, Policies Influenced
CETA Arts Exhibitions
ART/WORK upcoming; the James Gallery of the CUNY Graduate Center NYC and then
traveling to additional venues nationally, premiering fall 2026
CETA Arts in Philadelphia upcoming; Philadelphia City Hall Gallery, August 3 - September 25, 2026
Citizen Artist upcoming at the Delaware Art Museum, April 11 - September 5, 2026
New York Public Library - In July 2025, the Wallach Division's photography collection acquired
100 vintage prints of photographs
of the CCF CETA Artists Project made in 1978 by
two members of its Documentation Unit, George Malave and Blaise Tobia.
ART/WORK How the Government-Funded CETA Jobs Program Put Artists to Work 1973-1981,
City Lore and Cuchiritos Galleries, NYC, December 2021 - April 2022
Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces, Museum of Modern Art, NYC, featured works by fifteen artists
who worked under CETA, seven of them in the NYC CCF Project, October 2022 - February 2023
Media Appearances
The CETA Arts Revolution Part 1 • Part 2 - a two-part podcast on Change the Story/Change the World
in conversation with Bill Cleveland, Director of the Center for Study of Art and Community (05/25)
CETA: Forgotten Federally-Funded Artists webinar series
organized and hosted by Living New Deal (10/24)
Part 1: Reshaping the WPA for the 1970s • Part 2: The Artist Experience
Part 3: Impact on the Arts and Community
The Forgotten Federally Employed Artists
article by Virginia Maksymowicz and Blaise Tobia for Hyperallergic (12/20)
The landmark 70s artist program that shaped American culture forever
article: i-D (01/22)
Could a Nixon-era Employment Scheme Get Artists Back to Work?
article by Margaret Carrigan for The Art Newspaper (7/20)
Artists say a forgotten Nixon-era jobs program could radically alter federal arts funding
article by Stephan Salisbury for the Philadelphia Inquirer (4/21)
CETA Saved Me - photographic feature: aCurator (4/21)
Remembering CETA Artists in NYC
article by Anna Schwartz for the Brooklyn Public Library
What Will Culture Look Like in the Next Decade?
The Art Newspaper podcast “The Week in Art”
interview with Virginia Maksymowicz and Blaise Tobia starts at 45:55
Artists Look Back for a Path Forward
radio interview on Cityscape with George Bodarsky WFUV-FM (4/21)
The CETA Program
radio interview on Artwatch with Constance McBride, WCHE, West Chester, PA (11/20)
Panels and Presentations
Forgotten Federal Art Legacies: The New Deal to CETA in San Francisco
A convening organized by The Living New Deal
at the California College for the Arts, San Francisco, March 2025
Program
Art History in Search of a Historian
Andrea Kirsh • Virginia Maksymowicz • Blaise Tobia
at the College Art Association conference in NYC, February 2023
Video available through the CETA Arts Legacy Archive
Critical Lens: Art x CETA
Ellin Burke • Kenneth R. Cobb • Molly Garfinkel (chair) • Virginia Maksymowicz • George Malave • Blaise Tobia • Judd Tully
at the NYC Department of Records and Information Services, Municipal Archives, October 2022
Video via YouTube
How an Almost-Forgotten Federal Program Kickstarted the Feminist Art Movement
The Women’s Caucus for Art and City Lore Gallery
Virginia Maksymowicz (chair) • Jerri Allyn • Arlene Rakoncay • Senga Nengudi •Maren Hassinger
Ann Kalmbach • Nina Kuo via Zoom
(introduction by Molly Garfinkel), March 2022
Video via YouTube
Common Ground: Art/Work: How the Government-Funded CETA Jobs Program Put Artists to Work
A Zoom discussion including Ted Berger, Molly Garfinkel, Bob Holman, Ademola Olugebefola and Jodi Waynberg
sponsored by The Brooklyn Rail, April 2022
Video via YouTube
The Forgotten Federal Artists: CETA and the CCF Artists Project
Christy Rupp • Ademola Olegbefola • Judd Tully • Blaise Tobia (chair)
at the College Art Association conference in NYC, February 2019
Artists, Institutions and Public Funding for the Arts: the Legacy of CETA
Tom Finkelpearl • Rochelle Slovin • Ted Berger • Steven C. Dubin • Howard Singerman (chair)
at Hunter College, February 2019
Presentation to the American Photography Archive Group (APAG)
by CETA Arts photographers George Malave and Larry Racioppo, March 2021
Video available through the CETA Arts Legacy Archive
Presentation to the Appraisers Association of America
by Blaise Tobia and Virginia Maksymowicz, September 2020
Video available through the Association
Recent Policies Influenced by CETA
Creatives Rebuild NY was a three-year, $125 million project funded primarily by the Mellon Foundation
with both employment and basic income programs for artists in NY State. For two years, beginning
in mid-2022, the employment program provided full-time jobs to 300 artists. It was based closely on
the 1978 CCF CETA Artists Program (which it credited as a model).
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio's announcement of the City’s Artists Corps project (5/6/21) cites CETA as an inspiration for the Corps.
Earlier, in the 2018 Create NYC plan developed by the Department of Cultural Affairs, the CETA Artist Project is included as a case study.
• Homepage • Legacy Project • National Overiew • NYC Project • Resources •