Foundation for Art Resources (FAR) is a Los Angeles-based, non-profit arts organization that facilitates the production and presentation of contemporary art projects outside of the gallery structure. It was founded in 1977 by gallerists Morgan Thomas, Connie Lewallen, and Claire Copley, who transferred leadership to the artist and mediator Dorit Cypis in 1979. Since then, FAR has been overseen collaboratively by over 20 different groups of Board Members and 100 artist-Directors. Currently the longest-running extant arts collective in Los Angeles with no exhibition space, FAR partners with different private, public and educational institutions throughout Los Angeles to produce exhibitions, lectures, and performances with a focus on the relational structures between art, producers, and audience.
History
FAR was managed by its initial founders for two years before Morgan Thomas handed its leadership over to Dorit Cypis in 1979, along with an exhibition space in Downtown LA. Cypis invited Christina Ritchie to run the organization with her, and together they developed the by-laws that would see FAR run by the artist volunteers who would participate as working members. They gave up the exhibition space in 1980, deciding to focus on itinerant projects that would explore relationships between the art works and the organization and venue partners throughout Los Angeles that hosted them.