Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York. Image courtesy of Flickr.

The Storm King Art Center, a sprawling open-air museum and sculpture park located in the Hudson Valley region of upstate New York, has announced that it will launch its first-ever artist residency program in 2015. The 55-year-old institution is partnering with the Shandaken Project, a residency program based in the Catskill Mountains, to bring the endeavor to fruition.

As the name suggests, the Shandaken Project at Storm King involves relocating the Shandaken residency to Storm King’s astonishing grounds. Between June and September, the Shandaken Project at Storm King will offer fifteen residencies, spanning in length from two weeks to six weeks. Three artists will participate in the project at a time and each resident will be given a private studio where they can work freely. The open call for applications is underway and will end on February 20, 2015. An anonymous panel of art world professionals will hand-pick the residents in March.

Located one hour north of New York City, Storm King sits atop five-hundred acres of farmland. Founded in 1960 by Ralph E. Ogden and H. Peter Stern, joint owners of the metal fastener manufacturer, Star Expansion Company, Storm King was originally conceived as a museum for the Hudson River School of painters. Ogden deviated from this vision after a visit to an Austrian marble quarry piqued his interest in sculpture and he quickly began building a collection with Stern. After seeing the large-scale works of Abstract Expressionist sculptor, David Smith, set in open fields outside of the artist’s home, the pair was inspired. Ogden and Stern thereafter placed most of the sculptures they acquired outside, creating a visual dialogue between art and nature.

Storm King’s permanent collection is comprised mainly of American and European modern sculpture, ranging in date from the mid-1940s to the present. The art center’s holdings include large-scale, free-standing “stabiles” by Alexander Calder, an indoor installation by Louise Bourgeois, a site-specific Richard Serra sculpture that occupies a ten-acre field, and a variety of other works by artists such as Carl Andre, Mark di Suvero, Jean Dubuffet, Mary Frank, Andy Goldsworthy, Adolph Gottlieb, Barbara Hepworth, Zhang Huan, Donald Judd, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Maya Lin, Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi, and Claes Oldenburg.

Founded in 2012, the Shandaken Project aims to enable its residents to forge new pathways in their work by creating an environment that encourages experimentation and suspends the pressures of everyday life. The residencies are free and are dedicated to nurturing the artistic practice and process of each participant.