[the] GFA JOURNAL
About the Journal
Writing is its own form of entry: an entry into accessibility and understanding.
The GFA Journal is where the Grove Foundation for the Arts extends that belief into practice. Committed to expanding access to the arts, GFA stewards its collections to be more than an archive, but a library for investigation. A welcoming portal for creative and critical exploration across genres and timelines.
The GFA Journal is conceived as an evolving site, open to inquiry across collections, contexts, and conversations that have yet to take shape.
That spirit of inquiry carries into this journal, not a static record, but a place where ideas first raised in the foundation's exhibitions continue to be tested, expanded, and reimagined in writing. We publish online, with selected works gathered into an annual print edition
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Editorial Statement
[the] GFA JOURNAL is an independent editorial initiative of the Grove Foundation for the Arts, operated in furtherance of its charitable and educational mission. Submissions are selected through a rigorous editorial process based on intellectual originality, quality of argument, and contribution to underrepresented scholarship and perspectives.
The journal maintains editorial independence from all commercial, donor, and institutional interests, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts or any other Warhol-related organization. GFA is committed to accuracy, transparency, and the highest standards of editorial integrity.
Current Open Call Theme
The journal begins here with a body of work by Andy Warhol and the questions the collection raises. In pursuit of GFA's commitment to arts education, research, and access, the journal seeks submissions that explode the collection's tenets through generative, speculative discourse, drawing transnationally and transtemporally on the ongoing interplay between identities and geographies, which continues to yield new meaning. Tenets such as gender, identity, materiality, portraiture, the subaltern, semiotics: these are starting points, not boundaries.
We invite writers, scholars, and artist-researchers to bring these ideas into conversation with the Foundation's inaugural exhibition, Warhol: The Dialectical Third — featuring the Ladies and Gentlemen, Sex Parts and Torsos, Querelle, and Self-Portrait series. The GFA Journal is interested in cultivating uncommon rhetorics: writing that finds in Warhol's body of work not conclusions, but new insights, perspectives — and yes, thoughtful questions. Writing that pushes the current consensus and broadens our understanding of Warhol's work.
Open Call
Thematic Prompts
Andy Warhol, Querelle, 1982
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
THE DIALECTICAL THIRD: WARHOL, INFLUENCE, AND THE GLOBAL SOUTH
Warhol’s work has generated an extensive body of scholarship and discourse in the West. Yet his reach beyond the Global North remains largely unexamined.
We are seeking lost narratives, untold stories, artists who have not been named, and underrepresented scholarship around Warhol’s influence in communities and geographies outside the Western canon.
Andy Warhol, Ladies and Gentlemen (Iris), 1975
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
PORTRAITURE AND COLLAPSED TIME
Portraiture is central to Warhol’s practice and the Foundation’s collection. The GFA collection features over 13 portraits from the Ladies and Gentlemen series, as well as Warhol’s own self-portraits — one of the exhibition’s core tenets of investigation.
What does it mean to be truly seen? How does identity survive in art? Who gets to be portrayed, who controls the image, whose likeness is preserved, and whose is erased?
Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait, 1973
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
THE POLAROID: ART, ANALOG PRACTICE, AND ARCHIVE
Histories of resistance, intimacy, and testimony can be linked to analog means of art production. The material and its production become revelatory: each medium arrives embedded with a history of the particular culture or community it belongs to. Art has historically engaged with the archive and the political, through film, posters, collage, print, the Polaroid, and other mediums.
Is the Polaroid unique, or will other forms of analog documentation become popular again to assure a sense of historical accuracy?
Submission criteria
Who Should Submit
Writers, scholars, and artist-researchers at all career stages — emerging and established equally welcome. Especially encouraged: voices from communities and geographies outside major metropolitan centers.
We Welcome These Modes of Inquiry
Essays & Criticism — 500–2,500 words
Scholarship & Academic Papers — 500–5,000 words
Fiction — 500–2,500 words
Poetry — up to 5 poems per submission
Hybrid & experimental forms welcome across all categories
Submission Requirements
Original, unpublished work only
Submitters are not limited to one thematic prompt
English language (translations considered with original text included; contributors must confirm they hold rights to both the translation and the original)
Submissions should be legible and double-spaced, 12pt font. Experimental and hybrid formats are welcome — please include a brief note on your formal intentions
Up to 5 images may be submitted to accompany the work. Contributors must provide full copyright documentation for each image, including artist or creator, title and date, image source, copyright owner, and confirmation that all necessary permissions have been obtained. Accepted formats: JPG or PNG, 300dpi minimum for print consideration, 72dpi for online. GFA reserves the right to reject, remove, or request substitution of any image pending rights review.
Submissions must be original works written by the contributor. AI-generated text, images, or other content is not accepted.
All submissions are subject to plagiarism review. GFA reserves the right to use similarity-detection tools and to reject or retract any work found to contain unattributed or misrepresented content.
GFA reserves the right to require additional sourcing or legal review for submissions making specific claims related to the attribution, provenance, authenticity, or ownership of artworks prior to publication.
Short bio, 100 words maximum
Optional: brief note (50 words) on your relationship to the theme
Contributor Representations
By submitting, contributors confirm that: the work is original and previously unpublished; the contributor has full authority to grant the rights described below; all third-party content is identified and properly licensed; the submission does not infringe intellectual property, privacy, or publicity rights; the work is not defamatory or knowingly false; no AI-generated content is included; and all material conflicts of interest have been disclosed.
How to Submit
Submit your work via our online submission form or by email to connect@grovefa.org. For questions about the submission process, please contact us at the same address.
Timeline
Submissions open: July 1, 2026
Deadline: July 30, 2026
Selected submissions notified: by August 7, 2026
Online publication: released at GFA’s discretion over the following 6 months
Annual print edition: Spring 2027
Selection
GFA expects to select up to 10 works for online publication. Of those, up to 6 may also be selected for inclusion in the Spring 2027 print edition.
Selected submitters will be notified by August 7, 2026. Due to the volume of submissions, GFA is unable to respond individually to unsuccessful submissions.
GFA reserves the right to reject submissions without explanation, request revisions, withdraw acceptance before publication, or publish fewer than the announced number of works.
Compensation & Benefits
[the] GFA JOURNAL does not offer cash compensation for accepted submissions. Contributors whose work appears in the annual print edition will receive 3 contributor copies. Selected contributors may also be invited to participate in future GFA programming, including live activations, talks, and discussions connected to the foundation’s exhibitions and events.
All selected works will be published on the GFA website and promoted through the foundation’s newsletter and Instagram.
Publication Rights
Contributors retain copyright in their work. By submitting, contributors grant GFA a nonexclusive, royalty-free license to: publish the work online and in print; archive it digitally and institutionally; use limited excerpts and approved images for promotional purposes; produce accessible versions; include the work in future educational compilations or programming; and issue corrections or editorial notes. GFA holds an exclusive first-publication right for six months from the date of online publication. After that period, contributors may republish their work with acknowledgment that it was first published in [the] GFA JOURNAL.