United States Artists (USA), a national artists' advocacy organization, has announced the recipients of 50 fellowships for 2008 totaling $2.5 million. The winners will be honored tonight at a celebration at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

The winners include 10 in visual arts, five in architecture and design, four in crafts and traditional arts, five in dance, nine in literature, six in media, six in music, and five in theater arts. Chosen by experts in their respective fields in recognition of the quality and impact of their work, each will receive $50,000 in unrestricted grant money.

The honored visual artists are Terry Adkins, sculptor; Michael Asher, conceptual artist; Andrea Bowers, mixed-media artist; Deanna Dikeman, photographer; Barkley L. Hendricks, painter; Tehching Hsieh, performance artist; Rodney McMillian, conceptual and mixed-media artist; Martha Rosler, video, collage, installation, and performance artist; Catherine Sullivan, performance and video artist; and Kara Walker, mixed-media artist.

The winners in crafts and traditional arts are: Alvin Aningayou, Mary Jackson, Richard Notkin, and Judith Schaechter. In architecture and design, the recipients are: Julie Bargmann, Stephen Burks, Douglas Garofalo, J. Meejin Yoon, and Andrew Zago.

The L.A.-based USA was founded in 2005 in response to a study finding poor support structures for American artists. The Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Prudential Foundation, and Rasmuson Foundation contributed a total of $20 million to establish USA as a structure through which private philanthropists, corporate donors, and other foundations can support individual artists. Donors include Michael Bloomberg, Eli and Edythe Broad, Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, Shawn M. Donnelley, Agnes Gund, Target, and the Wynn Family Foundation.