Advice for Art Institutions
work supporting artists? This one’s for you.
Last week I wrote about my advice to help artists navigate their way through the art world as individuals embedded within their communities. Today, I’m going to focus on the other part of the equation: institutions that support the arts. This post will hopefully offer some advice to organizations that already support artists or are just beginning their adventure working with this creative and unique group of people.
I have been a new media / emerging media / transmedia/creative technologist or whatever the newest word for an artist who uses types of ‘technology’ in their art practice, I call myself a pixel pusher. Anyhow, I’ve been at this for 20 years. I’ve been a part of biennials, museum shows, commissions, public art projects, art collectives, art co-ops, art movements, gallery shows, art fairs, film festivals, and spoken at conferences in the tech field, business fields all the major places people gather where artists are also invited to share insights usually around how to make the world a better place and be a better human inside of it. I’ve even been a part of a delegation of artists and museum leaders to the Dali Lama to talk about the role of museums as sites of empathy around the world.
I say all of this not just to let you know I’ve been to some important events but to share with you how diverse of a landscape a modern artist moves through. In each of these spaces there are different institutions–, companies, startups, non-profits, foundations, governments (national, state, district level), whatever it’s called when a billionaire starts a project and invites artists to criticize their project directly to their face, (as happened to me recently). All of these groups are trying to support artists in their own ways and to their own ends.
And to all of these institutional gatekeepers, I humbly ask that you think about what it means to begin to support my community.
Many such institutions are concerned with funding the arts, but throwing money around can cause chaos. I’m all here for a good time, but let’s make sure that the mess made when the party is over isn’t worse than when it began.
Can we, as art stewards leave no trace? Can we conserve?
Can we help to build back populations decimated by recessions, pandemics, gentrification, war, and conflicts? I believe we can and we must. Here are some steps we can take in that direction
8 Tips for supporting artists:
1. If your institution grants money, please think long and hard about the application, interview process, and the labor you expect from applicants. I have many friends who spend their entire weekends writing grants to submit on outdated, barely functional web portals. You know, the ones that erase your work and time out multiple times, ask you to take what could be a 2 page PDF and plug it into a thousand tiny cells, all to answer questions that are irrelevant to your project/practice. In 6–8 weeks you get a form letter back that says “This year we had a record number of applicants…” This is time and energy that could be used to volunteer at a shelter, visit a sick relative, work on a paid project, or even make art! Instead of asking artists to generate 20,000 bytes of digital trash, ask yourself, why you cannot use a 2-page PDF. They allow links embedded in images, they’re easy to read and review, and they don’t require additional labor from a financially precarious community (effectively filtering the financially precarious out of the community). You can still upload them to your janky web portal if you must.
Maybe we can rethink the concept of an application at all– as many artist-led DAOs are already doing. Whose benefit does it serve to subject artists to an arduous and time-intensive process? Why do you embrace a culture of exclusivity? Is it to help the artists and their communities? Or might it have something to do with the egos of large donors and the theater of meritocracy they demand? How might those at your own institution use the time and funding that would otherwise be spent reviewing applications?
2.I know this is a no-brainer, but louder for those in the back, as they say: don’t ask artists to work for free. These kinds of demands come in many forms: curating, speaking, shipping artwork, listening sessions, feedback, studio visits, and more.
3.I have an accountant who loves his job, he is very very good at it. Once in a while, he may answer a question here or there for me for free, but I am never surprised when after I ask him for something I get a bill. Art is labor. Maybe it’s because we understand the practice of making art to be a public good, something that can be freely taken by. This attitude leads to an environment where only the children of the ultra-rich have a chance to participate in the art world. Ironically, this leaves us all much poorer.
4. Be mindful of who represents you as an institution. When you invite artists together for a symposium, think about who has the mic, who opens the space, and who sets the tone for the event. Is it someone with a real relationship with the community, who has something at stake in the work being discussed? Too often, the answer is no.
5. Pay your employees a decent wage. Many talented young people with an interest in the arts work at institutions as “starter jobs,” until they are able to move on to something more lucrative. To interface effectively with artists you need people who are knowledgeable, prudent, and not worrying that they will be late for their other job, the one that actually pays their rent. This is how you end up with disorganization, hurt feelings, and costly mistakes. You can actually save money, if that is your concern, by hiring someone with a proven track record and paying them a competitive wage.
6. Hire staff locally. Many people in arts administration come from the same cluster of midwestern universities. The Guerrilla Girls an anon group of artists, seek to make transparent the biased systems in the art world for artists. But we need to make sure that we have a diversity of class, race, and backgrounds represented in the museum staff, curators, and board. If you are not sure where to start, start locally, hire people who are already a part of your local community, and reflect the demographics of your city, county, or state.
7. We know that it is important to show more artists from diverse backgrounds which many institutions are doing. The composition of the people working behind the scenes needs to change as well.
All staff should be paid, including docents. If you need job roles for your donors you can always have them do special tours for their own community rather than interpreting art for diverse audiences.
8. Much art programming is organized in a format I call the IRL Zoom call– a pyramid where the audience is at the bottom, and the people with microphones are on top. If you’re going to use this format, you might as well do a regular Zoom call! If you want people to be there live and in person, think of something that will make their hearts sing. Ask the artist you are speaking with for ideas. Budget for it.
