V.1,N.4: "A Short Moral Story and its Reflection"

Vol. 1, No. 4

A SHORT MORAL STORY AND ITS REFLECTION IN LIGHT OF THE CANCELLATION OF GRANTS FROM THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS

Jack shares a hypothetical story about two artists applying for an opportunity in a non-profit arts organization amidst the loss of federal grant funding. He discusses some of the larger impacts that it might have on the social economy of the professional art world. This is a prelude to a new essay series titled “Experiences of Class in Experimental & Improvised Musics” to begin in summer 2025.

part one - the story

Imagine that there are two individuals: A and B. Both individuals are artists of some sort and they are both being considered for a partnership of some kind with a non-profit cultural organization in a large metropolitan area with many artists, but not enough arts funding to support everyone. Let us say, even if it is unlikely due to systemic factors which will later become apparent, that both individual A and individual B have roughly identical resumés—with both having achieved success in competitive professional circumstances, but not enough success to demonstrate that they are “established” artists locally or internationally. We will refer to the career position that artists A and B are in as “emerging.” Let us also assume that, purely based on the relative criteria which constitute the non-profit cultural organization’s notion of “artistic merit,” that both approximately satisfy their ideal expectation. In this instance, both artist A and B are highly considered for the single partnership that the non-profit cultural organization is seeking an artist for.

Now, let us imagine some circumstances related to the non-profit cultural organization. The non-profit specializes in partnering with artists whose work does not currently have a foothold in the market and is largely considered to be non-commercial—they specialize in contemporary art. The non-profit is able to financially survive based on three types of support and revenue: 1) federal, municipal, and private grant funding, 2) private philanthropic giving and donations, 3) contracts and commissions with emerging artists and ticket sales associated with partnership programming. In this instance, the non-profit has historically earned most of their revenue from competitive grant funding to support their operations and programs. They have previously had donors and philanthropists who have assisted, but they have not been able to run their operations and programs based on extensive private support. They have supported “emerging” artists in the past whose work climbed in value greatly during their partnership, which enabled the non-profit to earn some modest revenue based on contracts and commissions with said artists.

The non-profit is in the final week prior to sending an acceptance notice to either artist A or B that they have won the partnership. In the following week, in-person interviews with artists A and B will take place. Let us imagine that it is a Friday afternoon and the members of the non-profit have just adjourned their final meeting before returning on Monday to delve deeper into the lives of artist A and B to determine their future partner. As the members of the non-profit are packing up their things from the meeting, the president receives an email from a federal granting organization stating that their largest awarded grant of the year will be rescinded and that they will not be entitled to funding through their previous award.

This places the entire non-profit into a grave state of alarm and they all return to their seats—each individual cancelling afternoon and evening plans to have an emergency deliberation on how they can continue to run the organization in light of such a large loss to revenue. After hours of discussion, budgeting, and planning, the non-profit members restructured their coming year to accommodate for most of their losses by curtailing non-essential expenses, postponing various small projects to the subsequent fiscal year, and by considering sales of unused assets. The final outcome of this meeting was that the non-profit would still end the year in this scenario with a sizable budget shortfall, but one that was orders of magnitude smaller than what was initially forecasted with the loss of the large federal grant. Through these events, the non-profit entered a state of financial insecurity.

During the meeting, a member of the non-profit suggested that perhaps the partnership program for which artist A and B are applying should be cancelled for the current year and postponed until the former scale of funding could be attained in light of the loss of the federal grant. Through heated discussion, this idea proved to be a problem for two reasons.

The first rested upon the issue of returning to a former scale of funding. The nature of this grant being denied was due to the President’s agenda towards federal funding of the arts and their avowed commitment to ending all federal funding of cultural programs. The cancellation of this grant occurred in the first year of their presidency, and given the President’s ambitions, it was likely that the federal organization which formerly provided these grants would no longer exist in the near future. In the non-profit meeting, plans were devised to court private philanthropists and to begin a fundraising campaign, but the projections for these actions meeting the same level of funding as the federal grant provided were to take place on longer timelines—five or more years, perhaps—and were laden with risk and uncertainty. If the non-profit were to postpone their partnership program for a year, it was not likely that similar levels of funding were to be available to support the program.

The second problem with cancelling this program was that the various activities surrounding the partnership program were among the most prominent public events the non-profit holds during a given year. Due to the competitive nature of the partnership and the prestige that the non-profit had built through advocating for “emerging” artists, presenting the work of the artist partner drew in considerable crowds—crowds that happily paid ticket fees and often donated small to medium sums to the non-profit. Although revenue derived from this program made up a small minority of the projected annual revenue, it was large enough that to lose it would have caused further problems. Anxieties over the non-profit losing visibility and prestige if it cut such a vital program further cemented the necessity to continue on with the partnership program.

In light of the cancellation of the grant, the partnership program had changed over the course of one day from a central program that garnered a large amount of federal grant funding to one that caused a large amount of anxiety and insecurity amongst the members of the non-profit. The non-profit members would leave for their weekends with a heaviness and disquietude that greatly troubled them.

The following Monday marked the beginning of the interviews with artists A and B. While the members of the non-profit sought to remain as unperturbed and objective as possible, the aching specter of the loss of the grant wore on all of their minds. Through interviews with both artists A and B, the members were able to understand the greater context for their work and gained the insight that both artists were not only making compelling work as professionals, but would both be pleasant, collegial people to work with.

On the following afternoon, the members of the non-profit met to discuss some of their thoughts and reflections on the interviews with artist A and B. All members of the non-profit were troubled by the difficulty of discerning who to choose in light of the incredible strengths that both artists displayed in their craft, their professional skills, and their visions for the partnership. However, in the interviews, the president of the non-profit noticed something in conversations with artist B that had not been brought up by the other members of the non-profit. The president reminded the rest of the organization that artist B had mentioned that they have a “close, cooperative relationship” with the chairperson of a private philanthropic foundation who had supported the artist’s work in the past and that their parents are active donors with a local conservation organization. To the president, these indicated that artist B had access to wealth and donors that artist A did not. Another member of the non-profit immediately chided the president, stating that such considerations should not sway the choice of which artist is best suited for the partnership program. The remainder of the members of the non-profit were torn between these two points. A protracted discussion ensued. Opinion eventually swayed in the direction of the President when they presented the following argument: 1) for the non-profit to do the “good work” that it promises to do, it must stay financially viable, 2) due to the political environment, relying on federal grant funds must take less precedence as a means of financial viability, 3) in regards to evaluation of if artist A or B is better suited for the partnership, the non-profit has already exhausted all “normal” means of evaluation to determine the best partner, 4) it is in the short-term best interest of the non-profit to partner with an artist who may be able to help the non-profit build relationships with other funders, philanthropists, private foundations, and sources of revenue—even if this temporarily compromises the “normal” evaluative integrity of the partnership program, and 5) due to the “dire” financial circumstances that the non-profit finds itself in, we cannot “afford” to forgo any opportunity to seek more revenue as the budget shortfall may limit the long-term viability of the organization. At the end of this argument, the members of the non-profit agreed that the partnership would be given to artist B.

In the years following, the federal grants never returned, and fortunately for the non-profit cultural organization, their budget shortfall was filled by the increase in private support that was instigated through the relationships that artist B happily facilitated with the non-profit following their selection for the partnership. Despite the economic downturns that pervaded the years following, the non-profit grew—first at a slow pace, but with greater connections to the local philanthropic community, eventually surpassing the meager growth projections estimated during the year following the loss of the federal grant. In the meantime, many of the non-profit’s peer organizations closed due to lack of financial support and countless artists left the metropolitan area or left the profession of art entirely. Due to the pivotal assistance that artist B gave to the non-profit in a grave moment of crisis, artist B was eventually elected to the board of the non-profit where they would help steer the organization towards a path of greater financial strength. Artist B welcomed in other artists to the non-profit whose life circumstances, cultural mores, and aesthetic vision aligned with theirs—allowing the non-profit to greater access to philanthropic and institutional connections that these artists brought with them.

Artist B’s work did not develop stylistically, conceptually, or materially in any way during these years. They continued to make the same kinds of work that they used to when they were a competitive candidate for the non-profit’s partnership program. However, amidst the art scene in the metropolitan area where they lived, they became canonized as a seminal figure in their generation of artists. The audience for their work grew and their own work left a stylistic imprint on subsequent generations of artists. When they would die many years later, their name would appear in books and their personal archive would be stored in a prestigious university within their city. In their later years, they lived in a nice house in a beautiful part of the neighboring countryside. Their estate ensured financial security for their children.

Artist A—whose resumé was identical to artist B’s and who was equally considered for such an important opportunity as the partnership with the non-profit—would find themselves on a different path entirely. They would be remembered fondly within the small professional community of artists—given an exceedingly warm remembrance upon their own death many, many years later—but this would come with the bittersweet acknowledgement that their work was greatly underappreciated and underacknowledged within their own lifetime. Artist A’s remaining works were collected from their modest apartment, where they lived and worked alone for years and given to their relatives as the inheritors of their small estate.

A local wealthy couple, who knew artist A back in the day and who were avid collectors, would purchase several works of artist A’s from their next-of-kin for a bargain. They would spend the coming years advocating for the value and importance of artist A’s work, convincing galleries to display their works and would lecture on the life and context of artist A. The couple would eventually buy the entire collection of works from artist A as artist A’s next-of-kin were all quite poor and desperately needed the funds from their purchase. After a decade of advocacy, artist A became recognized postmortem as an iconoclastic figure, whose path took them towards a place of greater individuality outside of the artworld compared to their peers. Demand for artist A’s work soared, and the wealthy couple sold a few of their works to major museums, galleries, and collections. The estimated value of the remaining works in their portfolio brought their collecting career to great prominence—with major arts publications interviewing them about their experiences with artist A while they were still alive. The relatives of artist A would file many lawsuits claiming that they were entitled to a portion of the proceeds of artist A’s rise in success following their death. They were unsuccessful and no blood relation to artist A would be allowed to capitalize on the work, craft, and vision of their relative. In the world they lived, this was the way things went.

part two - the reflection

As I have written this brief moral story, I make no claims on it being anything but a work of fiction—indeed cobbled together from various “true” accounts into an artificial composite. But perhaps you, dear reader, have seen echoes of this story in your own life—perhaps as an artist yourself, perhaps as an audience member or as a member of the “artgoing public”, perhaps someone who knows the history of art, or even perhaps as someone who has helped run the organizations that support artists. Maybe you can sense the familiarity of a certain part of this story, but have not thought about another aspect or implication of it. Certainly, this story is not to be understood as a universal truth or a systematic description of how things work generally. But perhaps across the divide between fiction and reality, it resonates, somehow.

As an individual artist myself, as someone who has also worked with organizations that present art, and as an audience member for the art of other people, I think about how common the predicament that artist A finds themselves in: they are naturally disadvantaged due to a lack of access to wealth and thus must overcome qualitative hurdles that their peers which have access to wealth do not need to. Wealth itself carries a persuasive force with it and proximity to it ensures survival in a society that has commodified all values and all means of subsistence. It can be hidden well—only revealed inconspicuously to those who recognize its signs: not needing to work a day job, participation in “pay to play” programs, access to studio spaces and expensive materials and equipment, access to press and booking agents, and having connections to exclusive and elite parts of the social economy of art. Those with wealth who enter into the field of art professionally do so without feeling the impediments that poor and working class artists must always navigate around. The success that wealthy artists gain by easily “paying the bills” required to be a professional feels to be entirely “theirs”—when their success is often predicated on the reality that the field becomes less competitive when the means to gaining success becomes more expensive.

In the days that I am writing this, hundreds of grants awarded recently under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Arts have been cancelled due to the unconstitutional executive impoundments of federal grants by the Trump administration. This will have the broad consequences of placing arts and cultural organizations in a state of financial insecurity—where they will have to rely more heavily on private funding in the coming years. The scenario described between artist A and artist B and their application to a competitive opportunity is not an uncommon one currently. It is my contention that, in the coming years, this scenario will become more common—leading to more social isolationism, decadence, nepotism, manipulation, grift, petty careerism, and artistic shallowness than is already endemic to many parts of the artworld. People who come from poor and working class backgrounds like myself will find it exceedingly more difficult to enter into these spheres.

You might be one to think that, under these circumstances, good art can still be made. Or perhaps, like the many covert aristocratic elitists in the artworld, you believe that good art can only be made under the circumstances of wealth inequality and the resulting “exit” from society that wealth enables. This is unfortunately quite a common perspective—held by people of all circumstances, social beliefs, and political ideologies. The virtue of “artistic autonomy” covertly endorses this conclusion in a market society. It valorizes the ability for wealthy aristocrats to “subtract” themselves from the material existence of society, to create work from an “outside” vantage point—”untainted” by the influence of social forces. On the other hand, it also valorizes and fetishizes the work of poor and marginal artists, whose own existence has been pushed to the fringes oftentimes nonconsentually—endowing them with a noble “outside” perspective of their own. This is the dynamic outlined by the story of artist A and artist B. Notice, however, that while both artists might become valorized for similar reasons, artist A and their next-of-kin are denied the possibility to capitalize on the value of their work while artist B is able to amass wealth through their own professional success during their lifetime. Here we see how the value of “autonomy” endorses an abstract virtue, but the social conditions under which it appears allows the division of wealth to remain intact. Those who are able to capitalize on their own claim to artistic autonomy will continue setting evaluative criteria in the judgment of taste which benefits and naturalizes their own constructed sense of “artistic merit” or “aesthetic value.” The social tendencies which create isolating, nepotistic, and monopolistic dynamics within wealthy spheres of artistic institutions attempt to generalize their highly particular tastes, virtues, and beliefs by creating professional and social incentives for reproducing extant norms within these institutions—creating an undynamic, dull, and homogenous environment for artistic production that merely exists to legitimize the prior successes of older artists.

The logic we have inherited outlined above—the valorizing of “autonomy” of the aristocratic artist and the starving artist—is one that must be fought now while the basis for equalizing mechanisms in American arts continue to erode. The “freedom” that this value is supposedly founded on ideologically maintains the logic of a career in art as something which is an entitlement for the ruling class and a noble sacrifice for the poor and working class.

In the meantime, I will be thinking about what Artist C might do in this scenario. Perhaps it never even dawned on them to consider applying for such an opportunity. Perhaps the “artworld” they belonged to wasn’t a general, global, or universal one—but rather one that was highly particular, specific, and contextual. Perhaps their relationship between making art and earning money was different than that of Artist A and Artist B. Perhaps even their notions of what “good art” is to begin with was one that rested upon stories, virtues, and practices that were far different than what the artworld of Artist A and Artist B might recognize. We might think of Artist C existing in a small, backwater town somewhere far from the international networks of commerce found in the artworld—but they might be in the same cities as Artist A and Artist B, in fact.

In a time where it seems that wealth, power, and history will conspire to grant fewer and fewer artists recognition and remuneration, perhaps it is time where we begin thinking about what this recognition has been predicated on in the recent past and entertain the thought that perhaps much of it has produced large amounts of “bad art” for the sole purpose of maintaining and legitimizing class inequality. As artists and as lovers of art, we owe no piety towards the works created to bolster ideologies of extraction, oppression, exclusion, and domination which maintains the inequality of our field. To know good art is to know “the good” in life, generally. There is no singular “good” to be found—it varies by place and people. The legacy, which haunts the entire contemporary profession of art—its reliance on colonial unequal development, bourgeois cartelization, systems of private property, theft of the commons, commodification of leisure and free time, policing dissent, and crafting historical narratives of necessity, “progress,” popularity, and exclusivity—have absolutely nothing to do with “the good life.” We can say this without shame because it is true.

I have no concrete moves to instruct towards nor specific conclusions to give here, dear reader. At a moment like this, trafficking in false hope and overly general and ineffectual advice would be an insult to your own knowledge over the situation you find yourself in. As I write this, I know you are in a place different from mine and likely have visions and concerns different from mine. Overcome your own doubts and find your people—articulate what you believe, together. Overcome the worship of the “prestige of power” like George L. Jackson said. Art is made everywhere, for every purpose, for all people. Remember that what art is and what it means to be an artist currently is only a fleeting thing—it is merely a bundle of norms, virtues, and priorities based on the current makeup of society in motion. This will change and you will have a say in where your art “belongs” amidst this changing.

If you, like the board of the non-profit in the story above, are in a predicament where you can choose who to support—remember that, in times like these, it will financially pay-off the most to grift, serve yourselves, and cartel opportunities to the already wealthy and established. These actions have already for generations delegitimized the pursuit of art as something that serves any “good” beyond that of the most vulgar kinds of narcissism, bourgeois entitlement, and validation of the social division of power in society. Because of this, we are already seeing the chickens come home to roost in your own institutions and in the institutions that fund art.

To the artist caught between this all, I will leave this moral story and its reflection with Peter Schumann’s the WHY CHEAP ART? manifesto from 1984. His words, articulated as well as they are here, are not only his, but part of a sentiment expressed whose source is much older than our word “art” can even contain:

PEOPLE have been THINKING too long that

ART is a PRIVILEGE of the MUSEUMS & the

RICH. ART IS NOT BUSINESS !

It does not belong to banks & fancy investors

ART IS FOOD. You cant EAT it BUT it FEEDS

you. ART has to be CHEAP & available to

EVERYBODY. It needs to be EVERYWHERE

because it is the INSIDE of the

WORLD.

ART SOOTHES PAIN!

Art wakes up sleepers!

ART FIGHTS AGAINST WAR & STUPIDITY!

ART SINGS HALLELUJA!

ART IS FOR KITCHENS!

ART IS LIKE GOOD BREAD!

Art is like green trees!

Art is like white clouds in blue sky!

ART IS CHEAP!

HURRAH!

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This writing serves as a prelude to a series titled Experiences of Class in Experimental & Improvised Musics. This series will build on testimony of various musicians’ experiences with class as a phenomenon in experimental and improvised music, as well as “new music” and contemporary classical music, to highlight covert and overt manners in which class inequality influences the professional lives of musicians creating non-commercial work.