Artists Raising Money Outside of Institutional Settings
Hank Willis Thomas, Eric Gottesman, Mark Bradford, and former Paul Taylor Dance Company members Laura Halzack, Michelle Fleet, and Michael Trusnovec, along with his partner VJ Carbone, are just a few of the individuals who have employed new fundraising techniques to improve their communities and drive greater social impact.
Photo by NYC Dance Project, Deborah Ory and Ken Brower. Dancer Laura Halzack.
Translating artistic ideas into tangible work and sharing it requires capital. Musicians need instruments, ceramicists need clay, ballerinas need flats. Without these materials, the great works through which artists express, analyze and imagine the world around us would cease to exist. Historically, institutions, galleries and public and private commissions have been the primary funders for artists and arts collectives. In an age of overwhelming concern about the future of arts funding, artists from all fields are now looking for – and establishing – alternative sources of financing for their projects and practices. Ahead of the inaugural Arts Funders Forum event on December 3, we examine how artists, working in different spheres and mediums, are taking an innovative approach to fundraising in the 21st century.
Seeking inspiration to create a new artistic platform in the lead up to the most recent presidential election, artists Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman turned to the American political machine. Thomas and Gottesman studied political action committees (PACS), organizations that privately raise funds to donate to (or against) specific candidates, ballot initiatives and legislation. “Super PACS came about as part of the notion of money as a form of political speech,” Thomas said in an interview with Kickstarter. “We realized that the political game is very much about money laundering and about breaking the system to its will. In a way, there’s a lot of creativity in that.” The two listed their For Freedoms collective as a Super PAC in 2016, establishing the first artist-run PAC in the nation’s history.
A non-partisan group, For Freedoms takes its name from Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” paintings, which depicted the four freedoms President Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined in his 1941 State of the Union address. The collective aims to bridge the divide between art and action, showcasing what the four freedoms – freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear – FDR defined look like in the modern age. For Freedoms’ work at the intersection of creativity and civics is multidisciplinary and diverse, incorporating exhibitions, installations, public programs and billboards advocating for public discourse and political participation. Within its first year, the PAC completed roughly 130 collaborations with institutions, organizations and artists around the country calling on the public to consider what freedom and equality meant to them.
Artist Mark Bradford shares the belief of the expansive power of art to drive change, as well as the group’s pioneering approach to funding the work. While preparing to represent the US at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017, Bradford found inspiration in the city’s Rio Terà dei Pensieri, a prison cooperative that teaches practical skills and craftsmanship to inmates. Worlds away from the glamour of Venice, the cooperative lacked resources. Instead of going through established bureaucratic processes for donations, which could take months if not years to take root, Bradford pledged to provide six years of funding to Rio Terà dei Pensieri with his own wallet. These funds would help update the cooperative’s facilities and build a retail space for prisoners to sell their work.
According to Bradford, “art is not just what happens in the hermetically sealed studio and it’s not what happens in the communities – it’s something in between.” Like Thomas and Gottesman, he started a non-profit to foster this in-between space within his local Los Angeles community. Founded by Bradford, philanthropist and collector Eileen Harris Norton and social activist Allan DiCastro, Art + Practice (A+P) is committed to supporting the needs of local foster youth while also providing the community with free access to museum-curated contemporary art. Initially funded by Bradford’s 2009 MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, A+P’s exhibitions and public programs examine social issues while its building also provides space for foster youth to receive education, life-skills training and even employment through its paid internship program. Prior to A+P, “few art organizations or museums paired social services with arts programming,” the founders note. The nonprofit now partners with establishments like the Hammer Museum, The Broad, The Baltimore Museum of Art and the California African American Museum on programming and scholarships.
To produce the inaugural Asbury Park Dance Festival, former Paul Taylor Dance Company members Laura Halzack, Michelle Fleet and Michael Trusnovec, along with Trusnovec’s partner VJ Carbone, needed to raise awareness about the festival and drum up financial supporters, all within a year. The team first developed a strong pitch as to why the festival should be held in Asbury Park. Living nearby, Trusnovec and Carbone watched the city’s historic arts and music scene blossom over the past few years. “We were inspired by the rapid growth we were witnessing in Asbury Park, especially within the arts community. We recognized an opportunity for us to share our passion for dance and diversify the arts offerings in a place we love,” Trusnovec said.
The team also developed a sponsorship package for various donation levels and approached arts and cultural organizations, local businesses and individuals. In speaking with potential sponsors, they explained exactly where their donations would go. The festival would support ArtsED New Jersey, a local arts organization that aims to make arts education available to all New Jersey schoolchildren, and donations would help cover the operating and production expenses associated with the festival. “I am keenly aware of the fact that my career has been deeply affected by the generosity of others,” Trusnovec said. “Our opportunities remind us how important it is that our arts community thrives, and it reminds us of how important it is for us to try to create opportunities for others to have access to that community,” Halzack added. By the September 13th festival opening, the festival had amassed 18 “founding supporters,” and each had contributed $5,000 or more to the event. On September 14th, the first Asbury Park Dance Festival debuted with dancers from the Paul Taylor, Martha Graham and Doug Varone companies, as well as a performance by tapper Caleb Teicher, free of cost.
“As dancers, it’s not that philanthropy made a difference in our work, it’s that philanthropy made our work possible,” Halzak said. “Without individual giving we would not have had careers in dance. Yes, some larger companies have corporate sponsors, and yes there are grants, but the donations of philanthropic individuals are integral to the survival of most dance companies and other arts organizations.”
As the cultural sector continues to change shape, so do the financial streams that fund it. While these are just a few examples of artists employing new fundraising techniques to both maintain and grow their practices, they represent the diversity of philanthropic possibility in the 21st century. Join the conversation to see what lies ahead at the December 3 inaugural Arts Funders Forum and register today.