a blade of grass - artist files - Artist Files: Why Curate a Grant?

Artist Files is a curated grant for New York-based individual artists whose work is socially engaged. This grant process is open to public feedback—
we welcome your thoughts and ideas!

July 20, 2012

by Kalia Brooks

Artist Files: Why Curate a Grant?

Part one of....?

When I was approached by Deborah at A Blade Of Grass to curate a grant, I was immediately taken by the proposition. It was the first time I had ever read the words "curate a grant" written in a sentence, and she was presenting me with an opportunity to bring meaning to those words.

As a curator, I am familiar with both sides of philanthropy. It is an inevitable connection, and a necessary part of the cultural economy. I have been a grant writer applying for funding to develop visual art-based programs and projects, and I've sat as a juror on panels to select funding recipients. This duality has created an 'insider' perspective. I am fluent in the language that an artist must speak to make herself attractive to potential funding sources. This, I think, is the fundamental problem with philanthropy in the visual arts. It is too often based on a set of bureaucratic criteria and procedures, and the obligation is on the artist to fit neatly into a pre-existing structure. This disempowers the artist and limits the creative process by influencing the very what, why and how of an artist's work. I am frequently part of conversations where artists express how estranged they feel from the grant-writing process.

When Deb presented me with the idea, she spoke about the inherent flaws within our current philanthropic system, particularly for artists working outside the image-based norm. A Blade of Grass is focused on "socially engaged" practices that make use of non-traditional spaces, become involved in communities, and create dialogue through proximity and exchange. With this fellowship I eagerly became part of the organization's effort to create a new funding model that is based on and formed by the idea of social engagement in the visual arts. This opens up a new role for me. I can apply the curatorial method of research and knowledge-building in order to build out a particular set of aesthetic ideas to this process. In doing so, I can make meaning out of the often arbitrary selection process that determines how grants are awarded.

This grant is dependent upon the artist-curator relationship, and my commitment to know about artists by speaking to artists. This face-to-face encounter generates a closeness that most artists and funders rarely achieve because distance and impersonality are built into the system. It brings the funder to the artist, when typically artists are on an endless search for resources to support their lives and careers. This grant needs content from artists and art lovers to build the criteria by which the awards will be made. As the curator of this year's grant I am obliged to be the custodian of these relationships, and to give every artist who agrees to participate in this process the care and thoughtful attention that their creativity deserves.

Artist Files Grantees Announced!

by Artist Files
Artist Files: Opening Up the Curatorial Process

by Kalia Brooks
Artist Files: The Generous Artist

by Kalia Brooks
Artist Files: On Subjectivity

by Deborah Fisher

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local nyc artist

Aug. 1, 2012, 12:11 p.m.

What disturbs me the most is that, despite all efforts, ALL artist grants are curated in one way or another. The selection process is one that most artists, especially emerging ones, hope is a fair process. I have sat on MANY grant panels, anonymous or not, and have seen favoritism play out in 90% of the process. Panelists are friends with applicants and rarely excuse themselves from the process in favor of fairness. Look at this year's NYFA grantees and you can see friends voting for friends all the time - and for those who dont have those connects, applying always feels like a lost cause.

So, to introduce another grant that might promote the nepotism that the art world loves to indulge in and claim fairness isnt inspiring. It plays into the "in crowd" mentality under the guise of selecting the best work by the best artists - and of course, it helps if your close, talented artist friends are the ones in need of the funds.

The question of "why should we care about a curated grant process" is a very fair and pointed question that needs solid answer. If the goal is to only fund those who you want to fund, then keep it a quiet, inside process like the Joan Mitchell grant. No one can get excited about this when its only meant for the select few who, probably, have been selected already.

Yes, amazing work and ideas deserves to be funded, regardless of the artist. But is it possible keep the nepotism to minimum? Is it possible for a "curated selection process" be open to those wonderfully talented artists who arent on the "in crowd" radar? How do you find those artists? How do curators break their own "go-to" barriers and explore the larger art world? How are these cycles ever broken if grants like these continue to fund the same artists?

Everyone has a perspective. I think its the responsibility of the curator to bring new artistic perspectives to the public. To re-cycle the same talent over and over does the curatorial vision an injustice.

You never know how much talent is out there if you keep looking in the same places.

peace and progress, a local nyc artist

Michelle

Aug. 1, 2012, 5:26 p.m.

Hey there local nyc artist-

"Everyone has a perspective. I think its the responsibility of the curator to bring new artistic perspectives to the public. To re-cycle the same talent over and over does the curatorial vision an injustice."

Of course, but are you saying that Kalia is not living up to this responsibility? That it is a given the "same talent" will be granted? Even though there are hardly any grants out there that support these kinds of projects?

I completely understand reservations regarding a curatorial process for the grant, but at the same time, there is the other side of the story that the committee has put faith in this curator not because of who she knows, but because she has proposed a compelling idea, and they trust she will do her due diligence to investigate the artists community and come to an interesting result. You may not love the final result, but that does not mean the curator was limiting her vision to what is directly in front of her, everything is subjective.

deborahfisher

Aug. 7, 2012, 1:30 p.m.

Hey Michelle and local NYC artist,

Thanks both of you for your comments--you're getting right to the heart of why we are trying to rethink this process.

I, too, have sat on numerous panels that judge open calls, and agree that this process is often less than fair. My sense is that all panelists walk in with great intentions, but then get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of applicants and collapse into what I like to think of as "implicit nominating structures..." or Choosing People They Know.

No one grant in one year can turn around this kind of system, and we are all adults and can admit that all grants are unfair--there's a small pool of funds and a huge volume of artists who need funding. Only some artists will get grants, we tend to want to "reward excellence," and in the art world it's way too easy to conflate "excellence" and reputation.

Here's why I think an open curatorial process is a good place to start: it harnesses the decision-making to a specific idea. The choices aren't arbitrary, they are in service of a concept. We all get to judge whether the concept is a good one, and whether Kalia did a good job curating artists to suit it. Kalia is accountable in a way that a panelist is not.

Local, you also raise another interesting point. Why is it disturbing that all grants are curated in one way or another? Isn't it important that grants are given thoughtfully?

Kalia

Aug. 17, 2012, 1:51 p.m.

Hi there, Thank you for bringing in your perspectives.

Deborah - you bring up the question about why it is disturbing that all grants are curated, but I wonder if this assessment is accurate. How is it that all grants on curated? Is based solely on the activity of selection , in that if I am making a choice about art or an artist then I am inherently a curator? I'd like to think that selecting is not the only criteria by which a person call themselves a curator, or is involved in curatorial practice.

Yes, selection is involved, but ideally, to be engaged in curatorial work, those choices are based on a scholarship, research, and body of knowledge that has been cultivated and sustained - not just about who you know. I think it is an unfortunate reality that so much of our art world experiences come down to the "who you know," but I don't think that negates the prospective quality that can be obtained by doing the work.
/k