Inaugural lecture prof.dr. Helleke van den Braber Utrecht University: 'From maker to patron (and back). On gift exchange in the arts (original) (raw)
Related papers
Publication for NAFA Symposium 2011 - New Asian Imaginations organised by Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, 2011, https://www.nafa.edu.sg/New-Asian-Imaginations/mobile/index.html , 2011
Whilst there has been considerable research on Singapore artists and groups, not much study has been done on the possible links between patronage and artists’ practice. This paper examines some case studies of relationships between artists and their patrons (or lack thereof) in Singapore. By outlining such ties, some answers may be found to questions such as how the artists first met their patrons, what support artists received and what type of works were admired and collected by patrons. Hopefully, future research will throw greater light on the roles played by private and public patrons in the development of artistic practice in Singapore.
Arts Patronage in Modern America: An International Conference
This interdisciplinary conference will feature papers by emerging and established scholars from around the world whose work deals with American arts patronage from the early twentieth century to the present day. On Wednesday 26 June, from 15.00-16.30, John R. Blakinger, Terra Visiting Professor of American Art, University of Oxford, will deliver his plenary, ‘“To Remain Silent Is To Be Complicit”: Arts Funding in the Trump Era'. On Thursday 27 June, from 15.00-16.30, Mary Anne Goley, Founding Director of the Fine Arts Program of the Federal Reserve Board will deliver her plenary, ‘Playing By the Rules, How I Directed the Fine Arts Program of the Federal Reserve Board, 1975 thru 2006’.
The curator/patron: Foundations and contemporary art - EMAJ 2008
emaj, 2008
This article addresses the role of private foundations in commissioning site-specific ephemeral art works: contemporary art projects of a temporary nature that are realised outside of public institutions. Though small in number, I argue that the private individuals creating and managing private foundations of this nature demonstrate a new form of patronage, creating in the process a new role of ‘curator/patron’. Equally, this process of realisation reflects the changing needs of contemporary art practice. Work of this scale and ambition would increasingly not be possible without the vision, perseverance and funding of these kinds of foundation. In Australia, this trend is demonstrated by two foundations: Kaldor Art Projects, and their commissioning of works by artists such as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Gilbert & George and Jeff Koons; and the more recently formed Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, whose first project was with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. In this article, these examples are placed within the broader international context of foundation models such as Artangel, UK, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan, and The Public Art Fund, New York.
Paying It Forward: A Gift Economy of Poetry and Visual Art Images
2020
As our world has changed rapidly and ineluctably with the COVID-19 pandemic, many are advocating an ethos of generosity and a gift economy, based on generative, creative offerings, as an alternative or balance to the excesses of a mainstream neoliberal exchange economy. What is the gift economy, and how does it entangle us in a fabric of mutual responsibility, obligation, creative practices and love, within the human and greater-thanhuman world? A Pay-It-Forward New Year's gift game amongst a group of artist/ educators, ongoing since 2014, gives rise to this meditation on the gift economy, based on Mauss, Hyde, Kimmerer, Vaughan and Jordan's work and contemplation of intergenerational, inter-being webs of mutuality. Visual artwork (photography and painting), and poetry and song that inspired and arose from the Pay-It-Forward engagement are part of this piece.
This article aims to increase our understanding of cultural intermediaries, their activities and the way they set up the relationship between the production and consumption of symbolic goods, with a specific focus on intermediaries of artistic work. Among them, in France, agents, tourneurs and managers are intermediaries of the music labour market who aim to develop artists’ career. What role do these underestimated yet more and more numerous intermediaries play in achieving pop artists’ recognition? Statistical data show a strong relation between the amount of symbolic capital of artists and having at least one of these intermediaries work for them. In order to analyse how they can help further the artist's access to recognition, I develop a specific use of the concept of symbolic capital that allows a better understanding of social mechanisms of value production. The analysis of qualitative data discloses the various resources and strategies intermediaries use in the artists’ acquisition of symbolic capital. They do promotional work, but also take calculated risks to how to place their artists in the market, and constantly work on their social network to create opportunities.
Challenges to Reciprocity: Gift exchange as a theoretical framework of community arts practice
Community arts have the potential to develop and sustain relationships between artists and participants, which can create the desire for individuals to connect with communities. In an environment of diminishing arts funding, arts practitioners and supporters have placed an increasing emphasis on developing evaluation strategies that provide evidence for the social, cultural and economic impact of community arts. Most current evaluation strategies, however, do not adequately capture the various impacts, from the potential for long-term change for individuals to the level of training received by participants, and the diversity of career trajectories that open up. The absence of engagement in the theoretical side of the practice from within the community arts movement has long been recognised but there is no adequate response from either the scholarly or artistic communities that recognises the creative process unique to community arts. There is an urgent need for practitioners to be able to promote the effectiveness of community arts without compromising or overly simplifying what is a complex practice. This article draws on research completed as part of my PhD thesis which aimed to provide community arts practitioners with a theoretical framework that will highlight the uniqueness and complexity of community arts as an art form, particularly in its capacity to achieve both social and artistic outcomes. To do this, I draw on gift exchange theory to articulate the creative process and the ways in which this theory explains the ties and connections with community participants. Community art builds social ties by creating and strengthening relationships between artists, participants and the broader community. I argue that these relationships are fostered according to the depth of the desire and associated obligation to maintain the gift exchanges. It is the obligations that are present within gift exchange that bind relationships and allow the gift to move. By applying the theoretical framework of gift exchange to community arts practitioners' creative process, I argue that there is a need to refocus attention on the relationship between artist and participant. In order to develop evaluation strategies aligned to the values of community arts practitioners, this relationship must be acknowledged as integral to the creative process in community arts, and therefore essential to the assessment of the social and artistic outcomes. This article will analyse how gift exchange operates within the process and the performance of a community arts project. Once the first gift of a creative space and opportunity to participate in a collaborative artistic process is accepted by a recipient, this may lead to multiple gift exchanges. The performance project City Quest will be the feature of this article. City Quest was performed by Powerhouse Youth Theatre (PYT) in December 2007 and was a community outdoor performance event played out in the format of a video game in the city centre of Fairfield, NSW. This case study will also investigate how a disruption to gift exchange may occur when there is a breakdown of trust between donor and recipient, and how this can be further destabilised by pressures that may emerge when commodity exchange and gift exchange are tied together. I will conclude by highlighting the correlation between the success of a gift relationship and the creative outcomes of a community arts project, and consider the implications this has on the development of community arts practice and its evaluation. I will briefly establish the historical background of gift exchange theory in order to contextualise my arguments within a broader framework. Gift exchange theory has its origins in anthropological literature. Marcel seminal essay The Gift, first published in 1922, is the initial starting point for the majority of theorising regarding gift exchange and gift economies within anthropology. His essay and the conclusions he draws about the presence of gift exchange in primitive and modern societies has led to the development of many contemporary theories around exchange, though his essay has also been much debated and contested since its publication. Many theorists debate the interpretations that Mauss drew from his research into primitive communities (see Bourdieu, 1997), though this debate has also been integral to the development of understandings about human desires associated with the exchange of material and immaterial gifts . I will enter into this debate by recognising the obligations that Mauss argues are present in gift exchange, and how these can be identified within community art practice. This analysis of obligations and desires will allow the community arts field to move forward in theorising the functionality and value of community arts in society.