Museum funding after the Whitney Biennial

The protests that convulsed the Whitney Biennial earlier this year – in which activists demanded the resignation of Warren B. Kanders, whose company Safariland sells military supplies, including tear gas reportedly used at the Mexican border – not only intensified national concerns about the future of cultural philanthropy, but it raised questions about the role of artists in today’s escalating debates over where donor money comes from.

Was it appropriate for eight artists in the Whitney Biennial to demand the withdrawal of their work after the exhibition had already opened when they had arguably already benefited from being included in the first place? How will artists going forward navigate their dual loyalties to the institutions that show their work and the political issues that inform their work? If artists continue to condition their participation in exhibitions on how trustees earn their wealth, does consistency demand they do the same when it comes to evaluating collectors who buy their work? ‘A lot of trustees of museums now feel they are being held to a higher standard than the artists themselves, being scrutinized and criticized – often publicly – in a way that no artist would find tolerable,’ says Tom Eccles, Executive Director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

The power of artists to influence art institutions was perhaps most stark in the case of the photographer Nan Goldin, whose much-publicized protests last year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – throwing empty pill bottles into the Temple of Dendur’s reflecting pool – helped pressure the museum last May to swear off support from the Sackler family, whose company, Purdue Pharma, makes the drug OxyContin. Artists have also been among the museum workers championing issues of pay equity by pushing for unionization at institutions like the Guggenheim and the New Museum. Such conflicts have made for a strange realignment of allegiances. Whereas museums have historically been considered politically progressive and prided themselves on representing artists’ interests, now they find themselves cast as the establishment and in some cases criticized by artists. ‘The world of museums, artists, and trustees has joined the rest of the world in its extreme mistrust of those in power,’ says the art dealer Paul Kasmin.

Some activists say that museums need to better incorporate artists in the governance of their institutions. Neal Benezra, the director of SFMOMA, says his institution currently has three artists on the board – Julie Mehretu, Rosana Castrillo Diaz and another yet to be named – ‘to encourage reciprocal dialogue and collaboration, and to ensure the voice of the artist is heard in meetings about the strategic future of our organization.’

‘We believe that the artist’s perspective is critical to the success of SFMOMA,’ he continues, adding that Jeff Wall, Vincent Fecteau, Robert Bechtle, Larry Sultan, Yves Béhar, and Ed Ruscha have also served as artist trustees since the museum added a dedicated seat to the board in 2006. Artists themselves say they are wrestling with this new landscape, particularly in the wake of the Whitney controversy. ‘It’s weird and it’s uncomfortable,’ says the artist Eric Fischl. ‘It’s a paradox: Your art doesn’t enable people to make munitions, but their munitions-making enables you to make art.’

The artist Diana Thater says that issues around donors are ‘a problem that is nearly as old as the history of art itself, and, without ample state funding for the arts and for arts education, it will just go on being an unsolvable problem. It’s bad enough when artists have to police themselves,’ she adds. ‘It’s infinitely worse when artists have to police institutions. There is a faulty premise here, and that is that artists somehow hold the moral high ground. I’ve seen artists who harm and kill animals, artists who harm humans and artists who pander to the wealthy and powerful, so how did artists suddenly become the arbiters of morality?’

One artist, Michael Rakowitz, withdrew his work from the Whitney Biennial in February (three months before the show opened). The issue prompted a letter of concern from Whitney staff members in April, to which artists including Martha Rosler and Hito Steyerl – as well as nearly 50 artists in the biennial – added their names.

On July 17, Hannah Black, who helped lead the protest against Dana Schutz’s Emmett Till painting in the previous biennial, along with the artists Ciarán Finlayson and Tobi Haslett, called on other artists to pull their work from the exhibition. ‘There should have been a boycott,’ they wrote in their treatise, The Tear Gas Biennial, published in Artforum. ‘Even now, it remains possible that artists could act according to their conscience, political sensibility or instinctive revulsion and remove their work before the exhibition closes in late September. It would be in every sense of the word a shame if this opportunity were to be entirely missed.’ Sure enough, two days later, eight artists, including the MacArthur Genius Grant winner Nicole Eisenman, asked that their work be removed from the biennial – a headline-grabbing demand – which the Whitney agreed to honor.

‘The Whitney respects the opinions of all the artists it exhibits and stands by their right to express themselves freely,’ Adam D. Weinberg, the museum’s director, said in a public statement. But the various parties affected by such decisions were by no means aligned. The 67 artists who remained in the biennial were subsequently pressured by activists – including some other artists – to also withdraw their work and criticized on social media for not doing so. ‘I would have preferred more people joined, but I understand their trepidation,’ said Eddie Arroyo, one of the artists who withdrew, in an interview, adding of the act of protest, ‘I think it was something that needed to happen.’ At the same time, some in the art world accused the artists who did withdraw of hypocrisy. ‘Oh, have your cake and eat it too!’ wrote Stephen Whisler, a sculptor, on Twitter. ‘Get the prestige of being in one of the art world’s biggest shows and then get the prestige for pulling out.’

Many argue that such public debate has prompted a healthy dialogue about difficult issues concerning who runs and funds arts institutions. ‘Social media has ensured that museums are no longer insulated from institutional critique, as more artists today are prepared to share their misgivings,’ says Maxwell L. Anderson, who previously served as a director of the Whitney as well as the Dallas Museum of Art. ‘These misgivings are compelling museum leaders to confront uncomfortable truths about what constitutes good governance.’ But the internecine tensions also roiled an artists’ community typically considered cohesive. Some criticized the Whitney for what they saw as ‘caving’ to the artists who almost withdrew from the biennial. Given the threat of an expanding walkout, the Whitney worried about the potential snowball effect – that other artists would defect from upcoming Whitney exhibitions.

The painter Becky Suss says she was heartened to see eight artists make the impact they did. ‘How often do we as artists actually have the leverage to help remove a rich and well-connected museum board member?’ But, she adds, emerging artists should not be expected to give up an important opportunity like the biennial when the field is hard enough, especially for women and artists of color. ‘It’s a huge ask to say, “On top of all that, now you can only participate in shows where all funding and institutional support is pristine,” Suss says. ‘I’m not interested in saying what any artist “should” do – I’m not even sure what I should do. I wouldn’t allow my gallery to sell a painting to Ivanka Trump, but I’m also not asking for the background of every collector or board member involved in acquiring or showing my work, and maybe I should. I don’t know where the line is.’

Kanders’ resignation letter – informing the board that his wife, Allison, had also stepped down from her position as co-chairwoman of the museum’s painting and sculpture committee – made no secret of his frustration with the Whitney’s leadership. ‘The politicized and oftentimes toxic environment in which we find ourselves across all spheres of public discourse, including the art community, puts the work of this Board in great jeopardy,’ he wrote. ‘I hope you assume the responsibility that your position bestows upon you and find the leadership to maintain the integrity of this museum.’ But ever since it was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the Whitney Museum has made a point of putting artists first, and its reputation as the ‘artists’ museum’ has been integral to its identity. ‘This is part of the ethos of the museum,’ says Fern Kaye Tessler, a co-chairwoman of the Whitney’s executive committee, ‘to respect the rights of artists and to give them a place to represent themselves.’

This article was originally published in Art Basel Miami Beach Magazine, which will be available in select locations in the US from November 20th 2019 onwards.