ArtPrize Blog

An Interview with Mary Jane Jacob

Guest Speaker, Mary Jane Jacob, Professor and Executive Director of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, interviewed by Nicole Caruth. An excerpt:

Nicole Caruth: What are your feelings about ArtPrize?

Mary Jane Jacob: … I think that openness has been a really strong aspect. The voting, which I normally would not be a fan of, here, I think, just from my short observations, it becomes a lens for people to look at the work and then have to assess, and that’s what it’s all about. Assessing it not based on, necessarily, if something is good or well made or things that we might use in the art world, but rather “Does it speak to me? What does it mean? Do I like it?” We, with much education and years of experience in that, also consider whether we like it or not. That is an honest reaction.

Even if you only go to one venue [at ArtPrize], you’re still looking at quite a large number of things. That has to be assessed with other things, which means it goes beyond just a first impression. Yet it also stays very personal. You have to ask yourself, “Why do I like this one more than the other, or equally?” And then there is a thumbs up/thumbs down kind of suggestion [by which] you could at least have a conversation with every work of art. Because you’re not just picking 10 to vote on, you don’t have to slice it so fine. Because it’s not going to be one or the other, it doesn’t have to go through some laborious ranking, because there’s way too much stuff here to do that, and many things are on par with each other.

My real misgiving strategically, long-term, with the project is the huge disparity in the prize money in an art world where artists need a lot of support — art always does.

We’re at the 48th anniversary of the Calder, which was a high point of public motivation of art, and the NEA’s flowering, and so forth. We’ve seen the demise of the individual artist grant program and we’re still suffering from that. Some grant programs were out there already, some ramped up further, like Pew in Philadelphia or Bush in Minneapolis. But then other ones with a lot less resources and smaller amounts have done volumes of work, like Creative Capital and Artadia. And nobody in any of those is getting $250,000. I think we’re not looking at $250,000 artists here. I have a problem with the division it creates when that amount of money, $500,000, could be spread in equal or on more egalitarian ways.  That could support 10 or more artists.

… That confrontation, that nexus between the aspiring artist, emerging artist, overlooked artist and the broader public is a great conversation. We see it enacted here and it’s a great success, I think, on that level. But then when the final result becomes something that then shifts to a paradigm that is more like American Idol or winning the lottery, it doesn’t necessarily sustain either that individual or this system or the art world. I even find it problematic with colleagues from those institutions that I’ve named who are struggling to have something that doesn’t join the conversation of [artist] development, sustainability and support…To see that supporting artists is a positive and necessary endeavor has a great ripple effect.

NC: Actually you raise something that Peter Murray brought up. He said that one of his concerns is this pot of money. Would one spend $250,000 on some of the work that’s here?

MJJ: It’s out of line.

NC: He seemed concerned that it sends the wrong the message.

MJJ: I agree.

NC: I’ve been following the polls since I arrived — they show these buckets, the top 25, 50, 75, etc. — and looking at what’s in the top 25, I’m realizing that it’s mostly the biggest things, as I’ve written on the blog, the spectacles that people are voting for.

MJJ: And sometimes it’s just rewarding the effort. Because in a way, whether it’s conscious or not, you are trying to say, “Well, if it’s $250,000 then it ought to be big.” So, on one level it’s the spectacle experience, and on the other it’s the buying thing. Like what am I getting for this [amount of] money or whatever this person put into [it]? Even empathizing to some degree. I think that’s a problem.

Another problem that I feel is that artists have been very generous to come and participate. It costs them money to do that. They have even been asked to pay a submission fee, which I think is unfortunate. I think a portion of money should be considered — maybe you don’t end up with 1,200 artists, but maybe you still end up with hundreds of artists — and everybody should get a little subsidy to come, because [artists] are spending money to come here and they’re paying Grand Rapids to have a public event. They are paying the benefactor to bolster…there would be no prize if people didn’t participate; the people are paying to participate.

And then the institutions, whether they are bars or restaurants or another institution, I have heard people say, “Well, look what they are getting for it.” Well, you know, being on the museum side of it you can have a donor who says, “You know, I want to give you this work or art.” Or “I want to give you all my collection of X.” Well, it costs money to take care of that. We’re not talking about collection the same way in perpetuity, but it costs money to do what it is you want to do.

Artist’s work is not valued except for the work of art. The work of making it is not valued. People are saying, “But they have a great opportunity of exposure.” Exposure to what? Yes, exposure if they want to be here, and do a kind of audience analysis of what one’s art could be in a realm, which is very populous. You know, that’s what I do. I do think that’s very interesting. But, you can only do that to a certain degree. People have also invested…I think that this deserves some infrastructure money.

Next year, it becomes a challenge for everybody to scramble to increase their budgets or lose more sleep time to make it happen. You can do that once, but can you do that well on an ongoing basis? …There are serious things happening — you being here and talking about it. If it becomes a serious level of engagement, then how do you further develop, because that means there’s probably going to be even more demands and expectations and, therefore, resources. So, what are the resources? There is a structure, an infrastructure, which is needed for such an endeavor. I don’t say this to kind of kill the party. But [ArtPrize] does aim to go on and I don’t think the value of it is to degenerate, to be American Idol or the art lottery.

I celebrate the diversity of where these venues are, the self-curating thing. I think that’s a real engagement. I think the quantity of things out there is great. I don’t mind that it’s mixed. I’m not unhappy that they are not known artists, by and large. I think that’s a good thing.

You know, I have talked to some public press here and they have asked, “Do you think the art world is going to sit up and take notice then?” And I’m like, “No.” The only thing you are asking the art world to notice is that you have $250,000 to give away to one person, and $500,000 total. The other things can be a serious dialogue with the art world in terms of valuing or recognizing an audience that doesn’t look like the art world audience, all those other things mean that you have to continue to probe this and you have to also bring artists into that dialogue in some way.

NC: Before I arrived, I read an article that quoted an artist who said, to paraphrase, “You know, I don’t care about the money, I can put this on my resume.” That struck me, because a competition like this is not a resume builder. But, there’s that kind of expectation out there, perhaps, that art world eyes are on Grand Rapids and that simply being part of ArtPrize could get an artist a step further in their career, which is naive…

MJJ: Yes, because it’s a different tier. Being where we are, we don’t see it that way. But I would rather not make that the goal, because then you would have to completely change the character of [ArtPrize]. I think the value is what it says about an every day engagement with art.

There are so many lessons here. There are things that could be studied, that distinguish it. This is a city with a certain history with art, which is not irrelevant, and it’s very particular. There’s a story of Grand Rapids in the state of Michigan. There’s a story of Grand Rapids in itself. And it could leap ahead or at least find its own solid ground within, if you will, the high art world that we participate in, if it kept that really thoughtful and deep engagement

…. Three of my closest art world colleagues all come from Grand Rapids. Somebody who I was an intern with in the Detroit Institute of Arts, worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago with me, and worked at the Detroit Institute of Arts as well. He comes from a large Polish Catholic family in Grand Rapids. A colleague who I have written a number of books with, worked with and who was the director of the Hood Museum at Dartmouth, and the director of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, she comes from a small, very different Calvinist Dutch family in Grand Rapids. And Kylie Wolf, who is the director of the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, comes from a Jewish family in Grand Rapids. I don’t think it’s an accident that the three of them come from Grand Rapids. This is really fertile ground.

NC: Given your earlier work with the Michigan Art Train and your other connections to Michigan, I’m curious to know what changes you’ve seen in the arts in Grand Rapids, or in greater Michigan, from the time you first came here [from New York] up to now?

MJJ: Michigan was a real leader when there weren’t many. Quite some time ago, when I was in graduate school, Michigan was the second highest funded arts council in the country next to New York. Do you ever think of Michigan and New York together? No.

NC: No.

MJJ: … There was great industry in Detroit, I mean in the whole state. I don’t think I would’ve landed with a quite as assertive a public disposition within the museum, and therefore, taking it out of the museum into a public arena, if I hadn’t had the good fortune to have been a student in Ann Arbor, and worked at the Detroit Institute of Arts. There’s great support, and involvement here, and an innocence [that is] not stuck up or embellished on what it would gain you in social cache. But, rather, a very short connection to the public. People felt that sense of obligation and giving back. We have the Carnegie stories, we have the others. But, somehow there was a density here, whether it was down in Midland or it was Kellogg in Kalamazoo. Huge philanthropic things. Art was right there all the time. It wasn’t just education, it wasn’t just health. Art was there. Culturally there was a belief in it. So, this is a wonderful next, or new, version of that.

But, I still feel like that $250k…people say, “It doesn’t matter to me.” Well, the $250k hasn’t got somewhere yet. Earlier today, people were saying what they might do with the prize [such as] donate it back. Absolutely not. Artists need money. Art needs money.