Since the release of some of the Epstein files, journalists and members of the art public have been scouring them to find associations to our beloved world of art. We knew they were there because the halls of power are a short hop away from modern and contemporary art. The super-wealthy financialize their holdings for loans, as Josh Spero points out in the Financial Times, and prestige in grand gestures of artwashing. It can feel voyeuristic to glimpse inside the elite rooms that many of us are not normally privy to, but we must realize our perspective is being skewed. We’re looking through peepholes and often seeing only the reception areas of more complex offices of power, where the true decision-making lies. The culture that Jeffrey Epstein represents is deeply embedded in the art establishment power structures that force themselves onto the rest of us, creating dynamics that exploit, degrade, and turn us all into cynics.
Former museum director and School of Visual Arts department chair David Ross has been one of the only art-world figures to suffer consequences for the surfaced messages with convicted pedophile, sex trafficker, and rapist Jeffrey Epstein. His emails were disturbing but not surprising for those of us who have witnessed how institutional heads employ their silvery talents and ingratiate themselves with donors and trustees to facilitate loans, donations, or favors. In that way, there’s little that is unique about the upper echelons of power, even of the soft variety. Smaller arts organizations’ leaders may not be privy to those rungs of society, but I suspect many of them — no, I know, because I’ve seen it happen as they rise in the ranks — would do the same if it meant procuring a hefty check to build a wing or ensure their staff is paid. It doesn’t excuse them, but it gives us important context. We know that the leaders of small arts organizations have their own troubles, as the former Program Director for arts and culture of the Mellon Foundation Emil J. Kang outlines in an excellent essay on the overworked sector that carries more than their weight.
All of this begs the question: How do we empower arts leaders to reject funding from corrupt individuals in favor of donors who have proven themselves to be civic leaders we can be proud of? And no, I don’t believe the hogwash that “the system has always been this way,” since that invites the type of pessimism that is fertile ground for exploitation.
Since the 1980s, there’s been a slow decline in the arts as academia, arts organizations, artists, and every other aspect of our field cozy up to an increasingly wealthy cadre of donors who are not only divorced from everyday people but face no consequences for their nefarious actions. It is ironic that the public’s increased appetite for art in the United States has meant a deterioration of ethics to feed the beast.
We need to remember that behind every art executive is a board that deeply influences every decision and sometimes sets up the leaders, or front-facing figures, as fall people. Is it any wonder nowadays that artists, curators, dealers, and others don’t see the difference between working for dictators and working for institutions in democratic societies? When Leon Black pays Epstein the exorbitant amount of $158 million, faces multiple accusations of sexual assault, and still remains a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, can you blame their cynicism?
Who are we actually making art for? Sometimes I think we don’t consider that question enough. If the art you’re making, exhibiting, and circulating can only be supported by the people who pull us into the mud with them, is it worth it?
It’s a question we all have to answer for ourselves.
