Hope & Dread, Episode 13: Long Nights at the Round Table

For the final episode, hosts Charlotte Burns and Allan Schwartzman are joined by the series’ editorial advisors, Deana Haggag, Mia Locks and Jay Sanders. They’ll highlight key discoveries and plot some of the changes that have occurred during production of the programs. Where does power reside now in the art world? What does that mean for broader society? And, of course, in the middle of 2022, do our guests feel inclined toward Hope or Dread? Tune in for more.

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Martin Creed, Work No. 2210 EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT (2015). 

Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Thomas Barratt. © Martin Creed. All Rights Reserved, © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London

Transcript:

Charlotte Burns:

This is Hope and Dread. I'm Charlotte Burns.

Allan Schwartzman:

And I'm Allan Schwartzman. This is a program about the tectonic shifts in power in art.

Charlotte Burns:

You're listening to the final episode of the season. You've heard from people who are making change, and people who are resisting change. Today, you'll hear from the editorial board that's been advising us behind the scenes on power in culture. 

In other words, who's driving the wagon and who's trying to seize the reins? 

Our three advisors are Deana Haggag, an arts funder and advocate.

Deana Haggag:

Hi Charlotte. 

Charlotte Burns:

Jay Sanders, the director of Artists Space in New York. Hi Jay. 

Jay Sanders:

Hi Charlotte. 

Charlotte Burns:

And Mia Locks, the independent curator, non-profit leader and head of strategy for Museums Moving Forward. 

Mia Locks:

Hi Charlotte. Always a pleasure. 

Charlotte Burns:

So, a couple of yes or no questions to start. At the end of this season, do you feel differently about who holds the power? 

Jay Sanders: 

Yes.

Deana Haggag: 

Yes.

Mia Locks:

I'm feeling the pressure of social desirability bias. Do I feel different about who holds power? I guess so?

Deana Haggag: 

Say no, so we can battle. 

Mia Locks:

Okay. Maybe I'll say no 

[Laughs]

Charlotte Burns: 

Another yes or no. Have we actually seen change? 

Deana Haggag:

Oof.

Mia Locks:

You mean in the year that we've been working together?

Deana Haggag:

Charlotte, right for my heart. No.

Jay Sanders:

Start with the hardest possible question. Ugh. I want to say; I'm going to say, yes.

Mia Locks: 

I have a really hard time with this one. I want to say not yet, but I feel like we have all the tools we need. But not yet.

Charlotte Burns: 

We began this season by looking at new ways of dealing with American history, specifically monuments. We want to end it by looking towards the future. Where do you think we go from here? 

Allan Schwartzman: 

I think some of the problems have become ever clearer. I still see it as a period in which we all have the opportunity to recalibrate and to embrace change, without fear.

Deana Haggag:

I feel like people are using a common language to talk about what we have to leave behind. But I don't know if where we have to go is as clear as where we have to depart. 

Jay Sanders: 

I mean, re-listening to the episodes too, I'm struck by singular voices that are embodying and living and grappling with conditional change, and institutions and the structures they're working in. So, within those singularities, I see a lot of potential. Episodically, I see a lot of positivity for change. But it's hard to know how that functions systemically in our field.

Allan Schwartzman: 

We've very comfortably used the word ‘change’ from the beginning with this show. When we look at society at large and we look at the world, we're in a period of huge disruption.

So, we’re wanting to embrace change, because we see systemic problems that need to be addressed. But I don't know if, ultimately, this field needs to go through more disruption in order to embody the possibilities of change and what that means. 

I think we're in the midst of such a massive, historical shift—or on the precipice of that change. We have ideas on what this system needs to be more responsive to our times and to growth. But I don't know that we have clarity—or can have clarity—as to where this all shakes out ultimately.

Jay Sanders: 

Relistening to the episodes, there was something that Deana said about really this work never being over. And something else that came up was this allure of resolution. The episodes have been laid out in chapters and there’s thematics and things, but I think there is an overarching sense that these aren't A/B, solutions. And there isn't a sort of new plateau to sit comfortably on. I feel like I’ve maybe come to understand that even more through this work.

Charlotte Burns:

There's a real common focus on history, even if there's disagreement about how to deal with history. What's right, what's wrong. And yet there's not so much conversation—even within these interviews, and within the arc of the show—about the future. There's not a confidence, or a conviction, about how to move forwards into that. Perhaps it's because people have outlined systemic problems and individual solutions. 

And in addition to that, some of the problems that we’re discussing are so big that people aren't grappling with them at all, yet. There's a real denial about certain issues. 

We began the show in crisis, essentially. We began our planning meetings remotely from our homes a year ago, at the height of the once-in-a-century pandemic, and these worldwide protests around racial injustice. Now, as we're concluding, the pandemic's ongoing, there's a new war in Europe. There are catastrophic reports recently released on the climate, and women's rights being aggressively rolled back in the so-called leading democracy in the world. 

None of this came up as much as you might have expected in the interviews. Which really struck me, going back through them. And so the question I wanted to ask all of you is: how well or how badly equipped do you think the art world is to confront the crises that the broader world is in?

Mia Locks: 

Just a small question!

Charlotte Burns: 

Just a small question.

[Laughter]

Deana Haggag: 

I do want to say though, it was really interesting re-listening to all the episodes, specifically this past week. Even something Allan said earlier about how we're thinking about the problems in the art world at the same time that the entire world, in every industry, and every part of the globe, is sort of unravelling. 

And so it actually felt for me like this kind of humbling moment to re-listen to these episodes. And I especially felt really excited about the artist episode. Because there was this moment where I was like, “Oh, art's one of the only ways we can deal with stuff”. And I'm so excited to be able to have any proximity to artists that can help make sense, escape, sink in to whatever is happening. 

But the art world as a mechanism feels connected to too many of the same power sources that are complicating all of the rest of this. Like climate, legislation, policy, geopolitical power... all of that felt still so entangled. 

And it actually made me want to re-google what every board member at every major institution does for a living, and how much of their time is occupied with these much larger global issues. And then how much of their time is dedicated to the arts institutions that they serve? And just what is that balance for them?

But yeah, it was really a trip to re-listen to them this past week. It was hard, actually. It was really hard.

Charlotte Burns: 

Why was it hard?

Deana Haggag: 

I guess every day, I don't know where we go from here. 

There is some shelter about thinking about that within the confines of your industry. But I think listening to my industry reckon with where to go, at the same time that my human person is just so stressed about literally, where do we go from here? Like, I can't believe we live in the United States in the year of 2022. And that we are worried about everything. From forced pregnancies in the nation with the largest maternal mortality rate in the world, or developed nation, rather. All the way down to increased detention rates. I can't even process where to go. 

So I think it felt sad, because it feels hard now to think about where the art world goes, without really having to think about where we all go as a species, in a very, very big way. And I know that was happening the whole time that we've been working on this podcast. And I know that much of the impetus of this podcast was what's been happening over the past two, three, four years. But I don't know why. Something about this particular week really just was hard. Was really, really hard. To wake up every day and think about the future of this country and of the world.

Mia Locks: 

You know, I finally listened to your latest episode and a lot of the nuggets that the artists shared, and a few others shared, about the importance of staying in the gray zone of uncertainty, and also of making mistakes, and how those are just—for creative folks and for artists—part of a process in a very obvious way. 

Artists are always in that muckiness, and that's not to over-romanticize it. But it makes me think, to your point about whether the art system, as it exists now, can withstand change or even transform. I think that's a really key missing part. Which is, there isn't really space, quite literally, or even organizationally. 

How do institutions deal with mistakes? How do these giant behemoths become more nimble? More like learning organizations? 

I've never really seen it done. Having been on the “inside", quote unquote, of institutions in moments of great distress or controversy or conflict or internal ruptures or what have you. I've seen a lot. And at every turn it felt like, both in the room "behind closed doors" and for sure publicly, there really wasn't a lot of sharing vulnerability?

I don't know. There's just a lot of research and conversation, certainly in the organizational psychology realm, but that this is really important. That's actually the way you create a healthy culture. That's the way you have highly successful groups. That's the way you grow. 

And I feel like the art world has so much fear, that I don't really see a lot of that happening. And I do wonder if we're prepared to not just give space to that but, like, actually take the time it takes to do that work? And share it with each other. Because if the institutions do that, they do it in a super hush-hush behind-closed-doors’ way. And I think it doesn't benefit anybody for that to be happening so institution-by-institution, I feel like the field needs to really share that learning and growth. 

Allan Schwartzman: 

So, looking from another angle of this system, we're now in the middle of two weeks of auctions. And several art fairs. And the art market has been very happy to get back on track with its transacting and with collecting. 

And I think for many collectors, art offers a welcome escape, particularly the work of new artists. While at the same time, the market, particularly as it gets played out at auction, can be numbing when you hear the numbers, and you see, what is sometimes the randomness of what does well and what doesn't. 

But underlying much of it is a sense of a frenzy; of a need for immediate gratification. Whether that gratification is about embracing something and overpaying for it by stunning multiples, or by rejecting certain things as no longer a place of value.

So the art market, I think it's in for some very substantial shifts in value. And how that gets exercised over the coming years, but for now, this is a big marketplace that's looking to transact-transact, whether it's a seller or a buyer.

I think institutions are in a very different situation insofar as they are in the middle of a battle or field of vision, where there is demand for change. There is a greater pressure on institutions, whether they can rise to it or not, to change.

I do see, both from the creative realm of the artist and the, perhaps, a little opening up of opportunities for curators, I do see an increased appetite and capacity to be embracing the less known, the less tested. 

I'll speak for Jay for a moment. He's working on an exhibition that will open in June that I think is looking at the histories of art that germinates change, and that has historically and within our own times. And I don't know that such a show would have been conceived in a very different time than this moment. That comes out of need.

Charlotte Burns:

Jay, do you want to tell us a bit about this show?

Jay Sanders: 

Working on an exhibition that's looking at historical practices that existed pretty far outside the art world, that maybe come from an 80s moment—Reagan, culture wars—speaking back to one-way power—media, television—and how artists ‘jammed culture’, was a term of the 1980s, of what can disfigure and re-feed power back to itself? Those things were happening often in more un-institutionalized, renegade terrains. 

But maybe I'm personally looking back to some of that work for strategies and ways to attend to power—also in a moment where the overarching political-social system is so oppressive and getting worse by the moment.

Again, I think these are micro/macro efforts against very overarching forces, but I see little breaches that give hope. But as all of you are talking, I know our field is this series of interlaced concentric circles. And almost the more you know, the harder it is to ever imagine any part of it not interlaced to larger forces, forces of power, geopolitical forces, huge monetary forces and that there's no outside, really. That we're living in a contingent series of irreconcilables. I mean, I guess I do feel like there's no utopia in any of this. That's an obvious thing to say, but it's ever a reminder.

Charlotte Burns:

It's also how corruptible everybody, including we, are. That's something that Hank Willis Thomas said that struck me as really memorable. I think I was saying something a bit naive about artists and he quickly rebutted that and said: "We're just as corruptible as anybody else. We're often in exactly the same rooms as the politicians. The people funding the politics are the same people funding the art, and so we are usually in those rooms, somehow. We're very connected to those rooms." I think that's something that people outside of the art world, they don't see. They don't see that power, they see art as maybe a pretty thing, maybe a lovely thing to do, as a leisure activity. They don't necessarily understand the connections of power—of how people in the art world are connected to broader spheres of power in our society. 

But I guess my question for you then, talking to Jay, for you specifically, do you feel power? Do you feel powerless within this, at this moment in time?

Jay Sanders:

I feel power because I have power in my role. So there's self awareness about that, but yeah. Again, maybe it's a scale thing. Having worked at different scaled institutions, I see power functioning differently, for sure. 

Yeah, it's a complicated question. I don't know how to really easily answer that.

Charlotte Burns:

No, sorry. It's a toughie. 

Deana, Mia, Allan, do you feel power at this point? Do you feel powerless?

Mia Locks: 

I think I feel more empowered now that I sit, I would say, not quite outside, but alongside institutions much more so than I did when I was within, inside of them.

Charlotte Burns:

Do you feel like your change will be implemented at the end of Museums Moving Forward? Do you feel hopeful about its impact?

Mia Locks:

Yes. I feel hopeful. I have to feel hopeful. But I think I'm also feeling very empowered and inspired by working with colleagues in a bunch of different institutions again. Like, seeing people have the actual capacity to work across institutional lines. So I do feel like part of what is very inspiring to me about power and the power that we hold from where we sit is that it multiplies in an exponential way when it's shared.

Charlotte Burns: 

Allan? Do you feel power or powerless?

Allan Schwartzman: 

Power is one of those words I usually avoid because I always see it in relation to abuse of power, and to me, power is a tool and not an end in itself. 

I think in the work that I do, which is primarily on developing art collections, many of which are forming museum collections, we've been really fortunate in being able to contribute to change in the way a lot of different kinds of art are perceived

I've started doing a lot of advisory work over the last year with artists and artists' estates, and it's work that I see totally complimentary to and not in opposition to galleries, but I thought it would take a while to establish that. And what I've found is, in fact the opposite: is that there's a great hunger and a need for living artists and estates and ways in which to rethink what it is that they're doing and what effectiveness it can have, and how to operate within a world that can be both powerful and fragile. So, that's been super rewarding for me. 

I function within the art market, but my value system was formed in an art world in which there was no market, so the investment was much more of a small community investment. 

So I think for me, it's exciting, so I guess that's a sense of power—to be able to apply values that formed me and see them as essential to this ecosystem, and apply that to a market and perhaps have impact on how some people perceive certain art or re-perceive it. So I think there's a power in that, but it's just not a word that I think about much.

Charlotte

OK, Deana do you feel power? Do you feel powerless?

Deana Haggag:

I feel power, for sure. I mean, I definitely feel power on paper. I work for one of the largest, if not the largest, arts funder in the nation. I am privately and publicly in rooms where a lot of decisions get made all the time. With enough stretching, I think I could reach 85% of the people that power broker this field, so I for sure feel power.

I think the thing that I actually learned from the podcast that I've been trying to sit with is feeling like I have power on paper doesn't necessarily translate to me feeling like I have power in my person. And I think one takeaway for me from the series is that people can't identify their power. And it's really, really, really hard to know that you are at the top of the food chain. People tend to find a way to always see themselves as vulnerable to some other force.

I think lately I've actually really been trying to be like, oh no, you have a lot of power in this industry. And how do you admit it and acknowledge it so you know how to wield it? 

And then more importantly, and I think it's actually something I'm struggling with a lot lately—and maybe to bring up Hank's point again—I can definitely feel the slipperiness of the corruptibility, just how subtle it is. That decisions you don't think you would've made before you had access to so much power or money or ease—which tends to be what power and money do—are decisions that you now feel like are the right compromise. And so I definitely feel like I have power and I don't know that it's made me a better person. And so I think I've just been trying to sit with that.

And one thing that I keep coming back to, and I don't remember what episode and I'm pretty sure it was Michael Armitage. It was a fleeting moment. He said, "Well, it really depends on who you're indebted to." It was just so small, just a tiny moment. I think when he was talking about his Nairobi Center. 

And I've been trying to think like, oh, if everybody in the industry could write down on paper, for real, who they are indebted to, who they do this for. How would that change the decisions they make? 

And are museum directors indebted to artists or publics? Are they indebted to collectors and board presidents? Who am I indebted to now at Mellon and in other parts of my career? Who am I doing this for? And slowly that changes. I'm hoping maybe that one moment that Michael was like, "Who are you indebted to?" might keep my power in check a little bit.

Charlotte Burns: 

I know it's a really tough question to ask you all. And the reason I asked you is because precisely what you just identified, Deana. Through this show, it seems that people are not comfortable with acknowledging their power, with understanding they have it. 

We spoke to lots of powerful people in this show in lots of different ways, and few of them felt at ease with expressing that or felt confident about maintaining that, or felt it was being challenged or felt they couldn't inhabit it fully. And it was really striking. 

My sense is that that's the reason that the artist’s show felt hopeful, is because the artists are really aware of their power and their vision. It's what they work on every day, and they inhabit that space with an ease that seemed lacking in some of the other guests. And I wasn't sure if that was what power is, what power does, or if that's this moment in time, if that's its particular show, where the world is right now.

And so, I guess it leads to this other question, which is from your point of view, having gone through this process together—as we thought about power, as we thought about change—at the end of it, who do you think wields the power now? Who are the key players on the stage? How do you think about that differently now than you thought about that when we began this process? Would you make a different list now?

Allan Schwartzman:

I think it's fundamentally the same, but having said that, it certainly—again, if I look at institutions—it's a period in which nobody wants to be perceived of as a true leader, because that makes them a target. 

So being a spokesperson for a field is a massive challenge. Maybe being thought of as the authority on something isn't the most desirable thing. I don't think that the key players, for the most part, have changed, but I think their relationship to their power is, however short-term or lasting, has been shaken. 

To go back to what you were saying, Deana, I mean, you are single-handedly—with the amounts of money you've been able to direct directly to artists, for example—having massive capacity for change that is not only through the power of the money, but through the establishment, through a very august foundation, to have influence over how others approach funding. 

And I do think that most people go where they know to go. And so by opening doors to thinking of where need is and how money can be deployed can have great impact on others. 

So, I think that the potential there is even greater than the money that gets put into it.

Charlotte Burns:

Do you feel the same, Deana, being on the other side of that?

Deana Haggag:

Yeah, I do. Can I say one thing about the people not being able to identify their own power? I don't think it's malicious. I think it's human nature to seek out your predator more than those that are more vulnerable than you. I just feel like there's this way in which we're always looking at people that are more powerful than us and what they do to us. 

Charlotte, that thing you said about why artists can do this more seamlessly. I think it's just because very rarely do artists start with any power. Some do, but it's such a slog. By the time you arrive, in the instance of some of the artists we’ve interviewed at least, you've really been through some stuff. You've really had to start in a pretty powerless place and build. 

And some artists can hold that really gracefully and still talk about the corruptibility and still acknowledge that evolution over time. Some forget it; we all know who those people are. And then some do, by some miracle, start at the top. They either come from families that made this easy, whatever it is.

But I think in the case of how money flows in this country, very rarely do people start at a completely powerless place and then evolve over time. 

In my instance, I did start in a relatively powerless place and I'm still finding that corruptibility very slippery. Like, very slippery and I'm still finding that, okay, how do you bring lots of different voices to the table and find some compromise so we can move through. But that compromise tends to leave a lot of people out that I do feel, to some extent, indebted to, and I don't know how to reckon with that either.

And so, I don't know. I don't know what to do with that nugget. But going back and listening, and I do think because art is so fraught in this nation, anyone who engages it from any caliber of power is doing a ‘good thing’. No matter how you slice it. They are just making something available to a public, potentially, that wouldn't otherwise be there. So I think it makes it even harder to really beat down that very few things are universally good, unless you can hold on to the power that you're arriving at that thing from.

But yeah, to Allan’s point, sure. Yeah. Raising a lot of money is great, but shifting how people think about the money they have is better. I think right now, coming off of doing a lot of emergency relief funding work, both before my life at Mellon and in my life at Mellon, we're seeing a lot of it, but will it last when the state of emergency wanes, which it is every week, every day, we're feeling it less and less? And so I think, yeah, it made some impacts, but will those impacts stick? And I don't know. I don't even know. 

We joke all the time that we don't even know if we could have made this podcast six months from now. That the genius of this podcast is that we asked a bunch of people at the exact right moment. And over time, people wouldn't have been as willing to speak so candidly and earnestly about how they were feeling about the art world. And so how do we get the impact to stick more? I don't know.

Mia Locks: 

Part of the reason artists are better at this is because they have to do brave shit all the time, like face their inner demons and self motivate even when no one's watching and keep building, even when they aren't sure when the next paycheck's coming in, et cetera, right. 

I mean, that's leadership to a degree. And I think some of the voices of those that are ‘the most powerful’ over the course of these different chapters. One of the things that I feel like is sometimes missing, at least as I was listening back, is having the courage to sort of acknowledge the position that you're in as a powerful one based on, I mean, thinking about what you said, Allan, people don't want to be the leader. They don't want to be holding the bag because they feel like everyone's throwing stones—and they are. But that's the job of leaders. 

On some level, I think we all know that the way that the art sort of ecosystem works is that those with the most money do have the most power. But one of the things that I think you hint at and that folks kind of nod to, and that I think we're seeing increasingly, especially over the last year, but even the past, I would say five or 10 years, is that the people with the power are increasingly those that have had the courage to step into it. 

Charlotte Burns: 

Jay, who do you think wields the power? Has it shifted for you?

Jay Sanders: 

Yeah. I'm grateful for our process that from the get go, this wasn’t going to be art news that was only tracking the kind of high peaks in that way. So in our effort to seek out people that are thinking about power and reconfiguring power, especially I think as everybody said with the artists, we see lots of counterexamples. And that makes me think about the shape of ambition, which I think is heartening to see artists for whom their interest in being an artist is not a sort of automatic set of rewards and a set of ascension points that come with the kind of status quo of our field.

And I guess I do find a lot of inspiration there. This whole series makes me think about the question of really what's arts' function in society. And I feel like almost everybody we talk to would have a very, very different answer and that almost their self image and configuration of what art is even doing or what is art is so utterly different that even that becomes a very unstable ground to work on and to have any shared understanding of. 

And so I do see hope in certain configurations; less hope in others. Anyway, and I think these are all like first thoughts that aren't really going to land on a second thought, but I think we're trying to sort of work through the soup of all this a bit in the process. 

You know, it's really, really, really complex, because we all hallucinate all this value, but it’s very real and we sort of hallucinate our positions in it, but it's very real. And everyone does sort of think they're in the middle. 

Charlotte Burns: 

It's also an industry that people are so passionate about. They're in this world, they're invested in art for personal reasons. It's not the most rational career choice for most people. What you're describing, that sort of centrifugal force of everybody's energy is really interesting. There are lots of vociferous, emotional, intellectual conversations going on. I'm not sure how much they overlap. I'm not sure how much the communication is breaking through. It seems that the growth that we've talked about so much in this show has created a distance.

For you guys, who stood out? Who cut through? Who surprised you? Who did you think would say one thing, and then they said something totally different?

Mia Locks:

Hamza Walker and [Dr.] Kelli Morgan, who appear, I think again and again in your episodes for good reason. They were so honest and you guys have been so honest and that sticks out to me because again, in the world we live in, people are freaked out. People are really scared to say what they really think. They're afraid to tell the truth. They're afraid to say the really hard thing.

And honestly I would add to that, a couple of the trustees, honestly. I thought that Larry Marx and Fred Bidwell and I think it was Marc Schwartz. They also said some truthful things that I think are hard to say, especially for board members and for trustees right now. And I appreciated that too.

Charlotte Burns:

After this show, I should say, we're going to do these small episodes where we give some of the guests a little bit more room and Hamza [Walker]'s one of them. And I think the point we end that on is him saying, "What are you here for? This is it. This is now. Get in this. This is why we are here. What are you going to do? What are you going to say?" And it just does cut through all of it. 

Allan, who for you has stood out or surprised you in any way?

Allan Schwartzman: 

I mean you all, we could not have done this without your participation or we could not have done this well without it. I mean your experiences and insights were central. So I can't state enough what an impact your words have had on us and within the show. 

And Kelli [Morgan] and Kathy [Halbreich] and Hamza [Walker] have all put their work behind their beliefs. And that's super powerful. 

And then I think about Sandra Jackson-Dumont and I see her so clearly as the next wave leader, I don't mean the, but one of; someone who is forging the path. 

There were voices of people I did not know that I found the most inspiring and I could single out Lulani Arquette in that regard. She just defined a perspective and a way of being that I didn't have access to until I heard her voice. That made a huge impact on me.

Charlotte Burns:

If we had all our guests in one room, if we had a big party, do you think they'd get along?

Deana Haggag: 

Oh, Charlotte, in the art world, we always get along.

Mia Locks:

I was going to say, of course. Which gala are we at?

[Laughter]

Deana Haggag: 

It's more like how much distance are they putting between the cheek kiss. Is it three inches of distance or right skin to skin?

[Laughter]

Charlotte Burns: 

They're the tells.

Deana Haggag: 

Do you think they'd get along, Charlotte? You got to know them so intimately?

Charlotte Burns:

It depends how long the party was. 

[Laughter]

I think as well the thing I wanted to ask you guys is which changes are incremental and which changes are sudden? And the reason I say this is, from my point of view as an interviewer, a couple of things struck me as incremental, as solid, as building work, that a lot of people are doing that you've just named, some of them. And then, there are these changes that will be very sharp and acute. 

And I've said to Allan at points, my dad used to be a bookie and I said, if I were keeping a book, I would start placing bets on which institutions I don't think are going to survive. And that hadn't occurred to me before we began this show that some institutions may just fail, may just completely collapse.

Allan Schwartzman: 

Who, for you, have the greatest odds of not surviving, Charlotte?

Charlotte Burns: 

Well, that's definitely a party conversation, not a podcast one, I would say. 

[Laughter]

But another change that I think is really decisive was interviewing Ed Vaizey, the former culture minister in the UK, saying, "I would return the Elgin Marbles now," and preparing for this episode, thinking about, okay, what are the big changes that have happened? So many of them are overwhelming and apocalyptic in the world beyond us. But meanwhile, one of the cultural conversations that's shifted enormously in these past two years is this issue of restitution. And that's a change that I don't think that we would have spoken about in these terms in 2018, in 2019. And now, it's very quickly moving, very, very fast. 

If we were running a book right now between us, what are the big changes you would bet on in the next five years? Do you think museums will thrive? Do you think the market will collapse? Do you think everything will be returned from whence it came? 

Deana Haggag:

I think that the distance between boards and staffs will lessen in the next five to 10 years. I think the labor conversation happening in our field is unavoidable. I think it's getting louder and louder and louder. I think Mia said, at one point, people that just now know their power and know how to really talk about it out loud. So I cannot imagine that in a decade, we'll be in this place where boards are just so far away from what is happening with staffs, and that's if people even still take these jobs at all. Like, as we're watching folks really question what they need to survive and live a healthy life. So that, I think, will happen quicker than some of the other larger incremental changes. 

And I agree, Charlotte, about the repatriation work. I'm shocked by how fast the restitution work is happening and how much it's popping up everywhere. And I think in 10 years, it'll be a vastly different landscape about where objects live and who they belong to and how they're cared for.

Mia Locks:

The impact of the Sarr-Savoy paper, that was the kicker. People have been debating these issues for a long time, but a couple of people took some real time and real care and wrote a beautiful, not just argument, lyrical essay on the meaning of this long history, but of the possibility, the art of the possible.

We need to support those efforts, which are so behind the scenes and unsexy. They're definitely not the big exhibition that's going to drive your attendance. They're definitely not a hot new artist that's going to make or break your collection. But I feel like part of the reason that that change is happening so quickly is because a bunch of people or even a small group of people had the courage—and spent the time and attention—to really tend to that, so it made all the decision making faster and more possible.

Charlotte Burns: 

So Mia, what's your prediction for the next five to 10 years?

Mia Locks:

I think we're going to see a lot of continued turnover in leadership. I don't mean just of museum directors, but I think the leadership of organizations and institutions is going to—and has to—look different. I don't mean that in the sense of just racial and ethnic diversity or gender and things like that, although I mean that as well. 

I mean it more in terms of the skills required to effectively do that job are just different. And I think that from what I hear from search committees and these head hunters is that they seem to be getting that, they seem to be mentioning it as part of the gig. And I think that's going to be huge, to see real empathetic leadership. Future leadership is going to be a different job and I think it has to be, but I think that's going to be really interesting.

Charlotte Burns:

Jay, what's your five to 10 year horse?

Jay Sanders: 

I'm very, very curious what emerging artistic practice starts to look like and develops as in the future coming out of years, just what and how people foot and present their creativity and their reflectivity in aesthetic forms. I guess I do think something is shifting and going to shift. 

And I think canon and certain value questions are just eroding and it's like art history is a mood board, at best, maybe, for young artists. I don't think it really is that much of a thing to inherit anymore. So I'm excited about that a little bit,  what the future configurations of art look like, but I feel like that's a little bit of an easy answer, but—

Charlotte Burns:

No, I really like that idea.

Jay Sanders: 

It's where my mind goes.

Charlotte Burns: 

Yeah, art history's a mood board. That's great. Allan?

Allan Schwartzman: 

Within institutions, I think the demand and the need will be for more immediate change for those that will survive or thrive moving forward than in other parts of this ecosystem. 

I think, in five years, there are many ways in which we don't see change, but we see more disruption. And I think maybe in terms of art practice, that becomes more visible sooner than later, and that could connect as well to institutional change. 

What art is, how it functions within a broader culture, I think, is up for much wider possibility for change, moving into the future, than we might be able to anticipate right now. It just seems inevitable, with these larger global, cultural shifts, that art and where it resides within the world and within life and within an economic world will inevitably shift as well.

But I would also say that the kind of unknown factor which may be more visible in 10 years is, to what extent the estates of artists have an impact. We have the first wave of baby boomers who are in their 70s and 80s. Some are no longer with us today. 

I think that's a vast amount of wealth that could have a huge impact that we can't begin to imagine—but I do think there are precedents out there that help to direct others in thinking about their giving. If we simply look at the impact of the Andy Warhol Foundation on funding within our institutions, it's massive. 

And the Rauschenberg Foundation in a very, very different way in how its funding needs, in the system, for real change, embedded within broader culture keeps the spirit of that artist alive within our own time and active as an agent for activism, in a sense. So I think there's a lot of untapped power.

Charlotte Burns: 

I know we don't have long, so I'm going to do a couple of quick-fire round questions. And these are questions we've asked some of our guests. 

So, we asked some of our guests about museums. We said, "If the museum model isn't working, do we simply need to build new museums?" What do you think? Can we reform, can we rebuild?

Mia Locks: 

Yes, I think both. We need to improve on the existing and I think we need to create some new ones.

Allan Schwartzman:

Yeah, I agree. At the end of the day, you've got great real estate and great holdings, so there's greater opportunity if one can work within the institutions, but of course, there's always need for new institutions. That's where places like Artists Space comes in. Artists Space is probably what? 50 years old, almost? But it's one of the alternative spaces that's always reinventing itself with the times.

Charlotte Burns: 

If you think of Renaissance artists, they held a similar position to scientists. If you think of the way in which science and maths have reshaped our lives—think of the phones, think of the conversation we're having now, which is being propelled by mathematical innovation—has art and culture ceded its place in the innovation triumvirate to science and maths?

Deana Haggag: 

I think that maths and sciences are facing a major misinformation problem. I actually think one of the ways art is helping is it's one of the few things to combat so much misinformation, whether or not people recognize that now, but they certainly will in a few generations. And I think we're already the byproducts of that, things we learned about from artists that we didn't quite get from history books, from science, from maths, so I think art's always innovating in that regard and especially now in the 21st-century.

Charlotte Burns:

We've just talked about the influx of potential wealth and instruction on wealth that might create change in the future through artists’ estates. We talked about Museums Moving Forward and the change it's creating, which is possible through the funding it's received. Is that where change needs to come from, from the money? Can the money fix the problems?

Deana Haggag:

No. The money can't be the most important thing at the table. It can participate in problem solving endeavors, absolutely. It does all the time. But I think the money's not what makes Museums Moving Forward excellent. You know? What makes Museums Moving Forward excellent are the curators and thinkers that have dedicated so much of their time, their expertise and their spirit to that thing. The money is just one energy source. 

But I think it cannot be the most important tool at the table the second it trumps everything. And we see that in our industry all the time. And we also see some excellent philanthropists who know that their money's not the most important thing at the table. It's a tool. And they show up and they do the right thing every day. But no, we rely on money way too much in the art world and it's not right.

Charlotte Burns: 

Something that someone had said in the show was that art museums are just beginning to grapple with the need to take a stance. That science museums have had to do this; that natural history museums have had to do this and that art museums are just beginning to grapple with this. Do you think that art museums, art institutions need to take a stance?

Mia Locks: 

I think art museums need to focus on themselves before they start talking to anybody else.

Jay Sanders: 

I think stances can be hard. I think that can be that point of the work, real and long and complex means that sometimes a stance is a shallow stop point.

Charlotte Burns: 

Do you think you're seeing a backlash to any of these calls for change? And how do you deal with that? 

I spoke to a museum director yesterday who said trustees are like: "Do you think we can get back to things now? We've done a bit of work on diversity and do you think we can get back to the original mission?" 

Are you guys seeing that? How do you deal with it? What would your advice be?

Mia Locks: 

I think you just have to invite them to a future that also sounds really great. I think that's what's missing, is that people think that they have to do this thing because of guilt or privilege or whatever. They're being told to do something and that doesn't motivate people intrinsically. 

But, to the point that was made earlier by I think all of you, people are here because they believe in what's possible and they're excited about art and the future and they want to imagine being part of something really meaningful and you just have to make the case that that's non-negotiable.

Charlotte Burns: 

If you could talk directly to the listeners on this show, what would you point them towards in terms of thinking positively about change—steering them towards the hope rather than the dread—what would you say?

Deana Haggag: 

There's more hope. I don't know, it's the one thing I'm … is there's just more good. There are more good people, more good intentions, more good work than there actually is nefarious stuff. It's just the nefarious stuff's so much louder, you know? So you're not outnumbered. You're actually part of a coalition of lots of people—some you know, some you'll never meet—that are all trying to walk into the future Mia [Locks] just painted so beautifully. It's just actually overwhelmingly good. And I think if you can keep your eye on that, you get through this.

Charlotte Burns:

Okay. This is a question for each of you. It's our last question. It's the last question we ask all of our guests. 

So, for the final time this season, I will ask you, as you look towards the future, what do you feel, hope or dread?

Mia Locks:

Hope.

Jay Sanders: 

Hope.

Deana Haggag: 

Yeah, hope. Tired, but hopeful.

Allan Schwartzman: 

Hope.

Charlotte Burns: 

There we have it. We landed on the hope in the end. 

Thank you so much to our editorial advisors. Thank you to our listeners. This is the end of the Hope and Dread documentary show, but join us in two weeks time for a mini-series in which we take you behind the scenes with some of our guests.

Deana Haggag: 

Wait. Wouldn't it be hilarious if season two was a reality TV show where we saw the guests in the house and they have to collaborate and Mia is the host?

Charlotte Burns: 

Yeah.

Deana Haggag: 

It would be amazing.

Mia Locks: 

I would totally be the host of that show. It would be fun. 

Podcast Art: Martin Creed, Work No. 2210 EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT (2015). Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Thomas Barratt. © Martin Creed. All Rights Reserved, © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London