Chapter 3: Choosing Winners
I regularly hear from artists about their discouragement, their imposter syndrome, their lack of confidence when it comes to applying for grants. I want artists to realize that being the chosen grantee for any given grant is like winning the lottery.
Most jurying processes (from what I hear) genuinely attempt to award deserving artists. They are not cavalier about who they give money to and are thoughtful and do their best with an impossible choice. The reality is that there are not enough grants to go around to all the deserving artists.
Some of our frustration with the process comes when granting decisions don't make sense to us. We each have our own notions about what qualifies an artist to get a grant.
Just ask yourself these questions and see what feelings come up:
Should artists who are financially secure apply for grants?
Should artists who don't already have some level of success apply?
Should established artists who have commercial gallery success, and whose work is in important collections apply for grants? (I mean, they're doing fine, right?)
Which leads me to my final question: Who, in your opinion, is deserving of a grant?
These are the questions all grant panelists must answer. There is a huge range of criteria about how to find an answer; sometimes they're explicit and sometimes you need to read between the lines to figure out what is guiding the grantor's decision.
I'm often skeptical of the politics and other factors involved in selection committees. Jurors champion the artists they think are deserving, but there is no way to be purely objective. In some cases, panelists will go to extreme lengths to secure a win for artists in their circle.
In 1964, the Americans engineered the win for Robert Rauschenberg at the Venice Biennale (watch this enlightening documentary about what can happen behind the scenes of an artist prize: Taking Venice). Did they think Rauschenberg was the best painter in the world, or did they want to prove that America had a prominent place in the global art world? Maybe both. There are usually multiple agendas at play in every award decision.
So how do we win a grant?
Next Time: Play The Game
Photo Credit: Wendy Red Star, MacArthur Fellow, Summer, 2006
Artists need funding and career boosting opportunities now more than ever.
I can help.