Leaky Designs & Superfluity

Part III.

Indulge me by attending to a rather specific problem: to the problem of making a livelihood as an artist in America.

As I am sure you know, one can scarcely find a livelihood as an artist in America, and the general assumption is that there are those who deserve a livelihood as an artist and there are those who do not. Many “activists” will point, with one hand, to the undeserving white artists pipelined to the privileged pools of career artists, and then, with the other hand, point to the deserving black artists pipelined to the pools of the impoverished, unable to make a living as an artist. These “activists” argue that the right thing to do is to channel undeserving (white) artists out of pipelines to privilege and to channel deserving (black) artists into pipelines to privilege.

Thinking with and through schizoanalysis, I propose that we ask more fundamental questions, “Why can one scarcely find a livelihood as an artist in America? Why can’t there be an abundance of artistic livelihoods in America? How can we create a greater abundance of artistic livelihoods in America?” These questions do not diminish the importance of anti-racist activism. To the contrary, they heighten the importance of anti-racist activism. It ought to be clear that white supremacist racism is one reason why artistic livelihoods are scarce: white supremacist racism survives and thrives by promoting (the appearance of) scarcity, by making livelihoods (appear) scarce, and by claiming to guarantee scarce livelihoods to whites who “truly deserve” them. What’s more, it ought to be clear that white supremacist racism is allied with other “-isms” (e.g., sexism, capitalism) in promoting (the appearance of) scarcity. For instance, white supremacist racism and capitalism are allied when it comes to creating (apparent) scarcities of livelihoods because capitalism revolves around profiting from (apparent) scarcities of resources and opportunities. That being said, however, capitalism is a fair weather friend of white supremacist racism because capitalism can accept the filtering out of “undeserving whites” and the filtering in of “deserving blacks” as long as this filtering out and filtering in does nothing to prevent (the appearance of) scarcities.

If we aim to create a greater abundance of artistic livelihoods in America, I would propose that we deconstruct pipelines and (re-)create leaky designs. It would be a mistake to create an abundance of artistic livelihoods exclusively for “deserving (black) artists” and to regard “undeserving (white) artists” as contaminants to be filtered and channeled out of the pools of artists that can make a living. Instead, let us create a superfluity of livelihoods for artists, so that artists whom we consider undeserving can just as easily make a living as those that we consider deserving, so that there can be no reason for any one group to resent any other group’s definition  of “being deserving”. This does not mean creating more and more jobs for specialists in the arts but, rather, it means encouraging art-making to spillover into increasingly more livelihoods, into livelihoods that would otherwise be considered non-artistic.

Many artists in America are, unfortunately, conditioned to over-concentrate in art and to live in fear of (the appearance of) scarcity. They are conditioned to continually prove that they “deserve” to make a living as an artist in order to gain access to pipelines for dedicated career artists, and they do not endeavor to create a superfluity of artistic livelihoods. This conditioning runs so deep that many American artists who do make decent livelihoods and could further the (re-)creation of leaky designs, choose instead to hoard opportunities for themselves and the few they believe to be “deserving”: transforming themselves and their cliques into new pipelines for “deserving” artists.

Let me finish this text by citing myself as a case study. I am a black artist in America who has yet to find a livelihood for himself as an artist: I have never even approached the possibility of feeding and housing myself and my family with my art. It follows that I am desperate to prove that I “deserve” to be an artist: I am desperately seeking access to an artistic career through the pipelines available to me. Thus far, I have failed on three fronts:

• My art is not “marketable”, so it has not been found “deserving” by the commercial pipelines to artistic careers.

• The academic pipelines to artistic careers, supported by grant seeking and teaching, are closed to me because I have no credentials and, at least for now, I refuse to become a glorified debt peon in order to “earn” credentials in the arts that can hardly assure me a livelihood.

• What’s more, I have, thus far, been shut out of the pipelines for “deserving black artists” due in no small part to my lack of marketability and credentials but also, in part, due to the fact my art has not, until now, directly addressed my “being black”.  

Having no proper pipelines to an artistic career, I have been looking for ways in which I might surreptitiously seep into a pipeline that wouldn’t otherwise have me. To be specific, recognizing that I could pass for an academic artist in spite of my lack of credentials, I have been seeking out the faults and fissures in the academic pipelines to an artistic career so that I might improperly convey myself to a livelihood as an artist. But I wonder… Could I do something more radical? Seeping through the faults and fissures in the academic pipelines does not seem very radical to me. Although I am not accessing the academic pipelines through the proper filters and channels, I am still working to prove that I “deserve” an artistic livelihood to those who are accessing the academic pipelines through the proper filters and channels. Indeed, all that I am really doing is asking proper artist-academics to recognize me as “deserving” and to let me in on their pipelines to scarce livelihoods through improper side-channels. In other words, I am only accepting and navigating the (apparent) scarcity of livelihoods available to artists: I am not (re-)creating leaky designs so that art-making spills over into increasingly more livelihoods.

So, of course, I have been wondering how I might (re-)create leaky designs so that art-making spills over into increasingly more livelihoods. Or, in other words, I have been wondering how to develop an artistic practice that makes non-artistic livelihoods increasingly more artistic, so that I need not judge myself or other artists as “deserving” or “undeserving”. In the same vein, being a black African in America, I have been wondering how I might do something other than accept and navigate the (apparent) scarcity of livelihoods available to black people, how I might do something other than prove myself a “deserving” black person who should be filtered out from the pool of “undeserving” black people and pipelined to privilege. Indeed, I have been wondering how I might (re-)create leaky designs so that my livelihood needn’t depend on my being judged “deserving” or “undeserving” according to a double standard that discriminates by race.

Considering the above, I hope that it now makes sense to you, dear reader, why I have come to formulate a concept of artful reparations. All of my ideas regarding the “art of making reparations” betray my desire that art-making spillover into labors that disrupt social stratification and repair broken connections between the different social elements kept apart by social stratification. In other words, the ideas expressed in this essay and the preceding essay betray my desire to confuse my aesthetics and my politics. Ay, and I hope you realize that my confusion of aesthetics and politics is not the flaw that mars my ideas but the sought after feature that defines the ideas that matter most to me.