I was reminded of this again last week while talking with local manager and secretary Sharon Arnold. As a longtime Seattle gallery owner, Arnold has written and lectured for years on how to bridge the gap between the art world and… well, everyone, especially people with spending money (including tech workers).
Our conversation took place when he interviewed me about a story I wrote this week about the controversy surrounding the local art world. The Flash: Call of Art (featuring cartoons of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates wearing boxing gloves) is an exhibit called “Amazon vs. Microsoft.” The Fuel: Struggling artists, one commenter said, are “actively priced out by these companies. And oxygen? social media.
In our phone call, Arnold explained that this discussion isn’t new—it’s been around since the 1990s, at least. In fact, Arnold and I have talked about this many times over the six years I’ve been reporting in Seattle.
And while it’s not a new conversation, the “art vs. technology” debate has come up this week — and it’s been the talk of the town at the Seattle Art Fair (and its sexier sibling, Forest for the Trees).
I thought the timing was right. The Seattle Art Fair was founded in 2015 by Microsoft founder Paul Allen (1953-2018). A billionaire, philanthropist and one of the region’s and the world’s most important art collectors, Allen wanted the art fair to do for the city what the glittering Art Basel did for Basel (and Miami).
When we talk about art, technology and philanthropy in Seattle, the conversation inevitably turns to Allen. While he is not universally popular – and many question his philanthropic intentions – many consider him more generous to the arts than the city’s tech billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. “He’s given a lot to liberal arts organizations,” said one local artist this week. Others attributed the demise of the company’s Vulcan art branch (which was no longer involved with the fair), four years after his death, and much of the foreign art funding had dried up. Why then do some pin your hopes on technology philanthropy?
It’s a conversation that’s becoming even more relevant as we enter a devastating three-year pandemic, with the arts sector in shambles. Will another local arts philanthropist emerge? Can struggling arts organizations and artists rely on government funding?
In the approximately dozen interviews I conducted for this week’s story, I remember one thing that many others mentioned: There is no one band aid (or one benefactor). The arts are ecological—and fragile at that. As Arnold told me, the art sector consists of a complex interconnected network that, as Arnold told me, is not just about making a living. grow up. Art reporting is an important part of the ecosystem, and I don’t take that role lightly. I look forward to continuing the conversation, even if it’s deja vu again.
