How Is Arts Patronage Changing?

16:55Michi Jigarjian:It's very different as well.

16:56Andrew Russeth:Yes. I'm really curious also about how you bring in that new generation. I was having lunch with a curator this morning who was, uh, we won't, I won't use his name or his institution, but he was lamenting that it used to be, uh, potential patrons would come in and they would say, you know, we can get your name on a wall. The letterhead almost perfect, perfect words you're saying here, you know, we can get your name on a wall and we'll take the check. And, and now, and now you have to kind of offer up kind of more bespoke arrangements or, and it's a great thing because they get involved. But what is, when you are trying to bring people onto boards or into philanthropic situations, what are the kind of pitches you make to them and how do you attract them?

17:33Michi Jigarjian:Well, I think you have to really know the person. Yes. Like deeply and what are they passionate about? So is it free admission? Is it, you know, funding internships? Like really, and obviously I think, you know, sophisticated donors know that like organizations need just general operating. Like you have to keep the lights on. But I think there are a lot of patrons that are like, I want to support this. And it might be very niche and it's coming up with, okay, you want to support whatever it might be. Let's figure out a way to engineer this. So I think it's really spending time with people. And I also think it's, you know, bringing them in like into the programming.

18:10Michi Jigarjian:They want to, they want to meet the artists. They want to see the behind the scenes. And, and I think that is a real way to bring people in is for them to see the individuals that are contributing to the institution and the impact that they're having on their lives to then get connected and then figure out, okay, how are we going to take their interests and turn it into their

18:32Sarah Arison:involvement?

18:33Andrew Russeth:Totally.

18:34Sarah Arison:Building on that, I think it's so important what you're saying about board members interacting with the employees and the curators and the artists across the board. And I definitely see that as a new tide. I mean, you hear it historically. The ivory tower is breaking down, you know, and it's really exciting because I think it creates an understanding across the board that allows not only the board to understand where the staff is coming from and help them, you know, execute from an operational standpoint and all of those different things, but also just understanding how boards work from an employee standpoint is really important at these institutions so that we can all work together as opposed to a separated leadership.

19:15Sarah Arison:It creates so much more flow and overall community. And, you know, community is overused so much right now, of course. But I think that when you have organizations like MOMO PS1 and like the Brooklyn Museum, where the board members are really interacting and young arts, we're all part of these conversations together. I think it's a much healthier dynamic.

19:39Andrew Russeth:Yes, yes.

19:40Sarah Arison:And a much healthier power. You know, there's no power struggle in that sense. Right.

19:45Andrew Russeth:It can really create more generative results. Yeah. I mean, to that end, when I talk to young patrons, young collectors, something I do hear as well is this kind of desire to get a handle on what they're achieving, measurable results, as opposed to just writing that check and, you know, attending the gala. I'm curious for you two, when you're involved in all your different organizations, what's the measurement? How do you know you're being effective and what do you look at?

20:09Michi Jigarjian:Doing the work.

20:10Andrew Russeth:Yeah.

20:11Michi Jigarjian:I think we both are, you know, incredibly privileged to be friends with a lot of the artists who are working with these institutions and hearing the feedback from them of, you know, this organization treated me really well. I felt respected. I felt supported. They weren't using me for something. It wasn't a one-off. They continue to engage with me and support me. I mean, for me, you know, if I hear that an organization ask an artists to do work and did not offer to pay them, that's it. That's just unacceptable and is completely the opposite of everything that we're trying to do. So I think that those kind of hearing from the artists who are working with these organizations for me is really what I base so much on.

20:54Michi Jigarjian:Yeah, 100%.

20:55Sarah Arison:I couldn't agree more.

20:57Andrew Russeth:Doing the work, creating those structures that are equitable, that are ethical. Yeah.

21:01Sarah Arison:And creating access on both points is really important. Like breaking down those barriers is something that's really powerful.

21:08Andrew Russeth:Yeah. I mean, Tabata and Michi, being a trained artist, being a photographer, and I love, I mean, I love Nalyn Blake. Amazing. I know. Incredible. This is an incredible artist, one of our greatest artists in New York. How does that inform what you do in terms of philanthropy coming from that art background?

21:23Sarah Arison:Oh, I mean, it has everything to do with it. You know, I went back to graduate school. Nalyn interviewed me while I was pregnant with my now 16-year-old, and he was the only one that was, you know, wow. She really is passionate about this. And I think the way that he ran that program at the time was about sort of the community of the art world and everything outside the frame. So while I am a trained photographer, I'm not a practicing photographer or artist now, but it has informed the way that I move through everything. I truly think that the tenets of how that was built and that program of, you know, giving back to your own community is a simple but huge metaphor to how we do business and how we run institutions.

22:06Sarah Arison:You know, the Bardian philosophy is one that is very... A little utopia up there. Yeah, it's a little utopia. So, yeah.

22:13Andrew Russeth:Yeah. I mean, maybe to use that then to segue into slightly just thornier questions, I'm really curious about, I think many people in the room are probably curious about the challenges you're seeing right now. I mean, I talked to some museum directors and, whoa, They don't know. You know, it used to be you could plan 10 years in advance, but political changes, economic changes, it's tricky to plan long term. I'm curious if there's one challenge that you see your board facing right now and how you're how you're thinking about it.

22:48Michi Jigarjian:I think it's really hard to pick one.

22:51Andrew Russeth:I'll take multiple.

22:55Sarah Arison:Well, I think, I mean, funding is obviously always at the top of the list. So we can just say that one of the biggest challenges is that multi-year grants are not necessarily the norm. And in our foundation, we only give multi-year grants for this purpose and the renewal of those multi-year grants. So a lot of the smaller nonprofits, and I can speak to Baxter Street specifically, you get an amazing, huge grant from the Mellon. And then the fundraising has to then match that. That infrastructure is not necessarily always there, especially with a smaller staff. So ramping up in that three-year period of that grant is something that we're doing, but it's definitely a challenge.

23:34Sarah Arison:It's something that we have to really focus on. You know, when you have to focus so much on fundraising, it's hard to also do the work for the artists. So building that team out and finding the right development person, which is another challenge that is very difficult to come around. You know, that's something that we definitely see. I think a great development person is like a diamond in the rough. And it's when you find them, hold on to them. Beyond that, actually, one of the things I was going to say is staffing. You know, I think COVID really, you know, it was always hard in the field

24:11Michi Jigarjian:because you can't necessarily offer competitive salaries always as much as you might like to. It was the people with passion who, you know, really cared about the organizations who were there. And I mean, the number of people I saw, and these were people in very, you know, high level positions at incredible organizations, leave the field during COVID because they just couldn't do it anymore. They were facing issues that they never signed up to face as a director of an organization, you know, from, I mean, you name it. And I think even now, the responsibilities of senior leadership at organizations has changed dramatically.

24:53Michi Jigarjian:You are spending most of your time dealing with HR and communications and operations and very little time, I think, getting to do probably what brought you into the field in the first place of like working with the arts and working with artists. I think it's really hard to, I think, be competitive in a not-for-profit. And again, finding that staff who, you know, is there and is passionate and is talented is rare. That's definitely something. And then, you know, I think audiences, you know, I think the performing space is still struggling to come back. And if you look at performing institutions as well as museums, memberships are down.

25:32Michi Jigarjian:People are less willing to commit to something. They're going to be like, oh, I want to go to the ballet tomorrow night. They're not going to say, I'm going to go all season. You know, they're not going to say, I'm going to get a museum membership. They're going to say, I'm going to go to the museum tomorrow. And so I think building those consistent audiences, getting people through the door. The American Ballet Theater is a great example. We always have two galas a year. You know, it's a few hundred people. It's amazing. During COVID, we had an online gala. And there were 40 ,000 people who attended.

26:04Michi Jigarjian:People from the Philippines, people from all over the world. So, you know, you have these audiences who, when everything was shut down during COVID, they were there for you online. And now that we're all back in person, I think it's thinking about the balance of, yes, you have to give the people walking into MoMA on 53rd Street an amazing in-person experience. But also, you have to think about the people who will never make it to 53rd Street. And how can you provide an experience for them, a community for them, an engagement for them, and, you know, not leave them behind?

26:36Andrew Russeth:Yeah, yeah. I love all of these points. I mean, I really do feel for senior leadership at institutions to a degree. I mean, it's hard.

26:44Michi Jigarjian:It's hard and it is thankless. Our leaders have been through hell. If you know any of them, just like go give them a hug. They need it. Yeah, it's not.

26:51Andrew Russeth:And yeah, you don't get to sit around curating shows. It's really like, it's crisis management sometimes.

26:57Michi Jigarjian:Yeah, a lot of the times these days.

27:00Andrew Russeth:On a more positive note, I want to talk inspirations. I mean, you both got involved with philanthropy super early in your careers. And I know you've had mentors who kind of showed you the way. I'd love to just hear about them a little bit, what you took from various inspirations.

27:16Michi Jigarjian:So my first is my grandmother. It was very special. Not that I realized it at the time, but just being surrounded by the arts and also feeling comfortable kind of walking into a museum or walking into a ballet, which I think there's an intimidation barrier often if you were not exposed. young, it's like, I don't know what's in there. And I don't know if it's for me. And I don't know if I'm going to understand it. Just the removal of that intimidation barrier from a young age, I think was great. But, you know, also her curiosity and passion and care. I mean, deep, deep care. I will never forget.

27:52Michi Jigarjian:So she passed in October and I was with a YoungArts alum the week after. He's a jazz musician. He said, I don't think I ever told you this story, but, you know, after Young Arts, I put out my first album and your grandmother bought 300 copies, which is so my grandmother. And he goes, because of that, I was able to go on my first tour. And he then went on to be like the lead drummer in Dear Evan Hansen. And he now actually runs an arts education organization as the executive director. My grandmother was good friends with Aggie Gund. And so she introduced me to Aggie when I was 18 and Aggie became like another grandmother to me and a mentor in more ways than I can count.

28:35Michi Jigarjian:And Aggie and my grandmother actually passed 12 days apart from each other. Aggie passed September 18th and my grandmother passed October 1st. I think they were so close because they both had the mentality of this is not about an industry or an institution or an organization. All of that stuff is built on individuals and we need to care for these individuals and we need to make sure that they are taken care of. For example, one thing I learned from Aggie, I will never sell a piece by a living artist. So I have a lot of random art accumulated, like stacked up against my walls. But you know, the secondary market has not evolved to serve these artists.

29:15Michi Jigarjian:I also never buy on the secondary market because the artist is not benefiting from it. You know, I buy directly from the artist or from their gallery because you are helping an individual. You are letting them, you know, continue to pay rent on their studio or put their kids through school. For me, it's less about the object and it's more about the impact that you're having on a life.

29:35Andrew Russeth:So the collecting is really part of the patronage.

29:38Michi Jigarjian:Oh, I know 95 % of the artists that I own. I've worked with them in some capacity. They're a young arts mentor or an alum, or they went through greater New York at MoMA PS1, like whatever it might be. It's very personal and kind of borderline autobiographical.

29:52Andrew Russeth:Cool, cool. Meiji, how about you? A mentor, kind of an inspiration in what you took from them?

29:57Sarah Arison:I'm the first in my family to have this situation, to be able to give back from a foundational standpoint. And I'm really very proud and honored to be able to do that. And I feel blessed every day. I have to say that I just grew up rich with love. And my grandfather and my uncle, who were very influential to me, were both civil rights. My grandfather was an artist, a writer, but my uncle was a civil rights lawyer. And so sort of this give back of altruism has always been in my family and sort of understanding that is sort of innate. And it's something that we never had growing up. And so I want to be a mentor to my kids in that.

30:38Sarah Arison:And I really want to show them how we can make a difference. And I see it every day with everything that we do. And I think that, you know, my mentors are the community that I'm with now and collaborating with and sitting right next to one of them. She's taught me so much. And I feel really grateful to that.

30:55Andrew Russeth:Totally. And you're, of course, entering both the point now where you have, I'm sure, younger board members looking up to you. You're meeting people who are considering philanthropy. Even for people in this room, I'm curious. It's something that I find, I think a lot of people probably find hugely intimidating, this idea of joining a board, even if they have the expertise and the resources to do so. What advice would you give them, kind of really young people or older people that just have not ventured into that realm before about getting into it?

31:23Michi Jigarjian:I mean, what I did when I moved to New York was like, I just went to everything I could and I met everybody I could, you know, and even when I joined these boards, I mean, I spent years listening. Like, I don't think I said a word for like the first five years in a Young Arts Board meeting. I think, you know, being in New York is incredible because you every night could go to like nine different things that are really interesting and incredible artists and programming. And I think I really took advantage of that. And like I said, you know, going back to the point of like choosing which organization to get involved with comes down to the individuals.

31:57Michi Jigarjian:Like it's kind of through all of that groundwork of like being out there and meeting people and seeing programming, like that's the way to do it.

32:05Andrew Russeth:Yeah, yeah.

32:06Sarah Arison:Yeah, and I think, you know, join boards so you can make a difference. Yeah. And that you can actually make a difference. You know, I can write a check, right? But that's not moving any needle, really, when you can actually make a difference on some of these boards in the way that we think and the way that we collaborate is something that I think we need to continue to do so that we can set that example on how we break down those power systems and we really have this way of giving that is giving back to the individual and also, you know, making these institutions more equitable across the board.

32:39Sarah Arison:It's really amazing to see Sarah's leadership and being, you know, in MoMA PS1 and us being able to hold these positions of decision making that can really trickle down. You see the change happening.

32:51Andrew Russeth:So listen, think about something you're really passionate about and then dive in.

32:55Sarah Arison:Definitely, I listen for the entire first year I'm on a board. The entire first year.

33:00Andrew Russeth:It's like when you joined the Senate, right? Yeah. You're not supposed to talk, right? LBJ would be like, don't talk. Yeah. Maybe a final thing to ask, since we are at an art fair, and to kind of go back to something that you were saying, Sarah, about how you've approached collecting vis-a-vis patronage. I'm curious if either of you have more to say about that, because you're both great collectors.

33:20Michi Jigarjian:Michi's a much better collector than I am.

33:22Andrew Russeth:And in the way, I mean, I don't know if people have been to the Rockaway Hotel, but just the way that you've integrated art into that and approached that as patronage. Yeah, how does collecting interface with what you do with philanthropy?

33:34Sarah Arison:It's parallel in a way that we're stewards of that work. While obviously I hold the ownership, I really look at it as a stewardship and a responsibility with every piece that's in our collection. And that ties back to everything that we're talking about, the responsibility with the actual person themselves. And so when I'm collecting, I know 95 % of the artists and I think about their entire career. And I not only buy on the primary, but I also really focus on supporting them across the board through their institutional shows and also residencies. And I look at that as part of that ecosystem and value system that we're bringing together.

34:14Sarah Arison:So when, for example, Kennedy Yanko is in our collection, she's a very good friend of both of ours. and we have great opportunities to help her along the way where she has an opportunity to get into a collection, that's something that I'm really excited to help support as a patron, to help her get into the MoMA collection or into an established collection or an institutional collection that can help her career overall.

34:39Andrew Russeth:So it's a commitment. It's not a one and done. It's not a one and done, yeah.

34:42Sarah Arison:Yeah, it's a large part of my business. And I think about that. And when I build a new place like the Rockaway Hotel, art is at the center of it because it's this shared visual culture out there specifically that, you know, I break down barriers every time someone walks into our lobby because they can see themselves in there. I curate that lobby so that people see themselves there. Rockaway is a great place, but it's very diverse. And I think not many people thought that they could see themselves there. And every day people talk to me about, oh, you switched out the art and oh my gosh. And they learn so much about it.

35:14Sarah Arison:There's no institution on the peninsula, no cultural institution on the peninsula. So we've sort of filled this hole in this conversation for the residents of Rockaway and our guests.

35:24Andrew Russeth:It's heartening that art can still be that gateway, I think. That can be, yeah, the entry point.

35:30Sarah Arison:I mean, we have 100 % proven that, actually, at the Rockaway Hotel. We've used the art from the beginning of that development. We're the only hotel on the peninsula. And it's a very, there's a lot of wonderful things that happen in Rockaway. But one of the things that we think about when we bring that shared visual culture is how we are having conversations around that. So it's not just the art in the hotel. We've done seven public art programs across the peninsula, and we use that to open up conversations to other problems as well. So it's the gateway to us to start our pilot program for the Rising Tide, which is a swim program.

36:04Sarah Arison:I would never have been able to have the trust of the community without the art and the programs that we did in the community through the education system. to be the trust of the moms to then bring the kids in to learn how to swim. And we've brought the drowning rate down by 19%. Amazing. Yeah, they can make real change.

36:22Andrew Russeth:I think that's a really positive, beautiful note to end on. Well, on that, I will thank everyone for being here and thank Sarah and Michi for doing this. And a round of applause, please, for them. And of course, the fair is open for a little bit longer. There's a great bar and restaurant over there so we can continue the conversation. And have a great day.

36:46Sarah Arison:Thank you. Thank you so much.

36:48Andrew Russeth:The Yard Angle is produced by Sonia Manalili with contributions from Ben Davis and Caroline Goldstein. Thanks for listening and see you next week.