These days, all of the terms in the title of this course—‘art,’ ‘organizations,’ and ‘society’ have something of a question mark hanging over them. Artistic practice, always in motion, has in recent years been even more mercurial, diffuse and difficult to specify definitively. As for organizations, thinking (and, to a lesser extent, practice) during the past decade or two has increasingly taken note of discourses about complexity, emergence and improvisation in order to understand the ways in which traditional command-and-control models have become less useful or effective

 Primary questions, then, are such as: what do arts organizations do, and how and with whom do they do it? What are the propelling logics for current trends such as the interest in participation, self-organization, innovation and activism? What is the policy environment in which arts organizations are operating? What characterizes the interplays between artistic and economic forces?

Why do we pay artists? How do we pay artists? This course associates training in professional practices with an overview of social, political and philosophical contexts of the grant funding in the United States. The course approaches topics through a practical and theoretical lens to consider the operational relationship between granting organizations and administrative concepts regulate cultural systems. Through a robust practice of research, peer reviews, and a final mock grant application, students refine a personal approach to the ecology of grant writing.

The course is supplemented with conversations with practicing administrators from the executive director branch of organizations. The course is comprised of five phases that overlap with the germination of a grant application: Research, Narrative, Strategy, Evaluation, Final Report.

Listen to the Course Playlist.

 
This playlist was designed to correspond with course units to help practitioners recall and execute key aspects of grant writing techniques. 

The concept of a city exists as a site for curatorial practice to develop new strengths, publics, and methods of intervening within cultural life. City management, and its operational infrastructure, presents a substrate for contemporary curators to consider how the presentation of art is challenged and championed by practical necessities. What if curators cared for people the way they care for museum objects? How do we refurbish the definition of curator, as an individual who cares for, in a contemporary context? Departing from texts such as Mierle Laderman Ukeles' “Maintenance Manifesto,” a study of Black Mountain College, to Marcos ERRE’s intervention into concrete roads, this course asks students to develop and analyze the capacity for curatorial projects that exist outside of institutional boundaries.

"Contemporary art has always been deeply ingrained in Chicago's civic life. Art reflects stories and experiences, and has power to highlight marginalized voices whose stories must be heard. The policy issues that divide and unite us are inherently reflected in the lives, work, and interpretations of contemporary artists."

"As Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and a faculty lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Villalobos says, 'communities of color often view art museums and other cultural centers as elitist.' This, he says, 'is an opportune moment for institutions to revitalize connections to community organizations, aiming to bring the [museums] closer to the work done by civic and artistic communities.'”

"At the core of our mission we focus on developing a citizen or an individual that wants to participate in community, engage with the city, or engage with their neighborhood. This can all relate from rent regulation to youth development."

"On the last day, I took away messages of empowerment when many people openly voiced their ideas and frustrations with the cultural system. Although there is still a lot of work to be done, there were many success stories […] and first steps toward increasing general representation, support and education of our youth, and talks of cultural worker empowerment inclusive of educators and museum workers."