Artists of colour want more opportunities in US institutions

Camille Billie said when she first moved to Chicago from her reservation in Wisconsin in 2018 to start studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she felt “lost and overstimulated coming from Oneida Nation.” Through school, she found and signed up for the Native American Student Association and, from there, was able to connect with the city’s greater Native American community. That community provided Billie with the support that she was looking for, from giving her rides to places she needed to go to cooking extra meals to share.

“That network is huge to me,” Billie said. “I think it would have been a lot harder for me to pursue this field also without those support systems. When it comes to funding and grants and there being a wider diversity in access to acquiring those things, I think it’s happening, but I wish it would happen faster and more widespread.”

While there has been work done to increasingly support artists of color around Chicago and widen the scope of American art, some in the arts community feel there is still much more that can be done, from helping artists who are new to the city to connect with the right resources to providing funding for more than just the artwork.

Shaurya Kumar poses for a portrait next to his sculpture.

Billie is the artist-in-residence at the nonprofit art gallery Center for Native Futures and also works at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian. The Center for Native Futures is a nonprofit art gallery that opened in 2023 and focuses on fine arts and “making sure Chicago has a better understanding of contemporary Native arts,” co-founder and co-director Monica Rickert-Bolter said.

Supporting artists from communities of color is also beneficial for larger institutions in the art world, she said. “By incorporating more of a variety of artists, you’re definitely going to get a more diverse audience when people actually see themselves reflected in art in a good way,” Rickert-Bolter said. To provide opportunities, there has to be an understanding of the varying needs of artists from different backgrounds, Billie said, but something almost everyone has in common is trying to survive while also upholding a good quality of life.

Billie said one way to better support artists of colour is to not only provide greater access to grants but also fewer restrictions on what the funding is used for, like allowing dollars to go toward “general functions like paying rent and other bills.”

“I think more places should help artists cover basic needs because then they can actually use more of their mind capacity around creativity and direct that towards their art,” Billie said. “That was something that really stressed me out while I was in school and that did put me behind a lot in some areas like focusing on classes and completing projects. I graduated, but the cost was high.” Billie added that mainstream media’s view of art is “very narrow,” and it can be a lot harder for an artist to break through if they don’t feel seen. “Thinking back to experiences in college, it can be isolating and you kind of end up in these environments where people just genuinely don’t understand your art,” Billie said.

Shaurya Kumar (left), talks to colleagues at an exhibition in Chicago.

The Terra Foundation for American Art is a grant-making entity based in Chicago with a focus on American art, and Art Design Chicago is a grant-making initiative within the foundation that supports museums and cultural centers across the city. With about 75 different cultural partners, including the Center for Native Futures, South Asia Institute, Puerto Rican Arts Alliance and more, a somewhat newer goal of the initiative is to expand narratives of American art by investing in organizations and projects that are working to tell a “more truthful story of American art,” Eva Silverman, project director, said.

“There has been an increasing shift towards supporting these projects that really affirm that American art is inclusive of all people, all cultures and can really be found in every pocket of Chicago,” Silverman said. Over the last roughly five years, around 125 grants totaling about $6.8 million have been given under the Art Design Chicago initiative, Silverman said, and some 93% of the dollars awarded are supporting exhibitions or other projects that feature artists of color. Shaurya Kumar, originally from Delhi, India, is a tenured professor in the department of print media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as well as the chair of faculty and the faculty adviser for the South Asian student group. America is a diverse country, he said, with different perspectives and approaches that continue to challenge the preconceptions of what American art is.

“All the major museums are now collecting international and immigrant artists’ work more actively, which is great, but that needs to happen a lot more so people can start to understand American art better,” Kumar said.

Kumar said being in academics, he sees many young artists coming from all across the world but struggling to find opportunities beyond school.

“It’s artists who migrate to Chicago, even from within the US but definitely internationally, it’s harder to make connections outside of a structured, institutional level,” Kumar said. “Mentorship is important, and smaller scale mentorship opportunities do exist, but if it could be enhanced and made available to everyone, that would be very helpful.”

Networking and socialisation are not universal concepts, Kumar said, and there is no one way to approach them successfully. Breaking into the art market of Chicago becomes a “huge burden to an individual sometimes.” Kumar said with the increase in funding for artists of color in Chicago has come “more and more acknowledgment of the work that’s happening globally,” and many regional or ethnic museums and spaces have been created “that showcase art from all over,” whether it’s South Asian, East Asian or European. Artist-run or nonprofit spaces do help, but those spaces still need more support to further their programming, Kumar said.

Tribune News Service