OBAMA WINS THE ART WORLD’S SUPPORT

Obama wins the art world’s support

Artists, dealers and collectors swell the candidates’ coffers

By Christian Viveros-Fauné. News, Issue 236, June 2012

Published online: 21 June 2012

Despite the introduction of policies that have alienated sections of the arts lobby, it looks as though key figures in the US art world will once again step up to back Barack Obama as their candidate in the presidential race.

In February 2008, the New York art dealer Paula Cooper hosted a function at her gallery. The fundraising event boasted a committee that included the artists Robert Wilson, Brice Marden, Mark di Suvero and Robert Gober. Six months before the next presidential election, the gallerist is again throwing her considerable weight behind the Democratic candidate.

“I think everyone is terrified,” Cooper says, a factor she believes will make the “Artists and Writers for Obama” event on 28 June a bigger success than the 2008 event. “This time, the arts community is very widely represented.” Tickets are $1,000 or $2,500, and guests can donate up to $35,800, the maximum legally allowed for individual campaign contributions. Among those expected to attend are the artists Richard Serra, Glenn Ligon, Cecily Brown, Cindy Sherman and Laurie Anderson, the architect Frank Gehry, the collector Agnes Gund, Kynaston McShine, the chief curator-at-large at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the art dealers Barbara Bertozzi Castelli, Carolyn Alexander, Lawrence Luhring and Roland Augustine. (For Obama and the Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign contributors, click here.)

Last month, a $5,000-ticket Obama fundraiser at New York’s Rubin Museum, hosted by the singer Ricky Martin and the museum’s founders, Donald and Shelley Rubin, raised $1m. And in March, Michelle Obama held a fundraiser at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, that netted $90,000.

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