Those are the top findings from the data collected from more than 13,300 respondents in a comprehensive survey conducted by the organization Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) between February and May 2022. In addition to advocating for policies that recognize artists as workers, the organization also facilitates guaranteed income and employment opportunity programs for artists in New York State.

CRNY executive director Sarah Calderón told ARTnews the “Portrait of New York State Artists” survey was conducted due to “a real lack of information on who artists are,” especially since they contribute 7.4 percent to the state’s economy. The data also provided granular information on how to evaluate its programs and how much artists were struggling as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. “It really became clear how much they were struggling,” she said.

The questions included inquiries into artistic practice, finances, physical and emotional health, housing, emergency financial assistance, different impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as demographic and geographic information.

Of all the survey respondents, more than 75 percent lived in New York City; 42.4 percent were between the ages of 25 to 34 years of age; 37.9 percent were white and 29.5 percent were Black or African American; 18.2 percent were immigrants to the United States; and 42.6 percent identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual/aromantic, or pansexual.

From a choice of 14 artistic disciplines, visual arts was selected by 3,225 respondents (24.1 percent) as their main discipline, followed by music (21.9 percent), and theater (8.5 percent).

Data analysis by ARTnews showed that 33 percent of the visual art respondents identified as solo artists; 4 percent said they collaborated regularly with other artists; 78 percent said they experienced barriers to pursuing education or professional development opportunities that advance their artistic or cultural practice; and half (49.7 percent, compared to 45.8 percent for all artists) said their financial capacity meant they could afford only some of the necessary materials, training, space, or assistance to engage in their artistic practice.

Many of the visual artists who responded to the survey said their financial situation was dire, with 42 percent describing it as “unstable,” compared to 40.1 percent for all artists. More than half, 56 percent, of the visual arts respondents said their estimated household income in 2021 was $25,000 or less. Nearly 60 percent said they wouldn’t be able to cover an unexpected $400 emergency without using credit.

“We knew this intuitively, we knew this instinctively, anybody who works in the arts, you know, this, but to have that data and to be able to say, it, clearly, I think helps make the case for some of the, as Sarah said, the policy and advocacy work that we’re doing around labor protections,” Jamie Hand, CRNY director of Strategic Impact and Narrative Change, told ARTnews.

Hand also noted that the question of emergency cash yielded a particularly striking data point. Among all artists, 62 percent said they did not have emergency savings. “But then if you look just explicitly among black respondents, it jumps to 78 percent,” she said.

CRNY is encouraging nonprofit organizations or sponsored individuals working on advocacy campaigns to apply for grants of up to $15,000 to further analyze the data collected in this survey. Both are also available for download and online analysis through the National Archive of Data on Arts and Culture (NADAC), a data repository funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Headlines

READY YOUR APPLICATIONS. A hotly anticipated guaranteed-income program for artists in New York State opened for applications on Monday, the New York Times reports. Creatives Rebuild New York plans to provide 2,400 artists who can demonstrate need with $1,000 a month for 18 months. The effects of the program, which received $115 million of its $125 million budget from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, are likely to be closely watched by philanthropic organizations and policymakers. “As we continue to envision and work towards our post-pandemic reality, it’s critical that we not overlook the artist workers whose labor is an essential part of our economy and whose continued work sustains us,” the foundation’s president, Elizabeth Alexander, said in a statement.

ACQUISITION ACTION. The Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has procured a sculpture of artist René Magritte by the late, great Marisol, according to Tulsa World. Money for the purchase came from a fund established by the Philbrook’s sale of an 18th-century Chinese vase for $14.5 million in 2018. The Kunstmuseum Den Haag in the Netherlands announced that it bought a 1934 Max Beckmann beach scene, per ArtDaily, which also carries word that the Redwood Library & Athenæum in Newport, Rhode Island, acquired a clock sculpture by Nari Ward. And ARTnews reports that Glenstone in Potomac, Maryland, has added to its collection an eight-work set of watercolors by Hilma af Klint, making it the first United States museum to hold her work.

The Digest

The 1986–87 Francis Bacon triptych that is hitting the block at Christie’s in London next month with a high estimate of £55 million ($74.5 million) is coming from the collection of architect Norman Foster, journalist Katya Kazakina reports. [Artnet News]

Christina Yuna Lee, the creative producer murdered in her apartment in Manhattan’s Chinatown on Sunday, worked at the Eli Klein Gallery early in her career. Klein said that Lee was “an extraordinarily kind soul. All of my artists, the curators, everyone uniformly universally loved Christina.” The attack on Lee, who was of Korean descent, was the latest in a string of violent incidents against Asian people in New York. [Daily News]

Craig Greenberg, the former CEO of 21c Museum Hotels, is running for mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, and on Monday was shot at by someone at his campaign office. One bullet grazed his sweater, but no one was injured. A suspect was taken into custody. [The Courier-Journal]

The blockchain-focused auction house Portion spent about $1.25 million (in digital currency) to acquire real estate in the Decentraland metaverse, and described the nearby area in the press release as a “premium thoroughfare for world-famous luxury brands.” [Stockhead]

The Boise Art Museum in Idaho and the local government are tussling over how much BAM should pay to rent its location in a city park. The museum has long paid $1 a year, but a new ordinance requires nonprofits to pay a portion of fair market rent. [Idaho Stateman]

A new play at the Young Vic Theatre in London, takes a look at the artistic partnership forged by artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol in the 1980s. Titled The Collaboration, it was written by Anthony McCarten and is being directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah. [Bloomberg]

The Kicker

THE ART OF LOVE. Italian officials said that they will construct a special platform to protect the famed Etruscan Sarcophagus of the Spouses from vibrations caused by earthquakes and road traffic, the Associated Press reports. The 2,500-year-old terra-cotta piece resides at the Villa Giulia in Rome. Meanwhile, the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida, hosted a mass wedding for nine couples, the AP reports. And artist Jeff Koons wished his Instagram followers a happy Valentine’s Day by posting two of his love-related sculptures. “Eros is in the neighborhood,” the caption reads.

The initiative, which has also received contributions from the Ford Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, will provide up to 2,400 artists with a no-strings-attached monthly income and will endow 300 full-time salaried positions at small- and mid-size arts organizations across the state.

“The artists whose work helps to sustain us have faced particularly devastating circumstances resulting from unemployment, underemployment, and a lack of predictable paid incomes,” Mellon Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander said in a statement. “It’s critical for the vibrancy of our cities that we recognize that making art is work.”

A February 2021 report from New York State revealed that as of December 2020, employment in the cultural and recreation sectors had dropped an unprecedented 66 percent. According to the Mellon Foundation, 50 percent of performing arts jobs were lost during the pandemic statewide; in New York City, that figure was 72 percent. Before the pandemic, New York’s cultural sector generated around $120 billion and provided more than 500,000 jobs.

“These funds will address the financial hardship and combat systemic inequities that have long plagued the sector,” said Emil J. Kang, the program director for arts and culture at the Mellon Foundation said in a statement. “This is particularly the case for those artists serving small-to-midsized organizations, often led by and serving BIPOC communities.”

CRNY is the latest of several initiatives nationwide to provide relief to the arts sector. On May 6, New York City officials announced City Artist Corps, a $25 million economic recovery plan. Inspired by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal arts programs, City Artist Corps will employ some 1,500 artists in public art projects this summer. In October, San Francisco implemented a universal basic income program for artists, which promises $1,000 monthly stipends for up to 130 artists and cultural workers.

Sarah Calderon, who previously served as the managing director of ArtPlace America, will oversee the launch of CRNY later this summer. “Artists need and deserve to be paid predictable and regular incomes,” Calderon said in a statement. “They are agents of social change, strengthening equitable, healthy, and sustainable communities.”