Towards a New Understanding of Creativity, Economy, and the Common Good

By Henry A. J. Ramos

Introduction and Overview

The following paragraphs review the rationale, objectives, and main ideas generated at an important recent art exhibition and symposium supported by  The Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy, based at The New School, in collaboration with The Romare Bearden Foundation, The Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and The Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University-Newark. 

The ambitious In Common Project that encapsulated this work during Fall 2023 and Winter 2024 was the product of early recognition by The Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy’s founding director, the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics at The New School, Darrick Hamilton, that evolving imperatives and complexities in U.S. and global political economy increasingly require innovative approaches to expanding public understanding of the issues and more broad-based civic engagement in promoting progressive interventions to address structural racism and inequality. By building on arts and cultural content, the In Common project sought to expand the modalities of public discourse and thus the audience engaged in actionable conversation on new ways to approach continuing problems of racial stratification and injustice. 

At the heart of this work was a robust multi-media art exhibition and a national symposium on the leading 20th century Black artist and activist Romare Bearden, and the relevance of his legacy to contemporary realities and circumstances facing Black Americans and other communities of color in the realms of economy, politics, culture, civic affairs, and community development. The exhibition ran from November 9, 2023 – January 15, 2024 at the Parsons School of Design’s Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery. Supporting activities included a visual arts exhibition including more than 20 original Bearden prints and memorabilia, as well as original works by six leading living Black artists who commit a good deal of their focus to racial justice subject matter—Black Quantum Futurism, Kahlil Robert Irving, Lorraine O’Grady, Hank Willis Thomas, Mickalene Thomas, and Charisse Pearlina Weston.

The project additionally supported a consequential November 30, 2023 – December 2, 2023 symposium at The New School–In Common: Romare Bearden and New Approaches to Art, Race and Economy. That gathering involved and spawned a series of live jazz and performance art sets, as well as public dialogs, written commentaries, virtual discussions, and a digital space documenting these and related research and program efforts. Among the featured performing artists and speakers were leading cultural, intellectual and social investment figures, such as: award-winning Jazz performing artists Terri Lyne Carringtonand Stefon Harris; leading art and race scholars Dwight Andrews, Robert G. O’Meally, and Mary Schmidt Campbell; organized philanthropy leaders Maurine Knighton and Rocío Aranda Alvarado; front-edge community finance practitioners Aisha Bensonand Angie Kim; noted journalists and commentators Salamishah Tillet and Jessica Lynne; and significant culture activists and practitioners, including Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes, Nicole Fleetwood, Jordan J. Weber and Evangeline Ordaz.

Background

The great 20th century visual artist and civil rights activist Romare Bearden (1911-1988) was a product of the Harlem Renaissance and a leading voice of the 1950s and 1960s Black struggles for political and economic justice. His extensive collection of artistic creations includes many works addressing the African American community’s long journey of struggle in the United States through institutionalized racism and poverty, as well as the resiliency of Black people in responding to inequality and injustice through the power of community, collective action, faith, and music (especially jazz). 

Bearden was a product of the Great Migration, which brought his family from North Carolina to New York City’s Harlem District in the early years of the 20th century. During his early- to mid-adulthood, he worked as a New York City social worker; he steeped himself in visual art and jazz; he met and aligned with important members of the Harlem Renaissance (such as Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Dizzy Gillespie, Jacob Lawrence, and Ralph Ellison); and he helped to establish important centers of gravity for Black/BIPOC-centered exchanges on art and politics, such as the Harlem-based Cinque Gallery (1959-2010) and The Spiral (1963-64), which both served as a important showing venues and meeting points for activist BIPOC artists of the day.  

Bearden’s own extensive creation of more than 2,000 original art works, based on these and related themes, continues to establish important standards for contemporary social content art in the United States, building on multi-media and cross-disciplinary forms of expression, examination, and exchange.

Through Bearden’s extraordinary combination of art and social activism, he and his contemporary allies in the struggle for racial and economic justice made a lasting mark on their times, and established a pathway for subsequent generations to emulate and follow. By building on Bearden’s activist legacy and highlighting contemporary creative works and points of view featuring socially-conscious BIPOC artists, the In Common Project aimed to lift up the potent, yet still-too-rarely-acknowledged relationships between race, culture, economy, and the Common Good.

Because Bearden’s grounding in community and the Black experience in America is evergreen with lessons that continue to have real currency and value in present-day U.S. discourse on matters of race, power, and political economy, In Common was intentionally designed to pursue two related aims. First, to examine Bearden’s creative and social justice legacy in historical context and, second, to distill and inspire 21st century opportunities for modern-day artists and cultural leaders more actively to advance new social and economic justice models, building on the power of their own creative voice and constructive dialog with activist scholars, social investment practitioners, journalists, and others engaged in allied work. Consequently, the In Common art exhibition and symposium built intentionally around cross-disciplinary thought- and practice leadership in the creative space, as well as in fields ranging from business and economic development to media, civic activism, and philanthropy.

Organization and Sponsorship

The In Common Project involved meticulous planning and coordination efforts by its sponsoring and partnering organizations over a nearly two-year period predating the Fall 2023 commencement of its art exhibition component and companion symposium. During the Project’s planning phase, its organizers met monthly or bi-monthly to ascertain the optimal design themes, creative and design elements, artists, expert speakers, and performance art pieces around which to build both the supporting art exhibition and symposium. They also coordinated with important New School stakeholders, including among others, the Offices of the then-Acting President (Donna Shalala) and the Provost (Renee T. White), as well as the Deans of The New School’s Schools of Public Engagement (Mary Watson), the Parsons School of Design (Yvonne Watson), and the College of Performing Arts (Richard Kessler), all of which made important contributions to the effort. 

In order to support this ambitious work, the Project organizers sought and secured generous external funding support from Ford Foundation (New York, NY), the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation (Menlo Park, CA), Robert L. McKay, Jr. (San Diego, CA), and Walter and Hanne Lenschen (St.-Sulpice, Switzerland). All of these forward-looking funding partners shared a deep interest and passion in promoting a broader unification of creative cultural leadership and investment in advancing the Common Good and, in that context, the social, political, and economic agency of historically-underrepresented and under-resourced BIPOC people and communities. They also resonated with the idea of building on the legacy and lessons of the leading 20th century artist and activist Romare Bearden, who actively sought to unify creative culture leaders of his era around campaigns and institution-building efforts designed to increase inclusivity in the arts, as well as the broader society and economy.  

Key Questions

Throughout its implementation, the Project and its participants focused on numerous informing questions:

1. How and in what ways did Romare Bearden and his BIPOC contemporaries in the creative fields influence political and economic change through their work and activism?
2. In today’s context, how might multicultural creative products and community-driven social innovations like those that Bearden drove during his lifetime help to advance contemporary democracy, and the health, vitality, and success of marginalized populations seeking new opportunities to gain economic agency and voice?
3. What are the emerging models in creative culture and economy that are helping low-income and otherwise marginalized populations of color to achieve greater social inclusion, political power, prosperity sharing, and upward mobility?
4. What are the implications and opportunities for public, private, and nonprofit sector leaders to scale and accelerate facilitative investments and supports in these directions? 
5. How can various stakeholders interested in this work be better equipped and incented to join forces in ways that enhance their collective messaging and impact?

The Contemporary Context

Certain informing concerns helped to shape the In Common Project, based on the essential analysis and critique of the modern political economy by leaders at The Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy and its allies. All across the world, conservative and neoliberal policy has produced economic calamity for the better part of the past half century. Through racial bias and exclusion, aggressive tax cuts and deregulation, ever-expanding military investments, and the general privileging of power and profit over people and the planet, the modern political economy has badly diminished prospects for distributional fairness and upward mobility, racial and environmental justice, multicultural democracy, and the Common Good.

Tangible manifestations of the problem include: growing intergroup and regional divides relative to power, wealth, and income accumulation; associated racially-motivated violence and voter suppression; and the rapid destruction of so much wildlife and habitat, indigenous folkways, and community itself. New models of productivity, economic inclusion, community building, and public understanding of the issues are badly needed to combat and reverse recent trends, based on the concept of a Human Rights economy—one that is grounded more fundamentally in racial equity, purposeful public reinvestment, sustainability, prosperity-sharing, and agency for the marginalized and the striving.

In today’s increasingly media-driven and divided political and cultural discourse, the arts and creativity offer pathways to human connectivity, learning, and understanding that simply transcend other forms of endeavor. As America and other western industrial nations now struggle to confront the legacies of racism and imperialism, and as they inexorably transform into multicultural societies, in unprecedented ways arts and cultural expression have become essential vehicles for renegotiating our notions of identity and our proper relationships to one another. More and more, the power of culture—from the performing arts, cinema, fashion, photography and design to literature, poetry, and prose—dominates public identity and popular expression in the 21^st century, in many instances even more than politics and economics. 

The opportunity and need, therefore, to mine this terrain for actionable new windows through which to advance dialog and ideation in service to a better way forward is both most timely and essential. At the same time, none of this is to say that creative culture as a field is exempt from its own issues of exclusion that themselves require serious attention if the broader society and polity are to benefit optimally from its forward-going work. Indeed, despite recent representational gains, and robust advancement efforts by BIPOC-led arts organizations, arts and cultural institutions across the U.S., the programs, policies and funding that drive their advancement, and scholarly and media coverage of creative culture and economy remain overwhelmingly exclusive terrains. That is to say, that while some progress has been made over recent years, the centers of gravity that most define the creative space nevertheless continue to be disproportionately dominated by European aesthetics, corporate capitalization, and associated racial biases that delimit multicultural opportunity and voice. And this too must change.

Symposium Commentaries and Highlights

The Fall 2023 symposium examined Bearden’s legacy under three distinct lenses: the impact of his activist work; the role of music in both his practice at large and the activist projects; and the resonance of his oeuvre in contemporary art making, especially as it pertains to racial and economic justice activism. The three-day convening offered a unique, action-oriented investigation into the potent relationships between race, culture, economy, and the Common Good. Plenary discussions examined the themes of purposeful creativity, the artist as activist, BIPOC leadership in creative culture and economy, and other topics. Live musical and artistic performances evoked and explored the Project’s key themes, creating a dynamic and thought-provoking experience: part conversation and part performance.

Across the rich array of conversations that the symposium supported were various common themes, as well as  specific advocacy proposals for forward-going action. Among the leading themes that the symposium surfaced from start to finish were the following:

• There are important and indeed essential lessons to be drawn from the historical experience and activism of past creative culture leaders like Romare Bearden, that are relevant to today’s conditions and circumstances
• Much greater alignment and integration of effort is called for involving not only new alliances of artists and creative change agents engaging with one another, but also new collaborations involving culture leaders with progressive social investors, public policy leaders, civic-minded journalists, action scholars, and community organizers
• Racial disparities in the creative space remain vast and egregious for BIPOC people, communities and organizations relative to access and opportunity, institutional leadership and representation, and curatorial content, and must be aggressively addressed
• Far more significant, unrestricted capital is required to support BIPOC artists and the cultural centers that support them to remain at the forefront of interrogating the essential purposes of our governance and economy in advanced democratic societies, and that are also increasingly important engines of economic and civic dynamism in local and regional settings
• Increased action scholarship and narrative change is badly needed to elevate public policy attention to new opportunities to support needed multicultural community economic uplift, building on substantially-increased arts and culture investments 
• At the end of the day, new culture-based approaches to public policy and investment are essential to enable the necessary power-building in BIPOC communities that the future of our multi-racial democracy and economy will require, if we are to remain a peaceful and productive society that is committed to inclusion and prosperity sharing

Among the leading proposals for expanded advocacy towards more responsive action in these connections were the following proposals:

• Support greater opportunity for actionable dialog, co-learning, consensus building and modelling of new approaches to public and private investment that build multicultural community agency and assets, drawing on expanded creative economy investments
• Radically shift public and private investments to achieve racial equity related to dollars invested, leadership representation, asset control, and content subject matter
• Organize to build the institutional capacity and independence of multicultural arts and allied organizations that most closely represent and engage BIPOC people and communities
• Robustly document, aggressively scale, and broadly replicate proven models and approaches for supporting BIPOC arts and culture leaders and institutions in ways that build economic power and political agency in multicultural communities
• Explore opportunities to establish new streams of revenue and capitalization for multicultural arts leaders through partnerships with community banks and credit unions, BIPOC-centric social enterprises, and progressive social investment funds
• Integrate social activism-oriented arts and cultural programs and investments more centrally in core areas of multicultural community life, including education, employment, healthcare, housing, and transportation, as well as advocacy campaigns to achieve restorative justice in areas ranging from banking and predatory lending to criminal justice reform and BIPOC voting rights 
• Activate leading BIPOC artists and creative culture institutions to become more aggressive champions for timely and needed racial and economic justice innovations, like Baby Bonds, guaranteed employment and income programs, quality public housing and transportation, and allied income- and wealth-building opportunities

Commentary

By encouraging a new and different kind of conversation about the essential purposes of democracy and economy, and the contemporary need to develop radically new approaches to racial inclusion policy and investments utilizing creative culture as a magnet for multicultural community power-building, the In Common Project sought to change prevailing conversation on the issues. It sought to encourage a more inclusive and constructive way to advance civic education and engagement efforts related to contemporary social investment strategy, building on visionary multicultural arts and creative economy leadership and innovation. It lifted up the need for greater intentionality and potency in the ways in which multicultural leaders are supported, capitalized, and represented in culture and economy. And it surfaced the need for multicultural power building to drive the change that is required to encourage a more inclusive and enriching approach to future investments in the arts and the economy alike. 

During the main years of the 20th century, artist-activists like Romare Bearden were central to advancing the civil and economic rights of BIPOC artists and workers through their creativity and public advocacy.  Bearden and his contemporaries were the first to effectively challenge mainline arts museums and institutions to rethink their cannon and their collection priorities. They were the first to gain meaningful attention in leading journalistic publications that shaped popular imagination about what constituted art, its vital role in multi-racial democratic life, and the responsibilities of public and private leaders alike to recognize the rich talents and traditions of contemporary BIPOC creatives. These breakthroughs led to a significant increase in the recognition and range of Black artists and other artists of color in the media, at museums, among collectors, and in popular culture and public discourse.   

The issues of today demand a new generation of economic and political activism, building on artists and creative economy leaders. Important policy advocacy groups committed to inclusive economy advancements, like California-based Policy Link have accordingly expanded their focus over recent years, to anchor arts and culture investments as central elements of equitable development. And significant BIPOC leaders in and around the arts and culture fields have lifted up dynamic and compelling calls to action, such as the Cultural New Deal, to radically alter the ways in which multicultural arts organizations and artists are positioned and supported in areas ranging from policy and practice to funding and programming.  

Gratefully, there are a growing number of exemplary BIPOC organizations, networks and movements that are helping to show us the way in these connections. In key regions and localities across the nation, multicultural creatives have initiated promising models of social investment, community building and advocacy that lift up new possibilities for inclusive economy and culture. In places like Oakland, CA and New Orleans, LA, for example, leading organizations like the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, the Unity Council, and the Ashé Cultural Arts Center, respectively, are advancing exciting arts-based corridor redevelopment efforts. In Boston, MA, the Boston Ujima Project is supporting community-driven BIPOC arts advocacy, funding and artists’ residencies tied to Solidarity Economy neighborhood development efforts. In Chicago, the National Museum of Mexican Art has recently announced the forthcoming redevelopment of an adjacent property to expand its youth programming in arts and culture, including career training for future job opportunities in creative industries like digital media.  

Such leaders and the institutions and grassroots movements they are informed by are closely connected to the people and communities that are most excluded from contemporary centers of wealth and power, yet who are most needed to advance a new and better way forward: multicultural youth, disempowered workers, poor families, and the currently- and formerly incarcerated among them. They are natural unifiers in an era otherwise defined by division and rancor. By helping people of diverse backgrounds come together around creative economy innovations designed to advance new coalitions, new ideas and new capital formation in service to the Common Good, cultural leaders and institutions and their allies and supporters can do much to reverse the trendlines of recent decades that have created such calamity for our nation and world. 

In the process, they can build on the inspiring works of Romare Bearden and prior generations of activist artists, whose work and advocacy shaped history in a more progressive direction during their lifetimes a generation or more ago. By reminding us of what we share in common as human beings, by promoting a new understanding of the need to combine creativity, economy and community in our public and private investments, and by reinforcing the power that we ultimately wield as citizens and stakeholders of our nation and planet, contemporary multicultural and creative economy leaders are well-positioned to help us chart a better way forward in our times–a way forward that is characterized by far more responsive systems of wealth and income formation, prosperity sharing, and democratic self-governance.