Reading about the Rockefellers in my Latin American Art in U.S. Museums course has made me think about what *my* patronage legacy would be, were I obscenely weathly. It’s an important question, I think. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far…
I would:
-finish Sagrada Familia and Crazy Horse (I go nuts just thinking about that thing–I mean, it would be SO COOL … hurry up!!).
-commission a book that examines the history and politics of the MoMA: I want someone to do for the MoMA what Gay Talese did for the Times in The Kingdom and the Power. What say you, Schjeldahl?
-finance Latin American cinema.
-sponsor Maren Lange. (I maintain that she deserves a scholarship to life.)
Does anyone have any brilliant additions? Commissions? Revivals? Cenotaphs?
12 Comments
February 23, 2007 at 1:02 am
I’d settle for well-paved roads in Seattle.
February 23, 2007 at 5:29 pm
I would give millions to: “Obama ‘08″!
February 26, 2007 at 2:48 pm
wow, i do believe this is my first time on a blog. word.
id give my gazillions of dollars, after swimming in it like scrooge mcduck (so serious), to aids research, gay youth groups, aspca events, women’s crisis hotlines, and inner-city public schools.
mm, and that crazy horse thing; i love me them huge mountain projects.
February 26, 2007 at 5:21 pm
What? You wouldn’t build a dog run or two?
February 27, 2007 at 6:05 am
are you kidding? i’d set up house in a dog run. i thought that was a given.
March 1, 2007 at 12:32 am
I’m pretty in line with Maren (sans dog run projects). I’d fund international health projects (especially AIDS. And TB, since I’m all worried about drug-resistant TB…), early childhood education projects, and NPR!! Basically, anything Bill Gates or Warren Buffet is involved in, I’d probably fund too.
Also, I’d put a bunch of money into program evaluation since I’m a social science research dork like that…
March 1, 2007 at 8:58 am
What’s with you all being so civic? My latest addition is that I want to see more human bones in art and architecture–Posada drawings, Dead of the Dead kitsch, vanitas, ossuaries–I can’t get enough reminders of my own mortality.
March 3, 2007 at 1:31 pm
I am less civic, I suppose, but maybe feel if other Rockefellers are going to give money to NPR, Obama, and AIDS research and women’s rights, then this Rockefeller will do a thing or two to fund her favorite writers: Shaun Tan (author/illustrator of The Red Tree and The Lost Thing), fund the translation of works from Jimmy Liao (author/illustrator of The Sound of Colors) into English, reissue MOMO by Michael Ende . . . the list goes on.
March 3, 2007 at 9:00 pm
I love you, Jessica Deutsch.
March 15, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Sounds like the others have taken care of the civic end of things just fine, so I would throw my money – like Carnegie – into libraries. But gorgeous, awesome, “Wow, learning is rad and I feel smart just BEING here” libraries, such as those seen here: http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/hot_library_smut/.
I assure you, it is the purest kind of work-safe smut you could ask for… but damn, it’s gorgeous. To have my name attached to something like that would be stellar.
March 19, 2007 at 10:33 am
Well, a library is still sort of civic, but I’ll let it pass, Brown.
March 21, 2008 at 12:38 pm
[...] an related note, someone once searched “crazy horse gay” and came to my Medici post. (?!?!) I like to imagine the motivations that drive such [...]