When Joshua Sofaer became the Clore Leadership Programme‘s first dedicated ‘Artist Fellow’ in 2010/11, he set out to unravel what exactly ‘artist as leader’ might mean, by researching how leadership is manifest in the things artists do.
“For many of my artist colleagues the idea does not scan,” he says. “Some consider it laughable, almost as if the words sit in opposition to each other … If artists are leaders, then surely one of the main ways in which that leadership is revealed is through the effect of influence.”
Sofaer’s research includes the introductory overview, Artist as leader: Or should that be ‘redael’?, alongside six inspiring audio interviews with artists and one interview published in text format. The interviews will be released over the coming months with Sofaer’s written comments and observations alongside.
Sofaer’s research encompassed artists in a variety of situations, including artist collectives, artist-run institutions, those making community-based practices, artists working with business, and in education.
In the first interview, artist Cornelia Parker reveals how her maverick and intuitive approach might sit in contradistinction to the popular reading of a leadership agenda: “A leader presumes that you are in authority, that there is a path that you can lead people on…,” she explains. “I like being lost. If you are a leader, it presumes that you know where you are going.”
Sofaer considers this reluctance to accept the term ‘artist as leader’ an important element of the study. “Although many of the interviewees recognise that they are exercising a form of leadership, most eschew the term ‘artist leader’ for themselves. Part of the disavowal of the appellation ‘leader’ is caught up with what many consider the inescapable popular definition of the term as ‘one who issues commands’. This is seen as irreconcilable with much of what interviewees reflect their art practice to be about, which often seeks to interrogate structures of power.”
However, Sofaer concludes: “It is precisely because artists find value in doubting the terms of ‘conventional leadership’, that they make inspiring leaders.”
Parker goes on to describe how she is happy to be free of art world hierarchies: “I love the idea of being a catalyst or the idea of leading by example. If being a leader is being a catalyst, I’d be very happy about that. But for me to drop my practice and take on the role of consciously thinking about instructing I find problematic.”
Other interviewees in the series are: Field Theory, First Draft, Masato Nakamura, Richard Layzell and Richard Hicks, Kate Love and David Wilson.
The sound files with Sofaer’s written comments and observations alongside will be released over the coming months. a-n subscribers will receive notification of each release via the Monthly digest.
