Steve Lambert is a Michigan artist with impressive list of accomplishments. In addition to his visual art, he has done things like creating an add-on for the Firefox web browser that replaces ads with art, he founded the Center for Artistic Activism, and he has spoken at the United Nations about his research on advertising’s impact on culture.
Lambert was recently named a finalist in the well-known juried art show ArtPrize. If he wins, he could receive as much as $200,000. However, after delving deeper into the people behind ArtPrize, namely the DeVos family, he realized he couldn’t accept money from them without compromising his values. Instead, should he be selected, he will donate his winnings to the LGBT Fund of Grand Rapids.
Below is Lambert’s essay explaining his decision. It was orginally posted at his blog and is reposted here with permission. You can also read an interview he did about his decision at the Eyeteeth blog.
I am incredibly impressed with Lambert; both with his art and with his credibility and social justice values. It’s refreshing to see people living their values, even if it means personal sacrifice in this way. I hope he wins because, if he does, it’s a victory for the Good Guys.
And Steve Lambert is most certainly one of the Good Guys.
(Plus, who wouldn’t enjoy seeing $200,000 of DeVos money go to fight for LGBT civil rights??? LOL.)
Enjoy.
I’m not keeping the money.
By Steve Lambert
Last week I learned I was a jury pick for ArtPrize in Grand Rapids. Shortly after I found out I was on the short list for the public vote as well. At that point I had a shot at the $200,000 public vote prize, the $200,000 juried prize, and a 1 in 4 chance of winning a $20,000 jury prize for my category.
It’s a lot of money.
I didn’t enter ArtPrize with the hope of winning. I was curated into a show during ArtPrize. I had heard a bit about the contest and decided to give it a chance and have the piece reach an audience it may not otherwise. I was certain I had no shot at winning. I liked that my piece was understood and appreciated by critics and the public alike.
ArtPrize is hard to explain. It’s a project of Rick DeVos, who comes from a very wealthy family. How did they make that money? Founding Amway – Multi-Level Marketing, which is a polite term for a pyramid scheme. They’re married into the family behind Blackwater, the private military outfit. They’re against unions and advocate for school voucher programs. They’ve been major donors to Focus on the Family, Acton Institute, Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich’s campaigns. You may have read that article I sent last week, or about their unionbusting and plan to defund the Left in Mother Jones. (I encourage you to read them. It made my choice much easier.)
What bothers me the most is the DeVos family has, for generations, been on the wrong side of the fight for civil rights for LGBT people. And they back their opinions with millions in political money against civil rights. It’s a long story, but the end is: they haven’t changed.
Tomorrow night, I may win tens of thousands of dollars of their money.
Now, I could do a lot with that money. I’m trying to build up Public Forum. I’m trying to raise money for the Center for Artistic Activism so we can continue doing our work. I mean, I don’t have to tell you I could use the money.
But I had to ask myself, how bad does it have to be for me to say no to the money? In this situation, where is my line? And I realized, “oh, it’s behind me.”
So today I pledged, if I win I will not keep any of the money. I will hand over all my award money to the LGBT Fund of Grand Rapids. I will also volunteer to come back to Grand Rapids with the Center for Artistic Activism to work with LGBT to fight for equality.
The Center for Artistic Activism has worked for equal rights for LGBT people in Russia and the former Yugoslavia, in the most homophobic countries in the world. We’re prepared for Western Michigan.
The reason I became an artist is because I believe it helps create free human beings. It can show us other ways of looking at the world, other ways the world can be. It makes us more empathetic, more understanding, and more open. It helps us grow. I think the money behind ArtPrize is working against, what I see as, the spirit of art itself.
[Photos provided by Steve Lambert]
