Facebook Bans Artist For Transforming MAGA Hats:

A Cautionary Tale on Art, Censorship & Social Media

I’m one of those artists who’s been plugging away in the studio for the past thirty years. Part of the Art World’s middle tier, I am perpetually hovering on the edge of my “big break”, but I no longer hold my breath in wait for it. I have work in a few important collections, and a 25-page CV. I’ve won Arts Council grants in all the states I’ve lived in, I have a few nice exhibition catalogs, and have been in museum shows across the country and abroad. I hope to move up a few more rungs on the art world ladder before I die, but that’s far less important to me than consistently making work I am proud of.

Presently, all but the top 1% of artists are struggling. Several artist grants have dried up, and sales have declined, leaving creatives to expend more energy simply trying to make ends meet. So many middle-tier galleries have closed that a large number of artists like myself are managing our own careers full-time while making art. Social media has been a tremendous help in this area: I can create a new work, post it, get instant feedback, and often, within a few weeks or months, get offers to exhibit it. While a few hundred to a few thousand people might see my art “in real life” during the course of an exhibition, a strong, well-photographed image placed on social media can reach ten times as many eyes through multiple “shares”.

As artists look for new paradigms to cultivate audiences for our work, we gravitate towards…