Phase four, which is the last phase for now, of “Make an Artist a Millionaire” (2008-2015) was conceived of as a series of performances, which would include sitting on the street with a cardboard sign (above); synthesizer busking at a BART train station; and roaming around with a sandwich board. All of these options would create varying levels of discomfort for me, and others, and I discovered that I wouldn’t really be the ideal person to execute them. (A healthy white hetero mail basically panhandling to solve his art problem?) They also represent the ultimate failure of the project, which was my not finding a compelling argument for someone giving me money (other than “Why not? $1 is such a small sum.”). For this reason, executing them would merely be skirting the issue.

This is where an idea for reconfiguring MAAAM came in: instead of trying to collect a million dollars for me, I would make another artist a millionaire with the proceeds. In this rethinking, the original project arguably becomes something entirely different, and leeches it of much of its substance. Once the project’s focus (though still not the goal) becomes generosity, it once again casts the recipient artist as a helpless, inept victim without effective personal agency. And as the agent of generosity, it puts me on the other side of the same old coin.

One direction MAAAM could take would be a series of performances, including sitting on the street with a cardboard sign (above); synthesizer busking at a BART train station; and roaming around with a sandwich board. All of these options would create varying levels of discomfort for me, and others, and I might not be the ideal person to execute them. (A healthy white hetero male basically panhandling to solve his art problem?) They could also represent an admission of the project’s failure by not finding a compelling argument for someone donating (other than “Why not? $1 is such a small sum.”). For this reason, executing them would merely be skirting the issue. This is where an idea for reconfiguring MAAAM came in: instead of trying to collect a million dollars for me, I would make another artist a millionaire with the proceeds. The original project arguably becomes something entirely different, and leeches it of much of its substance. Once the project’s focus (though still not the goal) becomes generosity, it once again casts the recipient artist as a helpless, inept victim without effective personal agency. And as the agent of generosity, it puts me on the other side of the same old coin.