Introducing High Society

Agnes Gund knows the power of art. She is the president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art and the founder of Studio in a School, a non-profit she created in 1977 when New York City budget cuts greatly reduced arts classes in public schools. I first learned about her desire to connect art and criminal justice reform in 2017, when she sold a Roy Lichtenstein from her private collection to fund a new initiative.

The Art for Justice Fund is known as a “de-carceration” fund. Her team disrupts “mass incarceration by funding artists and advocates working together to reform our criminal justice system. The Fund disrupts the very processes and policies that lead to high prison populations in the first place.” The Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors provide a combination of program, advisory, and governance support so that funds raised can go directly toward the mission of the Fund.

So what sparked the creation of the Art of Justice Fund? Art about the horrors of mass incarceration in the United States. She read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, and watched 13th by Ava DuVernay. Awareness impels to action and Agnes Gund proves that art is essential for both.

Girl Friday’s High Society theme title honors her work and pays tribute to three of my personal favorite connected works of art: The Philadelphia Story, the play and movie, and High Society, the musical film based on The Philadelphia Story. In 2018, the New York Times asked “Is Agnes Gund the Last Good Rich Person?” Thanks to the blueprint she has provided through the Art for Justice Fund, I hope the answer is “no.”