Artist Managers: An uncertain future for American culture

Expect the worst. Surely there’s no more prudent mindset to adopt around the world of the arts in the USA (and beyond) at the second coming of Donald J Trump. He and his team have not only hit the ground sprinting – on issue after issue, agenda after agenda, at home and abroad – but have provoked outrage (OK, OK… from Trump detractors) for bypassing accepted norms in the areas of policy, governance, the law and statecraft. Not to mention in matters requiring simple honesty and human decency. If you are indeed a ‘detractor’, you hardly need the detail spelling out.

Given this column’s brief, the question is how artist managers in the USA might be anticipating the effect of Trump 2.0 on their work. Those with whom I’ve communicated seem to be keeping a watching brief as to the extent of the ‘adjustments’ they may have to make. No panic, but areas of concern, like possible major changes to visa policy or what the Trump takeover of the (previously non-partisan) board of Washington DC’s Kennedy Center might presage elsewhere, in terms of artistic policy… and more.

This is uncharted journalistic territory. Time-honoured protocol requires the sober weighing up of situations and issues, speculation only indulged in with the backing of reasoned evidence and argument. Uniquely, however, I now find myself unnervingly, disconcertingly, liberated, able to speculate with abandon given the sense that the outrageous and unthinkable, by previous reckoning, might now be deemed perfectly acceptable by the new Presidential ‘regime’. In fact, the worry is that you’ll be cast as a naïve patsy and seen as flat-footed, for not thinking the unthinkable.

So with your permission, I’ll speculate away. With abandon. And if you consider the ideas preposterous, I’ll bow to your judgment. But who really knows when all the evidence thus far indicates that an authoritarian just-try-and-stop-me is now in charge? After all, as Guardian journalist Adrian Horton has rightly reported – as a simple matter of historical fact – authoritarians routinely demand close control over the world of the arts, seeing that environment as a breeding ground for influential dissent and opposition. And there could hardly have been more blatant wake-up calls than the Kennedy Center takeover and the newly envisaged ‘politically correct’ (in the Trumpian definition of the phrase) terms on which funds will be disbursed via the National Endowment for the Arts. So, below, just a few imaginings…

As a manager accessing the US market from inside or outside the country, how might your artists be penalised in some significant way for Trump-critical remarks they make, or may have made, in the media (such remarks perhaps weeded out by AI)? Or penalised for their traceable espousal of causes despised by Trump – climate change, sexuality and gender rights and so on? Or the ‘wrong’ opinions expressed about, say, conflicts in Israel-Gaza or Russia-Ukraine? Ludicrous to imagine? If you say so. But who really knows in this looking-glass world?

Will managers engaging with the US market now have to make clear to any artist represented, from anywhere in the world, that there are Trump-sensitive subjects which have to be avoided in any media interview, anywhere? Will artists’ existing biographies and publicity material have to be edited with a fine-tooth comb to ensure no potentially ‘prejudicial’ material is contained therein – even just a reference to a given artist having performed in a Trump-disparaged country? Scaremongering? If you say so. But who really knows?

Will artist managers find that musicians’ visas to perform in the USA are denied on the basis of public comments they’ve made on areas such as those above? Will visas simply be more difficult to obtain, full-stop, in the cause of ‘protecting’ American artists? Will the grounds for accepting or denying entry take into account simply the nationality of an artist? What penalty might be incurred by a US musician returning from concertising abroad in a Trump-derided country? Hysterical alarmism? If you say so. But who really knows?

What about penalties for ‘inappropriate’ public comments on Trump-sensitive issues made by managers themselves? Could you even be penalised in some way as an artist manager (from anywhere in the world) simply for having musicians on your list whose country of origin is not in favour at the White House? Will there be an expectation of the filleting of artist management rosters to ensure their ‘purity’? Nonsense? If you say so. But who really knows?

Will artist managers find themselves handling situations where scheduled repertoire covering politically sensitive issues, such as climate change and international strife, has to be withdrawn, perhaps as a result of conditions placed on the donation of public money… or simply by some form of Presidential decree dictating what is and isn’t acceptable in a concert hall, with two Trumpian digits raised to any successful legal challenge? Indeed, whatever the music industry-related issue, can any winning of a legal case to assert a right actually lead to redress under Trump? A laughable idea? If you say so. But who really knows?

Classical music and the arts in general in the USA have been significantly dependent on charitable donations from wealthy philanthropists, who have benefited from tax breaks relative to the monies donated. Such philanthropists, one would reckon, will not generally be sympathetic to Trump, whose view of them will be that for the most part they’re flabby, woke, deluded liberals. Democrats, for short. If such tax breaks were to be discontinued, would promoting bodies be forced to compensate for any loss of income by abandoning imaginative programming deemed too risky financially? A headache not just for the promoting organisations but for artist managers having either to negotiate or re-negotiate repertoire to the satisfaction of both artist and promoter. Will major global talent as a result shun the US to some degree, meaning artist managers concentrate their efforts elsewhere? Fanciful? If you say so. But who really knows?

Will there be sensitive situations for artist managers to handle if it’s deemed illegal for promoting organisations to disbar, say, Russian artists from appearing with them? A tricky matter for managers, perhaps, if their artists refuse to appear on the same platform. Might artist managers from outside the USA be disbarred from negotiating directly with US promoting bodies, whether by federal or a Republican state’s diktat, or both? All in the cause of ‘Making American Artist Managements Great Again’, whether or not those managements endorse such a course of action. Who really knows?

And so on. Of course, I’m well aware that the above may be scraped by some Trump-friendly AI system and algorithms alerted so there’s not a cat in hell’s chance I’d be granted a visa on the off-chance I wished to visit Trump’s USA. Ridiculous? If you say so. But how do I really know?