What Can the Artworld Expect from the Mamdani Era?

‘Two Sundays ago, as snow softly fell, I spent twelve hours at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria listening to New Yorkers from every borough as they told me about the city that is theirs,’ said Zohran Mamdani in his mayoral inauguration speech on 1 January to thousands of ecstatic constituents. He was referring to ‘The Mayor is Listening’, an event in which 142 New Yorkers sat down with Mamdani face to face in an apparent nod to Marina Abramović’s 2010 performance The Artist is Present at the Museum of Modern Art. 

Perhaps this was simply a PR stunt designed to tie in with the mayor’s well-publicised democratic socialist ideology. But for New York’s art sector, there may be hope that this was also a signal of an administration in which the arts are top of mind. “We haven’t had a mayor whose life is so infused with art,” observes former Queens Museum director Tom Finkelpearl, referencing Mamdani’s biography as a rapper, son of filmmaker Mira Nair, and husband of illustrator Rama Duwaji. Finkelpearl is an enthusiastic supporter of Mamdani. He served under previous progressive Mayor Bill De Blasio as commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs, the largest municipal culture funder in the country. Its 2026 budget has been earmarked at $300 million, about 0.3 percent of City Hall’s overall budget. “The budget has actually gone up with a pretty far-right-wing mayor [Giuliani], a moderate mayor [Bloomberg], a progressive mayor [de Blasio], and whatever mixed bag Adams was,” Finkelpearl explains. “Hopefully it will continue to go up under Mamdani.”

Mamdani’s arts and culture transition team picks, announced back in November, signalled a youthful and progressive perspective from the start, including Finkelpearl’s successor Gonzalo Casals, social media guru Kimberly Drew, gallerist Hannah Traore and curators Ruba Katrib, Shamim Momin, Legacy Russell, and Diya Vij. Vij, whose CV includes Powerhouse Arts, Creative Time and the DCA itself, was announced as the department’s commissioner at the end of February.

Mamdani hasn’t publicised any specific policies for the visual arts yet, but Finkelpearl predicts we might see echoes of de Blasio’s, such as expanding access to free museum memberships, public artists-in-residence, and supporting unions (Mamdani signed an open letter in favour of unionisation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in December).

“It will be interesting for me to see whether he will go to events,” wonders Finkelpearl, noting the symbolic importance of mayoral attendance at museum fundraisers. Perhaps his ambassador to the artworld will then be first lady Duwaji, who made headlines earlier this year for her attendance at the Whitney Museum’s Art Party.

One of the greatest potentials for impact, identifies Finkelpearl, is through expanding the Cultural Institutions Group (CIG), a coalition of 39 not-for-profits including museums, performance venues, zoos, and gardens across all five boroughs. The group represents a private-public partnership in which the city government subsidises operational and facility costs, as well as pensions and life insurance for employees. Commissioner Vij will also appoint the mayor’s (non-voting) representatives to the boards of these institutions. Mamdani’s predecessor Eric Adams, who left office marred by scandal, added five organisations to the CIG for the first time since 1978, which Finkelpearl describes as a “huge achievement”. 

Museum of the City of New York director Stephanie Hill Wilchfort was elected CIG chair in December. She expresses excitement around working collaboratively with the new mayor especially on capital projects reform. “The CIG is already in discussion with the administration regarding how we might be a resource for items on their agenda, including making the city more affordable, improving quality of life, and promoting tourism,” she says. 

Increasing affordability may be the lynchpin for the success of Mamdani’s mayorship, but also to combat what policy expert Eli Dvorkin calls “the biggest threat” to New York’s creative economy. “Clearly the new mayor came into office with a mandate to confront the city’s affordability crisis and that’s exactly what he’ll do,” he says. “While almost everybody’s feeling it, we’re really seeing the ramifications of a runaway affordability crisis on our city’s cultural sector.”

In fact, this commitment was reiterated in Vij’s appointment announcement, with the new commissioner pledging to ‘extend the mayor’s affordability agenda to arts and culture’ as ‘too many artists have been forced out of the city they love – crushed by the cost-of-living crisis’.

The Center for an Urban Future’s recent Creative New York report, which Dvorkin co-authored, shows a decline in the city’s artist population for the first time in decades, by 4.4 percent since 2019. New York artists and creative workers can expect to earn 23 percent less than in other American cities after cost of living adjustments.

It comes as no surprise then that art businesses and organisations are also struggling with affordability. According to the report, members of ArtsPool, which provides administrative and accounting support to small to mid-sized arts organisations, saw average operating costs skyrocket by 64 percent between 2019 and 2024, while average revenues rose by only 2.2 percent. 

Dvorkin’s team identified over 50 shuttered cultural venues since 2020, over half of which were galleries in the last two years. Museum jobs have also diminished by 8.6 percent since 2019. 

“I really think this mayor understands the arts on a visceral level, maybe more than any mayor we’ve ever had in New York City,” Dvorkin says. “But translating that genuine love and care into smart, actual policy ideas – that’s going to take some work.” Some of the report’s recommendations include increasing artist-preference housing and creating a benefits scheme for freelancers. He notes that these and other recommendations are unlikely to require partnership with New York State legislators, a caveat that many have pointed to as the biggest hurdle for Mamdani’s expensive agenda. Governor Kathy Hochul has already shown a willingness to support Mamdani, announcing last month a collaboration to provide the city with free universal childcare using state funding.

Could Mamdani’s 2 percent income tax hike for millionaires, necessitating state support, also be on the horizon? This proposal has been useful for spooking industries that rely on the city’s wealthiest individuals, the art market included. “We've certainly seen some tax policy-based migration out of other locales in recent years,” says art market journalist Tim Schneider. “I'm just a little more skeptical that we'll see something like this happen at a scale that matters to New York because of how singular the city and its cultural landscape are.” He senses “that everyone in the art business is still in wait-and-see mode” until there is a clearer picture of what policies are in store.

When it comes to philanthropists, adviser Allan Schwartzman expresses doubt that behaviour might shift. “Several of New York’s museums do an excellent job of inspiring patrons to give generously,” Schwartzman notes. “I do not see this work as diminishing in the coming years.”

If Mamdani’s commitment to redistribute the city’s wealth comes to fruition, artists, workers and institutions might see New York become more affordable. But what about collectors, for whom affordability is generally not a concern? “In my experience, the most significant drivers of change in the art market have been macroeconomic cycles, interest rates, financial markets and global collector behaviour,” recalls advisor Megan Fox Kelly. “Local politics tend to influence the art ecosystem more indirectly, rather than acting as a primary or immediate market catalyst.”

Mamdani’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the mayor’s plans for the visual arts, but he has already shown support for other art sectors. Shortly after his inauguration, Mamdani brought attention to a local theatre festival by giving out free tickets. More recently, he held a press conference appointing his commissioner for the Office of Media and Entertainment, during which he declared, ‘You cannot tell the story of New York without the artists who have shaped it.’

But perhaps the mayor’s intentions for the arts were made the most clear during one moment of his campaign. ‘When I speak about the importance of making the most expensive city in the United States of America affordable, that is a commitment for artists,’ Mamdani said. ‘Art, at its core, cannot simply be a luxury for the few… And I say that to you as having once been an aspiring artist myself.’