ABSTRACT
Struggles in and around production of art in America have become searches for and constructions of publics of recognition. Recognition of careers for artists depends on whether they are seen as professionals. This American mosaic is thus shaped by a basic conflict over boundary between professional and amateur. The greatest potential quandary for noncommercial support, though, concerns the amateur-professional boundary. Very many artists are located neither in regular performances for paying audiences nor in elite realms of high art nor in commercialized art for media, fashion industry, and the like. The enormous pool of would-be professionals is enlarged as well as tapped by any offer of additional funding, so that its net effects on terms of agency for artists are difficult to estimate. In the street mural movement, artists strove to derive their own and other identities communally.
