Husband, Wife Duo Behind BUTTER Is Putting Equity And Care At The Center Of The Arts

With their cultural organization GANGGANG, Malina and Alan Bacon are building a new model for art fairs—one rooted in reparations, relationships, and joy.

Malina Simone Bacon and Alan Bacon, artists and administrators from Indianapolis, have built their careers at the intersection of creativity and service. The pair, who work within the overlap between activism and expression, founded GANGGANG, a cultural organization focused on social justice and creative equity.

Among its flagship projects is BUTTER, an annual fine art fair in downtown Indianapolis that has quickly become a model for equitable arts programming and a platform for Black artists. Alan and Malina opened up to Black Enterprise on Aug. 29 about what it meant to build upon GANGGANG’s mission and to continue putting creatives in command with the 5th Annual Butter Fine Arts Fair.

Malina “Mali” Bacon co-founded BUTTER alongside her husband, Alan Bacon, and their mission was novel from its conception. GANGGANG invests in culture and operates with an intentional reparational slant, which, in practice, looks like building a fair that puts equity and care at its core.

Alan explained, “Butter is the no commission fair. Unlike other traditional art fairs and entities and organizations, we’re not taking 30, 40, or 50% from artists’ sales. One hundred percent of the sales go to the artists, back into artists’ hands and households. That’s a different model. We’ve been able to test that and be successful.”

That success is measurable. In just five years, more than $1 million in art sales has gone directly to participating artists, including $192,247 from 104 works sold this year alone.

He continued, “We’re proud that within five years, we have over a million dollars going back into artists’ hands. So, I think as it relates to what makes BUTTER different–especially within this moment, when you talk about reparations and what is equity, in order to really achieve true equity, there needs to be a sacrifice of privilege. And when there’s not that sacrifice of privilege, then you’ve got to find other means to support. BUTTER has been that, you know, those means and that microphone to the voice of artists who you may not have heard of or hear the narrative of their stories and of their art.”

Malina added, “Reparational is that BUTTER centers care. [That’s] uncommon in the traditional fair model. We are…beginning relationships with artists when we invite them into BUTTER, and the relationships don’t end, you know? Centering care is distinct from economic justice and…it feels a lot like investing in culture.”

The results of GANGGANG investing in culture speak for themself. The numbers mark a new milestone for BUTTER, with $1,163,947 in total artwork sales to date, with every dollar going directly to the artistic creators themselves. That investment is deeply rooted in place. By hosting BUTTER annually in Indianapolis—a city with deep but often overlooked Black cultural traditions—the Bacons have redirected national spotlight toward an overlooked Midwest city and shown its anchor to culture.

“The artists here are incredible, like I said, because they’ve been doing it without anybody noticing. And so, this is an opportunity for us to show the world who we are here. We are surprisingly and beautifully more Black than people know. And so that means we’re more creative than people know, and that we have music and the arts and film more than people know. This is an opportunity to show the world, this is NAP…and to share our history,” Malina shared with BLACK ENTERPRISE.

Alan points to Indiana Avenue, once an epicenter of jazz and bebop, as proof of the city’s cultural legacy.

“We have a very rich history in the arts. Indiana Avenue was the mecca of our arts. It was the nucleus of what would have been Indiana’s Harlem Renaissance. Just having that type of history, the descendants of those individuals are still here. So we’re carrying the spirit along with us as it relates to what we’re creating and what we’re able to display today. But that’s just part of why this is important, just to be able to let people know the history that supports the now, and how this is going to help guide us for the future,” Alan concluded.

Through all of the Black excellence exemplified in the BUTTER Fine Arts fair, Alan and Mali wanted attendees to take just one thing away from the Indianapolis weekend of events. The Bacons hope attendees walk away from BUTTER with more than admiration for the art.

“There’s still light, there’s still hope, there’s still joy, there’s still love. This is what it feels like when you center beauty, equity, and culture. And this is what we are proposing to cities and to systems and to environments and to documents, to everything, that you can center beauty, equity, and culture. And it has a result on our quality of life, on our feelings, also our city’s economic bottom line, and our tourism and our narrative.”

“Love works, you know? We just want more people to take that away as real.”