Though many other agencies have hidden mechanisms for art (embassies, for example, buy art, architects are commissioned by the GSA to design courthouses), or are disguised as historic or education initiatives, alt funding for arts organizations on the dole is wildly erratic.
Most recently, his works were selected by the State Department's "Art in Embassies" program for display at U.S. embassies worldwide.
Other pieces hang, on loan, in the home of Detroit's mayor; in the offices of university presidents, and, through the Art in Embassies program of the United States State Department, in American embassies in South Africa and Switzerland.
Ellen Susman, a Texas philanthropist who contributed $100,000 to the "super PAC" supporting Mr. Obama, has alerted people involved in the decision-making of her interest in serving as director of the State Department's Art in Embassies program, responsible for managing the art collection that hangs in American embassies around the world.
"That's their lifeline," said Virginia Shore, the curator of Art in Embassies.
On Nov. 30, he'll be in Washington, D.C., to stage a performance for the 50th anniversary of the State Department's Art in Embassies program.
Inland from here is Ankara with its art deco embassies, established by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as Turkey's modern capital; from here Çatalhüyük, is an easy drive.
Both times he had help from Arnie Glimcher, chairman of the PaceWildenstein Gallery, which has been a steady supporter of Art in Embassies over the years.
She also teamed up with the State Department's Art in Embassies Program, which was created in the early 1960s to organize and facilitate loans to American outposts abroad, especially diplomatic residences.
It was made possible by Art in Embassies, a little-known and much beloved State Department program that has been a boon to American diplomacy all over the world at relatively little cost to the American taxpayer.
"It is the only way for people in this country, as well as the United Nations community, to have an opportunity to see the type of work we do," said Gwen Berlin, director of Art in Embassies.
