“If you were an artist, you didn’t get any money, no, because you were already invited to the exhibition and you got to produce your work, so we didn’t pay the artists.”
Art activists W.A.G.E. took this arrogant off-the-cuff admission made by dOCUMENTA (13) curator Caroline Christov-Bakargiev at a recent panel discussion and created a fictionalized melodrama around it, a world where the very powerful curator finds herself treated like an artist!
Read more at Ikono
I have been there, been the struggling artist, making work for exhibition in galleries and going unpaid, or poorly paid.
ReplyDeleteBut the truth is that it's a free-market economy. Few artists really get paid a fair remuneration, they get less than, say, a supermarket-shelf-stacker. A few make it big, but the great majority of artists have to have another job to keep the wolf from the door. My sister sells paintings at what her neighbours consider to be high prices.But if you consider the time spent in research, initial sketches, final execution, framing, materials... studio costs, in the same way you would of any other product, what we find is that the paintings are usually sold below cost, even if we factor in the working hours at minimum wage.
She can be an artist because her husband's income subsidises her, and she runs painting workshops where people pay to attend.
What IS fair compensation for artists?
Why should we not be subject to the vagaries of the market-place like everyone else? My pots are worth only what someone's prepared to pay for them. I can put any number of pieces on display with the price I'd like to get, but if my estimate of my worth is not to the liking of the person viewing, then the pot will remain unsold.
The artists referred to in the video, presumably were aware at the onset that they would not be paid. I'll bet they were still jostling for a chance to enter.
The principle that the consumer, not the maker, sets the price of goods and services is a given. That tells me nothing about the value of a piece of art though. People are willing to pay for velvet Elvis paintings; I really wish they wouldn't but they do. I believe that governments can work alongside markets to ensure that art is created for the collective good. One way they can do so is by providing better art education for children. Appreciation of the creative process might induce people to pay more for the fruits of the artist's labours. I am not an artist but I do believe that the value we place on art as a society will be reflected in the quality of the art that is produced.
ReplyDelete(I'd suggest guaranteed annual incomes as well but I've received unpublishable comments when I veer left so I won't. )
Put me down for some of that.
ReplyDeleteI always wanted a rich patron.
So... at what level should the income be pegged?
Somewhere in an average between divorce lawyer and cosmetic surgeon, perhaps?
Or would it be more toward that of a pot-washer in a run-down diner?
I am a great believer in art education.
ReplyDeleteI'd like people to learn to appreciate good design in everyday objects, to choose between, say, can-openers on functional and aesthetic grounds alike.
And I'd like students to feel free to criticise, take potshots at establish art icons. cry foul. point out the emperor's nakedness. Be unafraid to point at a painting on a gallery wall and call it self referencing, posturing bullshit.
I raised my two sons to appreciate art. We spent a lot of time at art galleries when they were little and even now we take family trips to see exhibitions in Toronto and Buffalo. The older one has a degree in fine art and both of them are very creative but of course they do not make a living at it.
ReplyDelete