Policy on paying artists to exhibit

We had an exhibit of Canadian Inuit artists about a year ago. Yes, the Canadian govt. does mandate an artist fee. For our exhibit the cost was $95(Caanadian) per artist. We felt okay about paying that. We were a little less sanguine about having to pay an extra fee to the gallery where some of the works had been on display.

I'm on the exhibits committee for a local art center and the policy there is to, at most, pay return shipping and insurance for art work. We have very occasionally had a show where the artist has requested a fee. We do very few of those, as you might guess. When we have had national juried shows we have charged a jury fee. I personally have had work in shows which charged entry AND hanging fees. Strange and wonderful place, the art world.

Mariana Mace

To Mariana Mace,

Thanks very much for sharing your comments on the issue of paying artists to exhibit in non-profit spaces. Yes, indeed the art world is a strange place. Would the Canadian policy, if followed in the U.S. really wreck the exhibition programs of museums and art centers??? All the curators and administrators of museums, college art galleries and art centers I've talked with cite as defense for not paying artists, the smallness of their budgets along with the attitude that artists are getting so much in the way of reputation enhancement by showing there. I think it would take a radical mind re-adjustment of the art world to make this happen here, but maybe it's time to try. Thanks for your help. Jane Ingram Allen

I suppose I should add to my prior comments. The organization where I used to work eliminated the art gallery program because of the cost of insurance and it was not a primary activity of the museum complex. Now there is one less venue in the area for emerging artists to show their work.

Susan Wageman

The Tech Museum of Innovation (408) 279-7178 145 West San Carlos Street fax (408) 279-7149 San Jose, CA 95113 USA http://www.thetech.org

I guess I am a museum professional, and I'm not astonished. However, I think the weird economics of the art world are what they are because in the big picture there is lots of supply of art

I am glad I don't work in an art museum. Geez!

HBC

***************************************** Henry B. Crawford Curator of History

806/742-2442 Box 43191 FAX 742-1136 Lubbock, TX 79409-3191 WEBSITE: http://www.ttu.edu/~museum ********** 'Living History Rocks!!' **********

what is art?

to be paid for the display of his/her work? ....<<

I don't think this should be a confrontational issue between museums and artists, after all we depend on each other, but I would like to give a museum's side.

For example, we are currently organizing an exhibit on a local artist, who has been working for 20 years, but isn't well known. The museum went out and raised $38,000 in corporate funds (the corporation was our contact, not his) to produce a poster, exhibit catalog, prints, invitations, opening reception, educational materials for teachers, promotional signage and media materials for this exhibit. We have arranged media coverage of the exhibit, including two leading magazines. Through our operating budget, we purchased the exhibit's signature work from him for our collection at his price. And this doesn't count all the people-hours working on the exhibit.

For this, the museum is able to fulfill its mission of bringing cultural events to our visitors, providing educational materials for school groups, and giving visability to local artists. (We do not charge admission, so we get no monetary reward.)

But the artist also benefits through the exposure. Your argument would seem to indicate that we should now pay him a fee for the privilege of spending over $50,000 showcasing his work and promoting it.

I don't think we are taking advantage of this artist, and I am sure he feels the same way.

P. Fox

Thank you, Julia. I'll be nice.

Media guru Esther Dyson made the observation a while back that Intellectual Property is becoming less valuable while Intellectual Process and Performance is becoming more valuable. This is one of the most difficult transitions art museums have had to face since they traditionally exhibit property while theaters are venues for process and perfomance.

But even the most staid art museum is a kind of theater presenting a (paid) curatorial performance. Artists grasped that fact about ten years ago and so we see the rise of 'installation art ' demanding fees that would normally go to exhibition designers and curators. Influential artists like Jasper Johns are able to demand a share in the profits of the catalog through fees for use of photographs they provide. This means artists have assumed a great deal of expense as well. They have staff and collaborators to pay.

The Canadian solution seems to me too dependent on the concept of property. I've never exhibited or performed in a public institution without receiving some kind of 'honorarium' and that usually entailed my participation in some form. The difference is subtle but the Canadian system seems to be a form of rental of an object while an honorarium is more of an aknowledgement of the artist's participation/performance even if it was only the exhibition of an object.

My sense is that paying artists may be economically beneficial for art museums when they realize the artists have taken on a great deal of the expense of exhibition. Of course, curatorial distance is important. We don't want art museums that are simply extended commercial exhibition spaces.

Robbin Murphy

<i> i o l a </i> http://artnetweb.com/iola/

Did you include a fee for the artist as part of the corporate sponsorship arrangement? When we do corporate-sponsored exhibitions of working artists we always include it and the sponsor always understands that the artist needs to be paid too

If it comes down to that choice, how about asking the artist which s/he prefers to have? Most artists in at least mid-career are mature enough to weigh the benefits of each and make a decision that they are happy with. With money so tight, I don't want it to come down to a 'museum vs. artist' fight where everyone ends up resenting each other

I have been finding the discussion fascinating not becaues we exhibit contemporary artists in our museum, but because I have a sister who is an artist, and a Canadian one to boot. In the interest of seeing things from both sides, I asked her opinion on CARFAC. Not surprisingly she is in favor of it, but made it clear that it is seen, by both sides I think, as an honorarium - the amounts involved are too small even to cover materials, much less time, cost of living etc. She pointed out that the CARFAC agreement was worked out to provide some benefit for artists showing their work in noncomercial galleries, recognizing that in Canada the art market is so limited that 'exposure' is unlikely to benefit most artists in any material was (such as future sales of work), and that most such galleries are funded by government grants (municipal, provincial and federal). The agreement was worked out in collaboration with the various agencies in all levels of gov., and so artists fees are standard part of the applications for grants which fund the exhibits (she didn't specify, but I suspect an application that did not include the fees would be unlikely to receive funding).In some ways, she suggested it acknowledges the 'two way street' some have mentioned the (albiet small) art industry in Canada works primarily on governmetn funding, but it does provide employment for awhole variety of people, from the grant administrators to the gallery employees, and why should artists be the only ones not to receive some monetary recognition of their work? Finally, because of the way the fees are worked into grant applications, and the fee schedule takes into account things such as sized of the gallery and number of artists inthe exhibit (in a rather complex way as an earlier contributor pointed out) small galleries are not penalized, not it seems are young relatively unknown artists. A formalized agreement like CARFAC might not work everywhere, but I think it is still worthwile to provide contemporary artists some sort of honorarium, and it need not penalize either the gallery or the artist.

Genevieve LeMoine The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum Bowdoin College