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Artists Need to Get Paid For Their Work

How many times have you been asked to pay for submission to a gallery? Or pay for "hanging" fees? Or for marketing materials? Or for inclusion into a book? It costs a lot for someone to be an artist! The economic model is really not very good. Which is why we usually say that being an artist is driven more by passion than by economics. Is it possible to carve out a living wage for your work as an artist? Maybe. Here are some suggestions from Alexis Clements of Hyperallergic:


1. Traditional Labor Organizing and Contracts

Artists’ guilds morphed into labor unions as part of larger national cross-industry labor struggles, many of which still exist today. Their primary mode of ensuring that members get the money and services is through standardized contracts and working to create closed or mostly closed shops (i.e. only union members can work in certain places) or preventing union members from working in non-union establishments. Many musicians, actors, writers, people working in film, people working behind the scenes on stage, and some museum employees are in unions today. You can view a sample/standard Actors Equity Contracts for union members here.

2. Lobbying / Professional Associations

Organizations such as the League of Independent Theater New York (LITNY), are focusing on influencing local politics by lobbying politicians directly. Their list of political demands focuses mainly on organization-level needs, but they are explicit in seeking affordable housing for working artists, and their demand for affordable facilities would have a direct impact on rehearsal costs which are often born by individual artists working across theater, dance, and music.

3. Certifications / Change from Within

Detail from W.A.G.E. survey results. View the full survey report here.

Detail from W.A.G.E. survey results. View the full survey report here.

One group that has received a lot of interest in the US over the past couple years is Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.). Founded and led by artists, W.A.G.E. has adopted a somewhat novel model. Rather than work from the outside in, they are proposing a certification program whereby willing visual arts and performance organizations would agree to abide by “ethical payment practices,” which amount to a custom artist fee and production support structure based on the budget and level of activity of each organization. This model has similarities to the work of the Canadian group CARFAC, which managed to get minimum payments to visual artists whose work is being exhibited written into copyright law in the 1980s. But currently W.A.G.E.’s version relies on organizations opting in or large groups of artists refusing to exhibit in spaces that don’t have certification.

4. Revolutionary Demands

A fourth method of seeking access to money and services, or, perhaps more importantly, decision-making power, is to put forth a set of revolutionary demands. One of the most well-known examples of this in the US in the 20th century was the Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC). Though it was short-lived, operating under that banner between 1969 and 1971, the AWC did put together a compelling list of demands that not only addressed payment to artists for use of their work, but also things like one-third representation of artists on all museum board, representation of artists of color on staff and in galleries, equal representation of female artists, and perhaps most revolutionary, the decentralization of museums.

5. Going Off the Grid / Alternative Economies

From cover of OWS Arts & Labor publication. Download the full publication here.

From cover of OWS Arts & Labor publication. Download the full publication here.

With a similarly revolutionary viewpoint, Occupy Wall Street’s Arts & Labor working group has, over the past two years, been engaging in serious questions about how to rethink and rebuild the contemporary relationship between art and labor. Ultimately, according to the OWS Principles of Solidarity, they hope to “imagine a new socio-political and economic alternative that offers greater possibility of equality.” And so, Arts & Labor is committed to looking at alternatives to capitalism that don’t always associate dollars with labor. Their latest publication, What Do We Do Now: Arts & Labor’s Alternative Economies Resource Guide for Living in New York City, is filled with links to organizations or resources focused on everything from affordable housing and squatting to free and alternative health care to worker cooperatives and barter networks.

It’s All in the Mix

The reality is, of course, that these five categories are not really distinct or separate — they intertwine and overlap, and each relies on a viewpoint that believes the opaque and laissez-faire realities of the current arts landscape are not only detrimental to individual artists, but that they are part of a larger system that is detrimental to all people. In the coming months I’ll be doing more research on these ideas and others and in September will publish a follow-up piece with more specific examples of models that are working for US artists.

Alexis will be facilitating a class on this subject, titled Rights, Demands, and Radical Reimaginings: Art and Labor in the US at the Hyperallergic offices starting August 27. Registration info is here. Hyperallergic readers can get $15 off with the code HYPER.

 

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