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Exploitation of artists It would be easy, so very easy, for a decent, honest, self-supporting bore nurtured and matured in the nine-to-five worlds of P.A.Y.E, inflation-stripping nest eggs of equity and Vauxhall people- carriers, to arrive at an extremely low opinion of visual artists. Looking down from the sun-blessed alps of proud self-sufficiency, sensible plodders would see 75,000 art students doing the thick end of sweet FA and graduating summa cum laude with no more knowledge of their subjects than might reasonably be expected of a keen four-year-old. (My apologies for this brief parenthetical digression: two months ago I was talking to an art student who is in his final year at a London college who was convinced that Michelangelo worked for Julius Caesar. I didn’t disabuse him of his misapprehension because there seemed no point even attempting to explain the gap between the High Renaissance papacy and the late Roman republic to one for whom history was a puddle not a well.) If our alpine jurors peered further, their critical gaze would alight on a queue of ‘artists’ – "I’m an artist because this piece of paper says so, so up yours buster" – signing-on and signing-off the dole with the frequency of fly-by-nights, six-time-losers and scallywags. Then, squinting through the frosted glass of the Bricklayer’s Arms, they could make out huddling cabals of conceptualists, half-cut over their lunchtime ration, bemoaning the fact that only the absence of state subsidy stands between them and a masterpiece. Further down the artistic dale, they would come upon the chosen few, those arrogant enough to expect the public purse to fund activities which are of no benefit whatsoever to anyone else but themselves and those who are commercially or otherwise parasitically reliant upon them. By now our contented suburbanites are thoroughly appalled and considering writing to the Daily Mail, but there’s more, a lot more. They would gasp in disbelief at the defensive posture of the art-body-collective which not only expects but demands the right to operate beyond accepted norms of decency, censorship and economics, and then adds insult to injury by biting the hand that feeds it. This cherished system is grandly called "The Freedom Of The Artist", a dictum against which only those arty-farties eager to commit professional suicide would ever argue. And if our willing commuter fodder angles its ears and eavesdrops they would overhear their intelligence being insulted by illiterate explanations and unconvincing special pleading. At the same time they would encounter many who expect their work to be taken seriously despite its visual poverty, its conceptual thinness and its slipshod manufacture. Whilst looking down upon this ghastly spectacle of overindulgence they would be expected to accept without cavil that quality assurance and the Trades Descriptions Act, indeed any consumer rights at all, are definitely not applicable to artists’ wares... And they overcharge as well, and then can’t fathom why there are so few takers. What a bewildering picture artists present to the man on the Clapham Omnibus. It is unarguably the case that there is now huge over-capacity among the profession calling themselves ‘Artist’. Thousands are daily producing commodities for a market which doesn’t exist and which hasn’t developed appreciably in decades. But, truly, I have come here to praise, to praise those artists who persevere against the odds adding their small observations and inflexions to our lives. For all their whingeing, those who stand apart and work doggedly for a purpose largely unrelated to material gain are the true rebels of our day. In a society where the pursuit of money and greed are encouraged and revered, these few stand apart by working for a reason other than income. It is a fact that most artists sacrifice themselves and a good proportion of their lives in order to produce the unsaleable, the unseen and the unappreciated. I’ve never met an artist who didn’t have a huge stock. Even the ostensibly successful all have long racks of unsold work in back rooms. Out of potentially hundreds of examples two will illustrate the generosity of artists. The artist is one whose desire to have work seen is so all-consuming that he will always be the one who labours for nothing or who takes the smallest cut in a sale. There is a good and dedicated sculptor and teacher, a large bronze of whose is to be sited in a public place. Inevitably, the budget for the job is too small, which is always the case unless you’re one of the chosen few with access to the chequebook of the Arts Council and its lottery. Expensive workmen, designers, planners, health-and-safety jobsworths and much expensive plant is involved in this project. As costs escalate, and the threat to pull the plug on the entire enterprise hangs over proceedings, it is the sculptor’s piece of pie which is sliced thinner and thinner. It diminishes to nothing, the pleasure and pride of the finished, installed piece considered adequate recompense. Privately he is resentful that, alone in this contract, he has worked the hardest for longest, but for nothing. He won’t starve, no one does. Coppers will be juggled, he’ll teach more days and sell some double glazing, but at least the sculpture will be there as a lasting legacy to the future. There is another fine and dedicated artist, the technically tricky and detailed procedure of whose work ensures that little is produced in a long time. A small exhibition is held at her regular dealers every couple of years. Once the exhibition costs are accounted for, the dealer’s deductions made, the hidden outlays tabbed, the VAT apportioned, she is left with a couple of thousand for two year’s full-time endeavour. She has several part-time jobs, teaching and writing, but, like many artists and others committed to what they do, she still manages to work at least the equivalent of full-time at her art by flexible, unsociable scheduling. Like the sculptor above, everyone else reliant on her work makes money according to accepted capitalist principles. The framer, the glazier, the colour and ink merchant, the printer, the toolmaker, the wine merchant, the haulier, the post office, the insurer, the papermaker, all of them take their profit for granted... And, of course, the dealer, who is himself always so very dilatory in paying up (I wonder if there is a single dealer in the entire history of dealing who has ever paid an artist promptly following a sale), cashes in. Not for him the uncertainties and indignities of the chiselled margin. No, his piece of pie is ring-fenced, protected by a chevaux de frise of sharpened stones and a cordon sanitaire of anti-personnel mines patrolled by the 101st Airborne. For little more than a month of his gallery’s space and time, he makes more money than the artist does in two years. He’ll also take a cut from sales to her own clients made from her studio. Why? Because he can bloody well get away with it that’s why, so grateful is the artist for the opportunity to exhibit once every Preston Guild. There is a major inequality here. It is the inequality which never permits dealers to lose while accepting that their artists, without whom the all-important saleable commodity wouldn’t exist, pick up the tab. An art dealer is akin to a conceptual artist. You make the decision to be one and, hey presto, you are one. If you exhibit in a gallery you’re an artist, if you sell a picture you’re an art dealer. No qualifications are needed to be an artist and none for dealing. Like any monger you simply open a shop, stock it and behave like an oily bastard if you sniff a sale whilst otherwise devising ways of widening the margins at no additional effort to yourself. It astonishes me that so many artists will sign away the profit of their efforts to someone who makes at least the same as they make, except eight or ten times a year instead of just once every two years. Dealers operate like supermarkets. Firstly, they dictate to the supplier precisely what it is they are prepared to sell, a condition galling enough in itself. Then they exploit their monopoly to chip away at everyone else’s margins whilst preserving their own, so that the producer, whether it be a mange-tout grower in Zimbabwe, an aubergine cropper in Turkey, a coffee producer in Guatemala, a pig farmer in the Fylde, or an artist in Hackney or Hartlepool, receives a derisory fraction of the retail price. Artists are ripped off. Yes they bellyache a lot, and moan incessantly and snidely about other artists, but they always pay. Another artist told me recently of an exhibition of his watercolours and book illustrations in which 80% of gross sales was deducted. As far as he could make out the dealer’s 50% commission was nukeproofed. He almost made sufficient to pay the framer. Only driven individuals motivated by dreams to create something they consider worthwhile contributions would tolerate such contemptuous exploitation. Dealers who work hard outside of exhibition periods on behalf of their artists, such as many of those who represent the most fashionable, visible artists of the moment, deserve their high reward. They hustle, scheme and promote energetically. They create artificial markets by cleverly building reputations brick by brick. They woo, cajole and bully curators. Those – being the majority – who do nothing but stage biennial shows with no strategic promotion or career-nurturing in between exhibitions don’t deserve to be making anywhere near as much as the artist. Artists are lousy businessmen, a fact which renders them wide open to being cheated. Their pathetic gratitude for the opportunity to show ensures that they surrender without a fight their rights and incomes. Artists have been grumbling about this situation for decades but have done nothing about it. They deserve better than a system which far from delivering a decent living keeps most of them subserviently on the breadline. David Lee | |||||||
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