Click image for the downloadable pdf of the zine put out by the Artists of the 99%.  Along with contributions from Christian L. Frock, Julia Bryon Wilson, Elizabeth Sims, W.A.G.E, Art Workers Coalition, and the Beehive Collective (among others), Joseph del Pesco‘s State of the Arts posters are highlighted.

Corwin Christie, writing for Technology in the Arts, has a really good article and has spawned quite a bit of conversation in her comparison of the Google scandal to standard Non-profit arts practices.

Last week I wrote about the indignation I feel when I see a company like Google wanting to use art without financially compensating the artists. The post and ensuing discussion on Facebook generated some interesting feedback, and many people expressed the concern that perhaps artists have set the bar low themselves.

This got me thinking about how it is that artists begin accepting less than they are worth–and I think, unfortunately, it is because of the close collaboration that artists have with non-profit arts organizations. And this is much more difficult to get irate about. As I rail against Google for devaluing the work that artists do, I can’t help but think back on the numerous non-profit arts organizations with which I have either been involved or encountered as an artist.

Non-profit organizations, those bastions of hope, those doers of good, whose belief in the arts propels us through the darkest hours of our economic crises, are they immune to the tirade I so readily unleashed on Google?

Click here to keep reading on Technology in the Arts

I’m glad to see people talking about this issue.  I too find it an almost impossible conundrum.  But discussion is good.  What about you, the great wide internet world?  Have you found any examples of nonprofits recognizing this issue and changing the way that they do things so that they start paying the artists they show?  Or does the answer lie outside of the non-profit world, in the shall we say, “no-profit” or “not-for-profit” world?  There are people rethinking, but most of what I have seen comes from this latter world.  There will also always people who want to get their work out for free for a time.  It’s like internships.  I never understood all the people who took a year after they finished college to do an internship.  I had to support myself as, I think, most people do once their schooling is finished.

Art is valuable and everyone knows it. But somehow we just think that it should also be free.

]]> http://blog.thepresentgroup.com/2009/09/21/more-musings-on-exposure-as-payment/feed/ 0 http://blog.thepresentgroup.com/2009/07/23/portland-stock/ http://blog.thepresentgroup.com/2009/07/23/portland-stock/#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:05:59 +0000 eleanor http://blog.thepresentgroup.com/?p=940

Posted via web from thepresentgroup’s posterous

Basically, it goes like this.  The economy is down, so people are trying to wring their freelancers for rights and free work.  This is such a common problem.  Don’t people realize that if enough people stop paying for work, eventually there won’t be anyone to do the work.  People have to make money at their work, whether it be illustration, art, architecture, floral design, catering, or any other service or product.

People have to hold their ground collectively, otherwise the whole field gets screwed. That’s not so easy to do though.

I was watching the Barbara Walters interviews after the Oscars last night and she was giving Anne Hathaway a hard time or just kept talking about how her parents were still together, how she had a loving family, and then saying things like, “it doesn’t seem like the right drama for an actor…where’s the angst, where’s the pain?”  Hathaway feels the need then to sortof defend her luck, saying that there were certainly bad things that were in her life too…. that she isn’t just a good girl… that she is really “debaucherous” sometimes.

Oliver and I have had this discussion many a time about how there is this huge cultural stigma, even within artist communities, that says you must suffer in order to make good work.  I just don’t think it is true.  And somebody’s got to start saying it.

Last week I was watching a video from the group W.A.G.E. (Working Artists and the Greater Economy) when they took part in the Democracy in America show put on by Creative Time last fall.  The second speaker, K8 Hardy, addressed this idea.  She pointed out that the collectors in the art market like that artists are poor, and how this feeds into this whole system.  “They want to keep us on the edge because they stupidly think that it makes the work more interesting…. They want us to die poor.  That would make their collection more valuable… They romanticize our poverty and outsider status from some misinformed idea or opinion that it makes an artist better to suffer.”

Democracy in America: W.A.G.E. from Creative Time on Vimeo.

So let’s start talking about it. Let’s try to banish this stereotype.  Sure, some art is good and comes from suffering.  But that does not mean that it is the only way that good art comes about.

On Ethics, Is Art Market Worse Than Stock Market?

Panelists for the Feb. 3 debate included (from left) Jerry Saltz, Amy Cappellazzo, Chuck Close and Adam Lindemann. Longview Photography

thanks Joseph

Though currently without a website, Pocket Projects is a curatorial initiative organized by Jason de Haan and Scott Rogers (both in Calgary, Canada). Pocket Projects commissions small editions of artist multiples on a quarterly basis. Justin Patterson‘s Hell’s Bells is the first project in this ongoing series.

Photo courtesy of Pocket Project

On Halloween night (Friday, October 31st) please join us for the inaugural launch of Hell’s Bells a limited edition artist multiple project by Calgary artist Justin Patterson.

The launch will begin at 8pm in the Other Gallery at the Banff Centre (just upstairs from the Walter Phillips Gallery). Some refreshments will be available during the launch. Hell’s Bells multiples will be available for purchase during and after the launch at a price of $4.00 each. With your purchase you will receive one Hell’s Bell and the colour publication which accompanies the project. Proceeds from the sale go directly to the artists.

**Full disclosure: Rodgers is a TPG submittee whose proposal we still have in the maybe pile.

UPDATE: Due to unforeseen circumstances we are POSTPONING the Hell’s Bells launch, which was previously scheduled to happen on Halloween night (today!)  All apologies for the mix up, but we will still be doing the launch it’s just going to be a little while longer. Sorry to anyone who had planned on attending the festivities in Banff.

Here’s the most recent one we’ve found:

Little Bird Limited

Their wording is a little familiar, I have to say, but all in all we’re excited to see the art world expanding to reach more people at a lower cost. Welcome Little bird!

UPDATE: Just got an email from Little Bird:

We noticed the present group on our analytics site and when we clicked the link we noticed your blog post.
We were mortified to read about the similarities. We actually pay a freelance local writer to write out our press and content for the Littlebird Limited. So we had no idea. We read all about your subscription and re read what we had written and there is no doubt that the person who wrote for us ,for sure borrowed your text. We apologize for this, truly. We are currently working to change our text . That was not our intention to start our press like this. Although the text is the same the idea is not as grand as yours and we hope maybe to get to that level and we hope you take no offense.

My sister sent me this video yesterday. Maybe this is a modern form of patronage. Rather than commissioning a work solely for oneself, funding is provided for a project to happen and the final results are available to all. This isn’t a new idea; think of orgainzations like Creative Time and Public Art Fund, who solicit donations and funding from a wide variety of sources, and then help fund artists projects for a wider public to experience. The only difference is that this is a single corporate sponsor.

The creator of this video, Matt Harding, has made three of these videos now. The first was all by himself, just a thing for his friends and family to laugh at. But somehow, in that mystery that every ad executive craves for, the video went viral and within a month his server was crashing from all the traffic (YouTube wasn’t around yet) and millions of viewers had seen his goofy dance. Then he got a proposal from Stride.

They didn’t want to be involved, all they wanted to do was sponsor Matt to do another video. So they did, two videos really. It is obvious that this is not a commercial for Stride Gum. With the sponsor recognized only after all the credits have rolled, it is pretty inconspicuous. Stride could make a commercial in the exact same way, but that might kill whatever it is that made these videos so appealing. Maybe because it would lose its sponteneity, or the viewer lose the direct connection between the creator and the product, or maybe just because ads turn people off, it’s safe to say an overt Stride Gum commercial wouldn’t get 5 million views in just a couple months. What’s so great about these videos is that, from the start, they were fueled by the desire to make something, by art. I have to say though, whatever Stride was looking for to happen, it worked on me. Though I don’t buy gum, I have a good feeling about Stride.

Anyways, I thought this was a good followup to yesterday’s post, figuring out how people do what they do.

Just learned about a group called These Birds Walk. They are a small publisher out of Oakland(!) whose goal is ‘to provide affordable art books that quietly exist somewhere between a discarded pamphlet on the street and a high end coffee table book’.

It’s a little bit hard to tell what the deal is from their website, but they do offer subscriptions to four photography books distributed throughout the year. I am not sure if you can only buy them in the four book sets or if you can subscribe and start your subscription at any time. The first year resulted in a series entitled ‘The Kin Series’(link no longer works 10/09). They are just starting on their second series.

It is neat to find similar ideas all burgeoning around the same time. It seems like their subscription series started right around the same time as ours.