Supplementary Memorandum submitted by
a-n The Artists Information Company
1. a-n The Artists Information Company is
pleased to have an opportunity to present our intimate knowledge
of artists' working practices, gained over a 25-year period, to
this inquiry.
2. We are in effect the professional body
for visual artists, representing the practices and interests of
thousands of artists across the UK. These encompass fine artists,
applied artists, photographers, new media and performance or time-based
artists, at all stages of development and public recognition,
and including current art and design students and their tutors.
An estimated 32,000 artists and arts professionals[1]read
a-n Magazine a month. We advertise over £7 million of opportunities
and work for artists annually.
3. We are also recognised as a trusted mediator
between artists and employers. We provide seminars, briefings
and publications with guidance for public sector employers including
The Code of Practice for the VisualArts[2]Good
practice in paying artists[3]and
Good exhibition practice (forthcoming).
4. Through our publications and events,
we expose and analyse the diversity of what contemporary visual
artists make and do, ranging from paintings and art objects for
sale, works made to commission for public and private settings,
community and educational workshops and residencies that engage
with social inclusion and regeneration agendas, and artists' consultancy
and expert services for cultural and business development.
5. As Conrad Atkinson commented[4]
"Not all of us make corporate art, not all of us think art
should shock the English middle classes, not all of us are more
interested in our own blood than the blood of those dying in [other
parts of the world]. Perhaps art can't really make a difference
but it can highlight alternative ways of seeing and living."
6. "We don't know if art, which nowadays
is so quickly appropriated by advertising and entertainment can
change things, but we never know when we might need it, where
it is going to come from next, what it might look like."
7. This inquiry is addressing how best to
support living artists in the production of new work. History
shows that a large, vibrant visual arts sector is a prerequisite
for artistic quality and for "cultural capital"[5]to
emerge, from which immediate and longer-term benefits for the
profession and society ensue. We are thus proposing some solutions
as a framework designed to impact on the many, not the few, and
that understands the diversity of approaches, products and creative
services that make up the profession of "visual artist"
nowadays.
8. Our suggestions are designed to support
newcomers as they join our profession burdened by student debt,
as well as artists who find themselves—for whatever reason—at
a point of transition in their professional lives. They also respect
the contribution that artists make in a lifetime, by suggesting
an approach to creating an artists' pension scheme.
9. The recommendations we have made, on
behalf of many artists who consider themselves to be professional
and of value to society, suggest tangible ways to assist artists
whether:
1. Makers of unique works of value to be
sold.
2. Animateurs encouraging others in creative
expression.
3. Public servants making work to commission.
4. Economic units—micro businesses.
5. Social workers—empowering others.
7. Self-determining creators—setting
up their own gallery, studio, etc.
8. Visionaries with "social conscience"[6]
10. Or, as is more likely to be the case,
a combination of these. The majority of artists nowadays operate
in a "mixed economy" in which sales of artwork sit alongside
sales of skills and services to various clients, and fees and
grants for research and consultancy. Although public exhibitions
are vital to an artist's standing in the artworld and provide
routes to the commercial galleries, artists' income from them
in terms of public exhibition fees has diminished over the years.[7]
GOOD PRACTICE—VALUING
ARTISTS
11. Our own research[8]shows
that compared with other professions with similar levels of skills
and training, artists are on the whole a poorly-paid and misunderstood
profession. The joint advocacy campaign being undertaken with
Arts Council England aims to redress this. It provides strategic
and practical advice to artists and arts employers. This relates
remuneration levels to artists to that of teachers and to the
skills and abilities required by artists to undertake residencies
and public commissions. It also articulates the specific costs
of self-employment within the calculation of suitable rates of
pay.
12. The Code of Practice for the Visual
Arts provides a user-friendly framework for artists and employers.
It is supported by practical advice in the form of interactive,
legally-sound Visual Arts Contracts that enable artists to learn
about contractual processes and better negotiate agreement terms,
and Fees and Payments guidance that links payments to artists
with similar professions seeks to improve professional arrangements.
These tools are intended to make a difference, both to the quality
of artists' lives and the quality of the art experience for others.
13. DCMS could play a pivotal and highly-influential
role in advocating for wider adoption by local government, healthcare
trusts and other public and grant-distributing agencies of the
Code of Practice for the Visual Arts and its associated legal
and financial guidance, for the benefit of working artists now
and in the future. Promotion by DCMS of the requirement that measurement
of good practice should include evidence of valuing artists financially
and demonstrably supporting their professional development would
also be welcomed.
14. As self-employment is a characteristic
of the profession[9]we
are seeking recognition of, and tangible incentives for, artists
to participate in and afford to undertake Continuing Professional
Development (including research and development) comparable to
that expected of other professionals. This would enable artists
to maintain quality and innovation in their practice and provide
"evidence" of their professionalism and adherence to
the Code of Practice, to commissioners of public or commercial
projects[10].
CULTURE IN
ITS OWN
TERMS
15. Tessa Jowell[11]has
cited the advantage of valuing and supporting artists in their
own terms. It could be argued that there are two modes of engaging
with culture:
— as a tool—a top-down instrumental
process where outputs are determined by those in control of resourcing.
— as a process—shifting power
and trusting artists to take responsibility and control over their
projects and professional development.
16. This bottom-up realisation of possibility
and potential is where art is at its most transformative and where
we believe support should cluster.
17. Social networks are capable of enhancing
professional, personal and community well-being[12]In
the environment for artists, they provide an essential ingredient
by reducing isolation and providing points for professionals to
exchange information, knowledge and skills. Some 78% of artists[13]would
welcome more support and encouragement for networking in this
respect. This offers a challenge to existing support structures
that grant-aid a very small percentage of individual artists.
But by investing in the grassroots of artists' networks and learning
to understand their patterns and impacts, the potential for organisation
and decision-making emerges, suggesting possible new forms of
coordination, collective action and public benefit.
18. Our UK wide action-research into Networking
artists' networks recognises the importance of creating "confidential
conversations" and peer review amongst artists, in support
of-risk taking and experiment, towards heightened artistic development
and creative "edge". Such artist-led initiatives are
"value for money" because they create "cultural
capital" and economic benefit in a location, as funds to
artists are largely spent locally.[14]
19. Such programmes offer valuable insights
into new approaches to measuring the impact of artists and their
activities, that extend traditional economic imperatives.
This includes evaluation of the impact a project
had on the artist themselves, the broad social and environmental
context and on the cultural identity of a place, in the short
and longer term.
LIFESTYLE APPROACH
20. By being primarily concerned with self-development,
self-sufficiency and creative independence, artists may be described
as having a lifestyle approach[15]This
approach is significant to government and society because creative
individuals who don't see the economic model as the only measure
of success offer society opportunities to see or live differently.[16]
21. It could be argued that supporting what
artists are rather than the specifics of their products and services
is where public sponsorship most effectively sits. It is also
important that public (and private) patrons don't seek to exploit
a relationship with an artist whom they view as "not businesslike".
DOMS endorsement would ensure that "fair dealing", and
its monitoring as regards professional arrangements with artists,
is measured as a requirement of public funding.
22. Whilst government is concerned overall
with the "pensions gap", we recommend that consideration
is given to supporting initiatives aimed specifically at visual
artists—where incomes are lower—with money from opportunities
such as implementation in the UK of droit de suite a potential
pump-primer.
VALUING SPECIALISM
23. In the spirit of the newly defined Arts
Council's ambition for "a new grown-up relationship with
arts organisations; one that is based on trust, not dependency
. . ."[17]
we propose greater tangible support for the artist-led approach'
that embraces emerging and challenging practice and contributes
to the development of a more equitable relationship between artists
and those with a stake in their work.
1 Subscribers and retail sales, based on two readers
per copy. Back
2
The Code of Practice for the Visual Arts-with versions for artists
and arts organisations commissioned by Arts Council England from
a-n The Artists Information Company published 2003 is freely available
on www.a-n.co.uk Back
3
Part of the "Fees and payments" portfolio of material
grant-aided by Arts Council England, published on www.a-n.co.uk
and in print. Back
4
a-n Magazine December 2002. Back
5
"Cultural capital"-the product that arises when a strong
sense of artistic vision, ambitious approaches to creation and
presentation of work and the willingness to be experimental are
combined with a passion for self-development and creative success,
Roles and reasons, Susan Jones, 1997. Back
6
The Business of being an artist City University London 1995. Back
7
Artwork-artists'jobs and opportunities 1989-2004, www.a-n.co.uk,
2004. Back
8
Artists' fees and payments, University of Newcastle, 2004. Back
9
Artists' fees and payments, University of Newcastle, 2004 suggests
that visual artists are around three times as likely as the working
population in general to be self-employed. Surveys since 1991
locate self-employment amongst artists as between 42-48%. Back
10
Work by CDP expert Lee Corner has, amongst other things, considered
a CPD "kitemark" that artists could include on CVs,
applications and proposals, to impact on payment levels. Back
11
Too often politicians have been forced to debate culture in terms
only of its instrumental benefits to other agendas . . . we have
avoided the more difficult approach of investigating, questioning
and celebrating what culture actually does in and of itself .
. . not as a piece of top-down social engineering, but a bottom-up
realisation of possibility and potential, Government & the
Value of Culture, May 2004. Back
12
A profoundly disruptive shift has occurred in our societies, making
networks the mostimportant organisational form of our time and
reshaping the activities of families, governments and businesses,
Network logic, Demos, 2004. Back
13
Cited in Networking Networks, a-n The Artists' Information Company,
2002 and Strengthening the infrastructure for visual artists,
Arts Council England, 2002. Back
14
Measuring the experience: the scope and value of artist-led organisations,
Susan Jones, 1996. See also The economics of artists' labour
markets, Ruth Towse, Arts Council of England, 1996. Back
15
Artists run their practice less as a business and more as a statement
about who they are and what they value: creating meaningful work
that parallels all that is important an their lives. Running a
one-person business, Whitmyer, Raspberry and Phillips, 1989. Back
16
See New Economic Foundation's well-being manifesto, 2005. Back
17
Peter Hewitt, 2003. Back
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