Jeremy Eccles
Jeremy Eccles
Freelance Commentator and Critic
I start with the note I put up on the Aboriginal Art Directory website on Tuesday:
ONLY DAYS TO GO TO RESPOND TO THE CODE OF CONDUCT
People who care about how Aboriginal art is 'brought to market' have only until Friday 20th March to respond to the Australia Council's draft Code of Conduct for the industry.
The place to go to examine their proposals – which were published on 18th December after the nation's arts ministers had largely thrown out of the window the two and a half years of industry-wide consultation carried out by the National Association of Visual Art (NAVA) – is:
The site has a place for your comments, but it doesn't allow you to read others' submissions – as the Senate enquiry into the Aboriginal Art industry (which called for a Code to be brought into being) did.
Areas to consider are whether the definitions of the three main player categories in the industry identified by the Code – artists, agents and dealers – are actually clear enough to be workable (indigenous art centres, for instance are defined as both 'artists' and 'agents' at different stages); whether the bureaucracy involved in communicating between 'dealer' and 'artist' about such matters as progress in the sale of an artwork and the use of an art centre's Certificate of Authenticity will tie the industry up in knots; whether it is proper to use the Code as a way of controlling access to secret/sacred material, using such vague terms as “current traditional owners”; whether there is enough emphasis placed on the end-use customers being educated about the Code and told of their rights to both full information and remedy by the dealer selling an artwork; and whether public art institutions should be part of the Code or not – currently they're excluded.
It is also a matter of conjecture as to whether a Desert artist needing to sell art in Alice Springs will be in any different position after the Code than s/he was before it without the establishment of a dedicated painting centre there to negotiate with a marketplace that may or may not be a signatory to the Code on his or her behalf.”
Clarifying some of my points in detail:
1) The three categories of players in the indigenous art industry have to be clearer; to have the art centres identified as both 'artists' (in the case where an 'artist's representative' is considered to be the artist for the purposes of this Code'), and as 'agents'. Although within the art centre, the adviser/coordinator/director has many functions that range from social and financial to aesthetic, to the outside world, that person is an agent for the Centre's artists and should be subject to the Code's regulations in dealings with other agents, dealers or buyers. Clearly though, this is a different sort of agent to a dealer like Palya Art, Aranda Art or the Short Street Gallery. The confusion continues with the usage of the word 'commission' to apply only to agents. It is also the name of the charge by a commercial art gallery/dealer. It may be back to the drawing board on this one!
2) In Part 2, section 5 (2)(b) and (j) – are fine words unrelated to the realities of a town like the Alice. No 'dealer' there will forbear to take advantage of a remote artist's 'financial need' while in town whether they've signed the Code or not. Artists are invariably so desperate to pay off social debts to family, etc that cash in hand, cars or accommodation (unconsidered by the Code) are eagerly seized upon. Only a dedicated Painting Centre in the town where Desert artists can take refuge to paint as they would in their own community and be paid a proper rate for their painting will solve this problem; and it's a tragedy that a body such as Desart has not set this up before now. It might have obviated the need for a Code!
3) Section 14 (f) is important – it is high time the full provenance of an artwork was revealed by a commercial gallery or auction.
4) Section 15(1)(f) raises a fraught issue of who can today define secret/sacred material on behalf of a deceased artist. Pre-PTA boards that have already been seen publicly in exhibitions, catalogues or books can't just disappear at the behest of undefined “current traditional owners”. This is a complex issue beyond the remit of the Code, I'd have thought.
5) Section 16(3) & (4) raises bureaucratic nightmares for small businesses. The idea of a commercial gallery or auction house having to get permission to use an art centre Certificate of Authenticity attached to an artwork is unimaginable. No overworked art centre coordinator would want the extra responsibility either.
6) There's a distinct lack of concern for the ultimate buyer – who is, after all, going to be the main monitor of the Code. Documentation is clearly going to have to be supplied to all retail outlets signing up to the Code to assist in the education of the buyer as to what information they're entitled to and what remedies might exist in the case of dissatisfaction. The Code might, for instance, legislate the right of the buyer to know what the artist earned for an artwork – a proposal long encouraged by Melbourne dealer, William Mora.
7) It will be important to have well-informed outsiders on the Code Administration Committee – such as a multi-part player like Adrian Newstead or a long-time commentator like myself. The industry is so divisive and most players so blinkered by their particular role, they could easily cause the committee to be non-functioning!
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