Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at IIT

For close to forty years, National Artists Equity has represented the best interests of practicing artists throughout the country [U.S.A.] on mail), significant economic and legal issues. Now, our national Executive Board has adopted this Declaration or Rights to serve as a guide to insists and artists' organizations in developing their own economic and legislative programs. No attempt has been made here to raise all the issues facing artists or to represent every interest Of artists. Instead, the following nine problems have been selected and a line of solution has been indicated for each. National Artists Equity realizes that many of those proposed solutions can become accepted only if the artists work together in their own behalf.

We urge the immediate acceptance of the following program:

1 Business Practice with Art Dealers

National Artists Equity has always opposed improper and abusive art dealer practices. Few merchants outside the art world would expect to finance their inventor ies at the suppliers' expense When an artist finds it necessary to consign works, thus stocking the dealer's gallery, the artist should require proof of full-risk insurance coverage plus full and prompt payment for sold work. Artists should receive a copy of the sales invoice with payment.

2 Freedom of Expression

Artists as citizens of a free society have the right to freedom of expression without fear of government reprisal or censure. Furthermore, artists must be free to exhibit their work for that audience that wishes to see it without the censuring intervention of the state.

3 Guidelines for Juried Exhibitions

National Artists Equity is unalterably opposed to artists bearing the cost of exhibitions in the form of entry fees. Furthermore, Equity expects exhibiting sponsors will provide insurance and adequate security while juried work is in sponsors' possession.

The selection of judges and jurying of exhibitions should be accomplished so that aesthetic considerations are maximized and extraneous biases are minimized. To this end, judging should be done in terms of the work self. Neither age, sex, religion, nor the race of the artist should be a qualification or deterrent for the work submitted to any government-supported exhibition. In general, local judges should not be selected because of a possible bias.

4 Clear Documentation of Artworks

Legislation is needed which requires that all works of art, and reproductions which somehow resemble works of art, be labeled fully and explicitly. The details of how a multiple was made should be very clear. Too often, all art dealer offers to sell a work of art without stating Whether it is a unique work, a handcrafted multiple original, or in inexpensive mass-reproduced copy. The artist and the art-collecting public need protection against misrepresentation and incomplete disclosure of the fact regarding the originality of an artwork or any work that seems to be ail artwork.

5 One Percent for Art in Building

Our urban areas, new and old, need art to lift the spirits of the people who live and work in them, to affirm humanistic values and to individualize the environment. In a culture which too Often emphasizes class or gross values, the need to employ fully the special vision of artists has never been greater. All planners of publicly funded building enterprises should be requited to allocate at least one percent of their construction budget to art. Architects engaged in planning privately funded
major construction are urged to adopt a similar policy.

6 Artist Representation on Boards of Art Institutions

The art museum, art institutions, and art schools exert a powerful influence over the visibility of the output of contemporary artists. Professional artists, however, have had little influence over the policies and practices of such organizations, despite the artists' potential unique contribution. Artists must join together in insisting oil strong representation on the boards if these public institutions, whether supported by government fund or tax-deductible donations.

7 Media Coverage of the Arts

A recent Harris poll indicates that 89 percent of the American public believe that the arts are very important to the quality of life in their communities. And yet television, radio, newspaper, and magazine facilities typically are miserly in allocating budgets, staff time, and space to the work of artists. Vastly expanded coverage by the media is urgently needed at the level of both news and features, designed to bring contemporary art to the broader public which has both the need and the right to such materials.

8 Restore Tax Deductions for Artists' Gifts

The present income tax law discriminates against artists. It is unfair that the artists' donations of their work not be deductible from income tax, while other citizens may deduct the full market value or the same donation, as provided in the 1969 Tax Reform Act. This law has already cost the American public many major cultural gifts, An important example is the loss of the manuscript library of Igor Stravinsky, which was originally destined to be given either to Yale or to the Library of Congress. When Stravinsky carried that the gift of his papers, which were worth more than three and a half million dollars, would bring no tax benefits to his heirs, he changed his bequest so that the collection went to the USSR instead. A major artist often retains important and pivotal works, hoping to make this work available to public viewing and scholarly study at a later date. But the denial of tax benefits to the artist makes such strategies economically unsound. These provisions should be repealed in fairness to artists and to promote the cultural well-being of the public as well.

9 Fair Estate Tax Policies for Artists

In recent years well-established artists have been burdened with a strange estate planning problem, imposed upon them by apparently uninformed and shortsighted Internal Revenue Service agents. Failing to recognize many of the differences between the art market and the other markets, these tax collectors have demanded (as in the case of the David Smith estate) huge estate tax pay', merits based on inflated appraisal practices and the assumption that a large collection of an artist's work - sometimes a major portion of the artist's lifetime creative effort - could be readily and profitably liquidated to satisfy their claim to estate taxes. Confiscatory estate tax policies must be replaced with more evenhanded regulations which provide for taxing of heirs, who can reason ably be expected to pay taxes on a collection only as the works arc sold. Unrealistic appraisals and forced liquidation or an artist's estate are not the practices which advance the best interests of the government or the heirs. In a similar fashion, municipalities should not tax unsold works of a living or dead artist as "inventory."

*National Artists Equity Association Inc., P.O. Box 28068, Central Station, Washington, DC 20038, USA Reprinted with permission. ©1974. (See item on the A.E.A. in Leonardo 10, 238 (1977).