passing this on from the
Sydney Art Seen Society:
……………………
ECHO ACTION NO. 1
Yo Yo your No No
PUBLIC MEETING please pass on to others
WHEN MONDAY, 26 JULY 2004
WHERE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL (ENTRANCE)
372 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills
TIME 5:00 to 6:15pm
VISUAL ARTISTS say NO TO NOTHING but YES TO ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
With a Federal election looming, the Sydney Arts Management Advisory
Group (SAMAG) has invited the Federal Minister for the Arts, Shadow
Minister for the Arts and Arts spokespeople from the Australian
Democrats and The Greens to debate arts policy.
They will speak on how they see the future of the arts and what
policies they have to support and enrich the arts industry.
This meeting will be on Monday, 26 July 2004 at the Australia Council.
Please come along and greet the Feds to let them know what matters to
visual artists:
PROPER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
Yo yos will be supplied or bring your own.
This, our first echo action, is part of the VISUAL ARTISTS say NO TO
NOTHING national campaign (26 July – 30 August) that will carry the
STARVING VISUAL ARTIST “put the cliche’ to rest“ PETITION to
Canberra.
Please come along and Yo Yo your No No to the Feds and join us for a
cup of thermos coffee. At least come along and sign our petition.*
* A petition will be present that calls for a standard artists’ fee
of no less than $2,000 per individual exhibition and a pro rata payment no
less than $500 for group exhibitions to be adopted by all publicly
funded, visual art institutions, nationally.
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT CO-CONVENERS OF THE SYDNEY ART SEEN
SOCIETY
GAIL HASTINGS AND LISA KELLY AT sydneyartseen@yahoo.com.au
BACKDATED UPDATE – artist fees at AGNSW Level 2 Project Space
Great news to share is last week’s correspondence with the Curator of Contemporary Australian Art at the AGNSW Wayne Tunnicliffe, who has responded in utmost support to the premise of the SASS petition. In acknowledgement of SASS’s highlighting of the need for a formalised schedule of fees, Wayne has acted directly by re-writing the fee for exhibition in the Level 2 Project Space to $2,000 in the budget for corporate sponsorship that the gallery is currently seeking in order to continue this program (this being a real increase from the previous $1,200). Let’s hope the
corporates come to the party! Also interesting to learn was that it’s often the case that individual curators have to argue for the payment of artist fees within projects, which can make for their being open to variation.
SASS well appreciates the difficulties this creates for curators, administrators, artists and for a healthy sentiment between all parties, and
can only agree with Wayne that many organisations would surely welcome the implementation of a national standard.
So three cheers to a significant and incredibly positive first outcome from the position that SASS is yo-yo-ing overtime to establish!
26/7/04 – YO YO YOUR NO NO meeting no. 3, SAMAG’s ‘Meet the Feds’, Australia Council
Power to the yo yo! Monday’s first echo-action was a swinging success – informal, fun and importantly, effective. Full credit to all four Senators for entering the building through the front door and not the basement as advised by OzCo, so we had the pleasure of at the very least briefly eyeballing (Kemp) and at best chatting, meeting & greeting the Feds. Shadow Minister for the Arts etc Kate Lundy introduced herself freely, expressing support and awareness for the campaign and a desire to receive first hand information from artists on their experiences of professional practice(senator.lundy@aph.gov.au). She also stressed the support and awareness of the SASS campaign of Labor Party President Carmen Lawrence, encouraging us to lobby her directly. Very exciting! Senators Kerry Nettle & Aden Ridgeway signed in support of the petition, and we collected lots of signatures from supportive arts professionals attending the SAMAG meeting
and friendly passers-by.
Journalists from The Australian were on the phone & on the ground to check out what was going up & down, and we made good on YO-YO-ing our NO NO,
though shamefully none of the pics turned up in yesterdays article –
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10256001%255E16947,00.html
(also spied as a newslink at http://www.artforum.com!)
Unsurprisingly our campaign material rocked (yo-yos, balloons strung with SAY NO TO NOTHING graphic). Feedback from insiders suggests there was positive acknowledgement and support of our
presence during the meeting, whilst down at the door we were thrilled by the campaign feedback, advice and true yo-yo prowess of our new friend Grant of OzCo Security (though slightly outperformed by a superstar passerby, the
only one to come even close to Cat’s Cradle & Rock the baby).
SASS [sydneyartseen@yahoo.com.au]