Talking Points for Artists:

Using Contracts:

• Having a contract is a best practice for the protection of all parties involved in a transaction

• Most large purchases and monetary transactions in other industries use contracts

• Resistance to paperwork is not a strong argument for skipping the written agreement

• “This is the way it’s done” and “you should trust me” are not justifications for handshake deals

Resale Royalties:

The FARE Contract offers an optional term for the artist to receive a Resale Royalty.

• Resale Royalties are a right granted through legislation in over 70 countries around the world.

• Resale Royalties are already a common practice in some galleries and are a great way to build trust and strength in the gallery/artist relationship. Some galleries that have publicly acknowledged that they return a percent of profit to artists upon resale: Lisson Gallery, Victoria Miro (source), Jack Shainman (source), Andrea Rosen, Matthew Marks, Barbara Gladstone.

• The majority of collectors intend to keep the work that they purchase for their lifetime, in which case the resale royalty provision is a gesture of goodwill towards the artist and will not ever be utilized. The vast majority of people buying art truly want to keep that art for the rest of their life. They are not interested in flipping it for profit, so the Resale Royalty in the FARE contract should not be a barrier.  

• For those artists whose work goes to secondary market, it is fair that they benefit from the increase in value of their work

• Artists want the ability to earn a living through a sustainable system, and including terms that offer small, but meaningful opportunities to earn income from their work is one way to contribute to an artist’s sustainability.

• Visual artists are at a material disadvantage compared to other creative professionals such as authors, musicians and actors who have successfully advocated for royalties. Visual Artists do not in general share in the long-term financial success of their works, with any financial gains from resale going primarily to dealers, auction houses and collectors.

• A single artwork is one small part of an artist’s oeuvre. The artist’s practice involves many activities that contribute to an ongoing increase in value of their work. Most of these activities are uncompensated. The resale royalty offers a small but significant compensation for this ongoing labor. This in turn supports the artist and can help them continue to work and expand on their legacy, benefitting all who are owners of the artist’s work. 

• In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in BIPOC and female artists work. Often artists are “rediscovered” after decades long careers. While their work may skyrocket in value, these artists do not share in the profits.

• There is no evidence that the modest royalties provided to artists in the UK negatively impact the art trade, nor drive sales away from the U.K. In fact, comparing the percentage of ARR royalties collected by DACS against post-war, contemporary, and modern art auction sales in the U.K. in 2014—a record year for the market—ARR was only 0.64%. This suggests that artists’ share of the lucre is not big enough to put a dent in the market’s performance. Source.

Other Benefits:

Galleries and Collectors will also benefit from having sales agreements.

• Galleries can benefit from other provisions in the FARE Contract such as the prevention of sale for a period of time, which can prevent the destabilization in an artist’s market that flipping and selling work at auction can create.

• It is in the collector’s best interest to have a relationship with the artist: 

  • To consult for repairs

  • To maintain accurate records and provenance

  • To support the artist in their efforts at growing their practice and increasing the value of their work, and the interest in it (domino effect)

  • Because they recognize that the arts are crucial, and artists are the ones who make it. The visual arts in America are significantly underfunded, and so patronage from buyers of artwork is significant in an artist’s ability to continue making work 

• If galleries don't support artists in using contracts and being open to terms such as resale royalties and providing them with the names of the buyers of their work, artists will have even greater incentive to leave the gallery system. With the internet and artist-driven collective exhibitions and sales, the gallery system seems a relic of the past. If gallerists want to maintain their artists' loyalty, they are going to have to support artists in enforcing their rights. Many gallerists supported their artists' use of the 1971 Artists' Contract; those gallerists kept their artists' loyalty.

• There is a sea change happening in the art world where power is being redistributed to marginalized and disempowered groups. The system has been built by and for primarily white people. Women and People of Color are moving into and upward in a system that wasn’t designed to support them, and so they are working to change it; they are leading the way because they are the most vulnerable to the negative effects of art market speculation. Destinee Ross-Sutton is an example of a young female Curator of Color who is vocally advocating for the best interest of the Black Artists that she works with and is using contracts to do so. We should all be advocating for artists to be protected and treated fairly within the art world.
  

Provenance:

The FARE Contract provides the option for the artist to be notified of future owners of the work.

• Using the FARE contract and a partner blockchain registry can securely track provenance, which helps with later authentification and valuation of the artwork.

• Artists are often told they cannot be granted access to the names of the collectors of their work because of a belief they are likely to abuse the information. This perpetuates the negative perception that artists are untrustworthy, won’t honor their agreements, will make unprofessional choices and that they should be kept out of the relationships involving the sale of their work. Artists frequently feel they are the least powerful in a negotiation and this contributes to an imbalance of power and opportunity within the art world.

• Registrars and Conservators agree that knowing the full provenance and being able to connect an artwork to an artist is crucial in caring for the legacy of artworks.

• Without at Catalogue Raisonné, it’s harder to establish or confirm a value when there isn’t an accounting of the works made in an artist’s lifetime. This disproportionately impacts Artists of Color and women artists.

• The provenance of an artwork impacts its ability to be properly appraised.