Our Contracts Templates have been used to generate over 1,600 Agreements as of June 2024. Each of those agreements represent an artist protecting their work and themselves.

add your name in solidarity

Join our list of those who wish to publicly acknowledge their support of using written agreements over handshake deals in the art world, and for artists asking for greater protections and security for their work and financial stability.

Why?

By doing this, we hope to visibly show that there are many people in the art world who want to normalize the use of contracts. It's a simple protection that is standard practice in other industries, but the art world has not adopted it. A huge reason for this is because artists accept it. We can change this by asking for contracts.

 

Take a minute to share your experience using contracts

We’d love to hear your feedback about the Contracts that we share to help us know how best to help.

We are also looking for endorsements for our website - please send us your testimonial to add to our website.

You can use the form here or send us an email. Testimonials can be anonymous but we encourage you to include your name for full transparency.

Thank you!

 

This project is a collective initiative. We recognize that it will only be effective by inviting the participation of others, and that we could not have done this work without the labor, research and expertise of others working in the same field.

Additionally, we hope to bring more visibility to the process of negotiation and asking for agreements in writing so that artists become confident with this important piece of a professional practice.

 Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the following for their contributions to the areas of contract law, historical artist contracts, and blockchain technology, which we have relied on heavily for the development of the FARE Contract, and the overall project of normalizing artist contracts:

Lauren van Haaften-Schick, an art historian and curator researching the history of The Artist's Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement and related efforts.

Amy Whitaker is a professor and writer who is leading the research into the potential of blockchain for art world purposes and Fractional Equity in artworks.

Alex Strada is an artist and educator based in New York City and developed Artist Contract, an ongoing art project and economic redistribution strategy that poses an alternative to the gendered inequities that permeate the art market.

We are extremely grateful to Tim Franklin for his thorough and careful editing of the FARE contract. Tim Franklin is Founder and creative director of Hoverground Studios, a nonprofit production company in NYC which was the haven for many independent artists at the turn of the century. He currently serves as the Justice Commission Specialist for the Congress of Nations and States.

We are grateful to Alex Glancy for her contributions to the consignment and sales agreement and to the project as a whole. Alex Glancy is an attorney for impact-oriented companies, cooperatives, and creative individuals at Gundzik Gundzik Heeger LLP in Los Angeles.

We are also grateful to Sarah Conley Odenkirk for being a constant source of inspiration and good counsel.