Art Business News
*History of Art Congress scheduled for the millenium
*Update on International Copyright Treaties
*Lotteries and the arts in Britain
*Artists invited to participate in on-line artwork, PORTE PAROLE
*Ontario creates new Crown Foundations
*Province of Ontario will appeal McMichael decision
Rogers Communications Inc. has established an on-line museum "mall". Viewers can electronically experience exhibitions and art from the permanent collections of a number of Canadian museums including the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal. At the site, Phil Lind ,Vice Chairman of Rogers describes the company's interest in the arts: "A natural kinship exists between Rogers and the arts. We both focus on stimulating and fostering communication. At Rogers, we know this can be an intense and exacting process. This is precisely why we marvel at the ability of artists to listen, absorb, incubate and communicate surprising ideas sometimes in revolutionary formats. It is through the dedication of the arts community that Canadians are learning to appreciate themselves". The site can be found at http://www.artwave.rogers.com
History of Art Congress scheduled for the millenium - London (Jan. 5/97)
The International Congress of the History of Art will hold it's 30th congress in London in September, 2000. 5000 art historians are expected to attend and participate under the theme of "the concept of time". For further information, contact Nigel Llewellyn, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QN
Update on International Copyright Treaties - Toronto (Jan. 5/97). Courtesy of Copyright and New Media Legal News. Editor Lesley Ellen Harris practises Copyright and New Media Law and is the author of the book "Canadian Copyright Law (Toronto, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1995). Ms. Harris can be reached at copylaw@interlog.com and at http://www.mcgrawhill.ca/copyrightlaw
Late Friday night (December 20, 1996), after three weeks of discussions in Geneva under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organization, negotiators from 160 countries reached agreement on two new international copyright treaties. As stated by Seth Schiesel in the New York Times (Saturday, December 21, 1996), the two new treaties will help pave "the way to broaden protections for the creators of art, software and music into cyberspace." These treaties deal with literary and artistic works including computer software, CD-ROMs and transmission on the Internet, as well as the rights of performers and producers in sound recordings. A contentious third treaty which was to provide protection in databases that are not otherwise protected by copyright was abandoned.
1997 should be a very interesting year as countries around the world review their copyright laws to meet the standards in the new international treaties and the demands of the digital age.
Lotteries and the arts in Britain - London (Dec. 22/96). Written by David Whittaker. Mr. Whittaker is a Communications Consultant, specialising in new media technology; he is studying for a History of Art degree at Birbeck College, London.
There is a lot of money going to the 'arts' from the lottery, but several ironic problems have been thrown up in the process:
1. Most of the awards have to be matched by privately raised funds, which is proving very difficult. I believe the 50-50 ratio has already been dropped so organisations now only have to raise perhaps 25% themselves, but when the total cost is tens of millions, even this is causing projects to start without a guarantee of being completed.
2. Originally the lottery awards were only available for capital spending, i.e. new buildings etc., rather than current costs, such as
for repairs, for mounting shows, and for improving service. This has now been relaxed, but only to some degree. One of the highest profile results of this is that the British Museum is planning an approximately $40-million expansion, i.e. captial, but had to consider imposing an entrance fee or reducing staff in order to balance the budget on its running costs.
3. Although the government said that lottery funds would in no way replace direct grants for public-supported institutions, and continue to deny they are doing so, almost the whole of the arts sector is seeing state support reduced. The usual accusation is that they're using the lottery to allow them to renege on their repsonsibilities, hence the conditions applied to Sir Denis Mahon's recent bequest of approximately $25-million worth of seventeenth century paintings. If the government imposes entrance fees, or reduces spending further, Sir Denis will leave his collection to foreign institutions.
One of the supposedly good things recently announced is an art-for-all campaign which intends to give small sums to community groups for virtually anything they want, such as mural painting, making rap music, dance troupes, parades, etc. The obvious accusation here is that money is poured down the drain in the name of the arts, producing nothing of any worth, and which would be better spent on more 'worthwhile' causes. Who judges, or on what criteria, those more worthwhile causes are evaluated, of course, is not addressed.
As regards the lotteries themselves, we're also seeing several studies into the negative aspects of gambling, specifically in relation to young people buying the 'instant scratch cards,' which are argued to be very addictive, and the fact that the people who spend most on the lottery tickets are the ones who can least afford it, notably the unemployed. "A tax on hope," it has been called.
On the whole, the extra cash has been welcomed by the arts community, but, of course, not without reservations, and a whole host of arguments about distribution, and what the long term effects will be. For the time being, it's still a big, appetizing pie, and everyone wants their piece.
Artists invited to participate in on-line artwork PORTE PAROLE - Newcastle upon Tyne (Dec. 22/96). News courtesy of Locus+, an arts organisation based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England and Heinrich Lueber (Performance Index, Basel) lue@easynet.fr
Basel -- http://www.CICV.fr/GALERIE/GARE
Point of departure
In France a strike is commonplace - a regular occurrence in the ordinary politics of bargaining over economic and social policies. Last December however, when for a period of three weeks public services - rail, schools, and post - came to a standstill, across the nation the strike became an exceptional phenomenon disrupting the everyday "normal" life of masses of people. Railway workers had gone on strike first in protest against a plan for restructuring their social insurance. This strike ignited similar concerns of workers in schools and the post office. What developed was a broad strike on three fronts interpreted by some as an eruption of widespread fear about social security in general.
Concept
The club Merleau - Ponty, a group of sociologist and journalists, followed demonstrations and conducted field research of the striking in Paris, e.g., they interviewed activists and sympathizers. Their purpose was to better understand the mechanics of this broad strike, e.g., how it was set into motion, gathered force, and ended, and, how the circulation of information affected the development. The aim was to generate a kind of picture of this blocking up of social force, the damming of the normal flow of life of masses of people across the nation. Now - nearly one year after the strike- the Club Merleau-Ponty has recently resolved the question of how to share their research results with a broad public. As conventional means - such as a lecture or symposium - seemed too cooly academic, the group opted instead for more lively active performative media and engaged the collaboration of the union members and artists working in the field of public art, language and communication. The associative concept is to set up a forum for larger reflection about broad-reaching economic and social developments through various activities; direct interventions in railway stations, performances, debates, and PORTE PAROLE, an project on the internet.
This project was realised as a ramification of the event GARE AUX MOVEMENTS.
PORTE PAROLE
Anybody can participate in this project by taking from this page images (a collection documenting the 1995 strike in Paris), working with these images and sending back the manipulated images to lue@easynet.fr.
With a simple click on the image you will get a version of approximately 50kb. The returned pictures will also be presented on this site for further manipulations.
(The pictures you will send us back should be, if possible, in Gif or Jpeg)
The different stages of the pictures will be documented and published on a CD-Rom for shows and debates in the end of this year.
Ontario creates new Crown Foundations - Toronto (Dec. 22/96)
The Ontario Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation, Marilyn Mushinksi, has exercised the new Crown Foundations Act to establish four new foundations for the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Botanical Gardens (Hamilton), the Royal Ontario Museum and the Ontario Arts Council. These foundations will allow donors to receive a tax credit equal to their gifts which may be used against 100 percent of their annual net income. Regular charitable institutions offer a 50 percent tax credit.
The Ontario Arts Council's new foundation called The Ontario Foundation of the Arts will accept gifts on behalf of "eligible" arts organisations in Ontario. 23 people have been appointed by the government to these new foundations.
Province of Ontario will appeal McMichael decision - Toronto (Dec. 22/96)
A recent court decision upholding a 1965 agreement between the Province of Ontario and seed donors and founders of the McMichael Canadian Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario, has upset the Ontario art community. Culture Minister Marilyn Mushinski has responded to pressure from cultural workers who believe that the decision will set a precedent for other donor-museum relationships. McMichael gallery donors Robert and Singe McMichael were concerned that the collection did not adhere to the conditions set in their original agreement with the Province. Specifically, the agreement dictated that acquisitions include works by the Group of Seven and others which the acquisition committee feel have contributed to the development of Candian art".
