I have been doing a bit of reading round for a blog entry I am writing for www.intute.ac.uk on earning a living as an artist. (These blog entries are paid and are slightly more formal than a-n!). As well as compiling websites in the UK that offer info and advice for artists – a full list to be posted soon – I started looking at what other countries offer their artists.
Something I didn't know, is that in Ireland, sales of artists' works are tax-exempt and have been since 1969:
http://www.visualartists.ie/alr_ate.html
Germany are looking at shortening the time before which artists can register for unemployment benefits. German artists also have the "Kün-stlersozialkasse" (KSK), an insurance scheme for self-employed artists and in 1981 the Artists’ Social Security Act made more links between the KSK and the social security system, although without speaking German, I found it difficult to find out what this means exactly!
In Canada, Netherlands and Denmark there are special pension schemes for artists and the Netherlands also has other benefit/support schemes, such as WAZ, but again my languages let me down. France has system in place to protect on use/reproduction of original work: 'droit de suite' but this naturally has its limits. Spain decided to follow France's example in 2008 and introduce resale rights for artists, not sure if this ever went through though… The UK has had resale rights since 2006 (starting on works with a minimum resale of 1000 euros), an IPO (Intellectual Property Office) report on the impact of those here:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/about/press/press-release/pr…
Interestingly, all of the European countries I looked at (France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, UK etc etc) offer tax exemption to companies on corporate sponsorship of the arts and in most cases there are also tax breaks for purchasing works or giving works to public collections.
Lastly, an interesting website from Brooklyn looking at the relationship between art and law, a US focus naturally, but it is international in its outlook:
http://www.clancco.com/
It does seem that artists' lives could be made easier in the UK through tax breaks, help with pensions or special schemes that recognise the unique and random nature of employment/earning as well as massively fluctuating and unpredicatable income. We do have a new deal for musicians, but not visual artists.
Trouble is, I am only just figuring out what I may earn and how I may earn it, nevermind what schemes/help would benefit me in the long term.
Image is by Susan Diab, who kindly agreed to let me reproduce this with the Intute blog entry, hopefully she won't mind it here too! What does it say? Work for a living or is it Work or a living… the ambiguity sums it all up nicely don't you think?
http://www.susandiab.com
