Artists in Wales have been voicing their concerns about an opportunity to display artwork at the National Assembly for Wales, after it transpired that no fee or expenses are being paid.
A recent call for submissions to exhibit in the Assembly’s Ty Hywel office building states: ‘The Assembly has a range of spaces available, including a corridor which can hold up to 20 A3-sized, 2-dimensional, framed artworks’. Submitted work, it adds, should ‘resonate with all who come into the building’.
A National Assembly spokesperson said: “Welsh artists have been able to display their work at the Assembly for a number of years. It has offered a unique opportunity to established and emerging artists to exhibit their work in a public space and at no cost.
“As the focal point of Welsh civic life the Assembly is proud to help promote Welsh culture and art. All artwork is returned to the artists after the exhibition and we regularly receive an extremely positive response to the opportunity that this arrangement presents.”
The statement from the National Assembly was prompted by initial enquiries – followed up by a-n news – from the newly formed Visual Artists Wales group. “It is important to challenge what is seen to be the norm at every level here,” said VAW. “The Assembly are wrong to not pay for professional work and services.”
Rabab Ghazoul, an artist from Wales who will exhibit at the Iraq Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, said: “The National Assembly, as our foremost political institution, has a great opportunity to demonstrate how it recognises the value of culture in Wales, and the artists who help to create it. In no other field of work would a professional be expected to produce work for free. Artists are workers, and like any other workers need to make a living.”
Bedwyr Williams, who represented Wales at the Venice Biennale in 2013, commented: “In Wales, when you are a younger artist there’s a feeling that anyone showing your work is doing you a huge favour. Most things we consume in our daily lives are poorly made and mass-produced and we are happy to pay through the nose for them, yet somehow there’s an idea that art and artists have no real worth. Public galleries and institutions should be setting an example.”
Long-standing issue
Cardiff-based artist S Mark Gubb, one of the Paying Artists campaign’s recently appointed Regional Advocates across the UK, said: “Non-payment is a long-standing issue. It is our intention that with sustained dialogue on a national scale those situations where artists are asked to exhibit work for no fee will no longer arise.”
Asked to comment on the issue of non-payment of artists, David Alston, Arts Director at Arts Council Wales, told a-n News: “The Arts Council of Wales has expressed its support for the Paying Artists campaign. The context for how the Council is lending its support can be found on its website. The Council’s initial focus is on those organisations we fund, but the aspiration has to be for a growing recognition for dealing professionally with artists in recognised and defined public contexts.”
Others working in the visual arts in Wales have expressed their concern about the message being sent by not paying an exhibition fee. Emma Geliot, editor of Wales-based arts magazine CCQ, said: “In not recognising that artists are professionals, who need to earn a living, the National Assembly is undermining the Welsh Government’s drive to make Wales a creative nation. There seems to be an attitude that a favour is somehow being bestowed in taking work.”
Artist and arts manager Steffan Jones-Hughes said: “Surely this is wrong? Not only does Westminster not give Wales enough money, but the Welsh Government doesn’t spend enough on the arts and now they want the artists to share their work for nothing?”
The National Assembly of Wales has been showing artists’ work since July 2012 and in that time has exhibited the work of 15 artists and photographers. The current exhibition, which runs until September, features work by eight students from Bangor University.
Gordon Dalton is an artist, writer and curator based in Wales.
Additional reporting by Chris Sharratt
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