Sunday November 17, 2013
RoseLee Goldberg in the NeueHouse
In New York, the 2013 edition of Performa is in full swing, with a packed programme of electrifying offerings which end on November 23. Johannesburg artist Nicholas Hlobo was scheduled to give a key performance, but was prevented by illness from taking part. Check the list of events that are happening at www.performa-arts.org.
The current New Yorker refers to director RoseLee Goldberg ‘the art historian who founded the festival in 2005 and who wrote a key book on the genre in 1979’ as ‘performance art’s P.T. Barnum’.
I had a working session with RoseLee in New York in October, on my way back from Saint Paul. We are planning a show in the city for late 2014, and sat down to talk in the NeueHouse, an amazing downtown space on East 25th for the unattached (to an office space) to work. (‘A place to tap the fuzziness between art and life’ wrote the Financial Times). The luxurious five floor high ceilinged industrial space has quiet corners with leather couches, busy areas with rows of computers, restaurant facilities, sparkling water on tap, and a screening room amongst its numerous facilities. I just wanted to move in.
Three days later, I flew back to Cape Town and three days after that, left for Hong Kong, but more about that vibrant city another time.
Jane Alexander ‘Untitled’
Right now I want to talk about the sale of Jane Alexander’s ‘Untitled’ at the Strauss Art auction on Monday night in Johannesburg. Everyone in the local art world now knows that this powerful figurative sculpture fetched an astounding R5.5 million, a South African auction record, and was sold to a private collector.
It came on to the market for the first time since it was initially sold for R800 on Alexander’s first solo show at The Market Galleries in Johannesburg in 1986. The price achieved on Monday night was a just recognition of Alexander’s brilliance, and of the importance of her early work.
Comments on Facebook this week have implied that a system that allows a work to be sold at a price in such enormous excess of its original cost without benefitting the artist in any monetary way is unfair to the artist.
If so, the fault is not with the auction system or the auction houses, but with the laws of the land.
Some countries do enforce the payment of a percentage of a resale of an artwork to the artist. The Artists Resale Right (ARR) has been in operation in the European Union since June 2006. The regulations entitle living artists (and the heirs of dead artists up to 70 years after their death) to receive a royalty each time their work is resold by an auction house, gallery or art dealer. Work must sell through a professional art establishment for a minimum amount set in each country (in Ireland, it’s least 3000 euros less in some other countries). Australia and the Phllipines have similar arrangements.
Under the European Union system, Alexander would have received R27,500 – 0.5% of the sale, to be debited to the seller.
In North America, California had a system of resale rights for 35 years until it was declared unconstitutional in 2012. In Canada, two members of parliament are currently proposing such a system.
If South African artists want Artist’s Resale Rights, we need to propose a new law. At the same time, proposing a tax deduction for buyers of artwork, and a 1% allocation to art for all new buildings would also be great ideas.
