Labor and production conditions in the visual arts. Some reflections on the right pf participation

Abstract

The historical review of the concept of the visual artist introduces a complex and problematic imaginary that naturalizes an idealized creator where his work and artistic product seems to deny commercial and retributive aspects. Considered an invaluable, spiritual and intellectual work, over time, this idea favored the markets and created numerous intermediary agents in the artistic field as the professional artist and his working conditions were relegated. Today, when relating the artistic practice with its working and production conditions, it is worth asking, what values ​​does that work produce, under what working conditions is it carried out, what are its intellectual and patrimonial rights and who obtain the best profits. This article reviews the modes of insertion of artists as workers in the art system today, the different values ​​involved in artistic exchanges and focuses particularly on the analysis of the "Right of participation" or Droit de Suite to try to clarify its scope and limitations, its advantages and disadvantages for strengthening the employment situation of visual artists, and their prospects for application in Argentina. This right has obtained half sanction in the Senate of the Nation in 2015 and would seem to constitute an advance in the conquest of better working conditions for visual artists in Argentina. However, it also introduces new tensions within the artistic field that involve the different actors participating in the structure of production, the circulation of artistic goods and practices, consumption and the market.