paulfish4570
Veteran
employer = patron.
Facing The Lack of Diversity in Photography and The Arts
- Thread starter Damaso
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Peter_wrote:
Well-known
maybe in countries, where you have no powerful federation of trade unions and no confident employees.
paulfish4570
Veteran
church as employer is, in effect, a patron.
Gumby
Veteran
Perhaps, but I don't know how one is to tell that from a screen name. Gender maybe, but not race. And, it is entirely possible that a white male is in a societal context in which he is a minority. Trust me on both.
zauhar
Veteran
There are powerful unions of artists? Where? Or are the unions controlling what artists do?
Do employers hire artists when they are confident, or unconfident?
Randy
haempe
Well-known
Why this?
What's special with a church as employer?
Peter_wrote:
Well-known
no, why should unions control, what artists do? they negotiate base salaries for employees.
sorry, in my last post i meant "employees", not "employers".
in an ideal situation, employees and employers are some kind of partners. one delivers work/product, the other the money/infrastructure. that i meant with confident employees. the employer as "patron" sounds very strange to me...
but maybe thats just some kind of misunderstanding on my side. "patron" sounds a bit like godfather to me...
felix5616
Established
How about cultural responsibilities and failures in promoting the arts as the reason for low minority representation. Children adopt thier beliefs and practices for their parents, community and peers, this is the reason for the statistics.
user237428934
User deletion pending
Indeed. I don't think that someone has an employment contract with a patron. But employees have an employment contract with their employer.
Gumby
Veteran
Perhaps this is a detail of employment law, but not often. At least in the US, generally employees are "at will" employees unless a specific employment contract is rendered... which isn't often unless one is the senior management type. "At will" means that you have a job but it is at the discretion of the company and they can decide with or without cause to terminate the job. Termination for cause is exactly what it sounds like; termination for any other reason could be that the job is no longer available or the need for such a job has ceased. Discrimination is not a good reason for terminating an employee without cause, though.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
American workers who belong to a labor union have contracts too, but few workers here are unionized anymore.
In some European countries, most employees have contracts. Different laws and traditions.
user237428934
User deletion pending
Working without a contract is a strange and very rare thing in Germany.
Gumby
Veteran
Ya, that's why I prefaced second sentence with "At least in the US" since I have limited knowledge of European or Asian business practices.
I've never been in a labor union, or employed anyone who was... but I thought they had contract with the union for protection rather than a contract with the company. Companies and unions have contracts, but I dodn't think that passed down to individual employees directly.
As a member of a professional union, I get "protection" from the agreement (contract) between the company and the union... but as an individual I am an at-will employee.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Labor unions negotiate the contract that the workers will have with the employer.
Peter_wrote:
Well-known
here (austria) unions negotiate some basic conditions with the representative of the employers, which are valid for all employees then, regardless whether they are member of an union or not.
but each employees has his own contract with an employers then.
but each employees has his own contract with an employers then.
user237428934
User deletion pending
I must admit that I didn't understand the initial problem and the analysis in that article completely. But I think that the perception of art is very class related. My father comes from a big family of craftsmen and farmers. If I went there and told them "I have a business now, I'm a craftsman in photography" they would be very pleased. If I told them "I am a photo artist now" they would ask my father what went wrong in my life. Some of them never went to a museum. In a rural area you even have to travel a long way to get to a museum.
So for me it's pretty natural that the "art industry" concentrates on the people already interested in art and on that kind of art they want to see.
So for me it's pretty natural that the "art industry" concentrates on the people already interested in art and on that kind of art they want to see.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Same in the UK,as far as I recall. But it's VERY unusual in the UK to have an individual contract. Or was, anyway. Dunno, because I've worked for myself for over 30 years. The boss is a hard taskmaster, but very understanding. The contract is not even verbal, but mental, and can be renegotiated in an instant.
Cheers,
R.
Gumby
Veteran
Yes, that is collective bargaining. I'm refering to individual (personal) employment contract. It seems that Europe is very different from US in that respect.
Iestrada
Well-known
Are you offering this as an informed fact or merely as a possibility? Everything is possible under the sun, but I do not believe that it has anything to do with culture. It's economic.
zauhar
Veteran
Peter, that is actually a good point - the patron/artist collaboration is a very special arrangement. The employer/employee relationship is not a collaboration, rather it involves one group, the employers, using the labor of the employees. (The very word employee = 'one who is employed (used)').
Unions represent organized power of employees, presented to balance the power of the employer. The situation for working people in the US has deteriorated largely because they wield no power, and are always at the mercy of the other.
How can an artist fit into this paradigm? In our society, they are in a position of power if the art they produce is popular with a lot of people; in that case they are the employer. (Madonna employs a large contingent of people, and negotiates contracts from a position of authority.) They are like a natural resource, but because they have legal autonomy under our system, they are self-regulating. They cannot be "used", those that wish to profit from their talents need to first gain their cooperation. Under a monarchy or theocracy they have no such position; if they reveal their talent, those in authority can demand control of it.
Under our system, an employer/employee relationship exists with an artist if the employer really does not care about the specifics of the art. For example, suppose I am putting up an apartment building, and local codes demand a component of "public art" in the design. I just need to buy some art. I find someone who has some reputation (this is mainly to cover my ass in case people hate the art and want to blame me). If the first artist I ask wants too much for the project I find someone else. Because, after all, the specifics don't matter much to me, I just want anyone with reasonable cred and low price. Hey, maybe some kids in art school will do it just for the experience!
The patron/artist situation mixes these two in a strange way. In this case the artist appeals not to a broad public, but to a particular individual. Both the artist and the patron are elevated, the artist by being recognized, the patron by being in the position to recognize, evaluate, and reward. The patron is the special individual who recognizes talent where others are blind to it. There is financial power on the side of the patron, but emotional power held by the artist. Both the artist and the patron validate each other in this relationship.
Randy
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