Live for Art — Just Don't Expect to Make a Living from it: The Worklife of Australian Visual Artists

Abstract

Visual artists make up one of the few occupational groups in Australia where the majority of those working in the field are not regulated by awards or agreements that set minimum rates of pay and conditions. This is because most artists are self-employed and therefore lie outside the industrial relations regulatory framework. This article builds on the results of a survey of members of the National Association of Visual Artists (NA VA). The survey was designed to provide a picture of the income sources and activities of persons who work in the arts industry. For the majority of artists, the paid work undertaken as an artist was not their main source of income. These artists supplemented their art-producing income with other art and non-related income-producing work. A significant proportion of NAVA members work for a living in the visual arts industry as teachers, arts administrators, curators or in other art-related work; many of these also produce art in their spare time. The data collected were then used to develop a typology based on the combination of artists' time-use and income-generating activities. The typology was generated through the use of a cluster analysis that revealed three major groups of artists and a number of subgroups within these three major groupings. Given the complexities of the artist's labour market experiences, a number of options are canvassed as to how the precarious nature of artists' work could better be managed. One approach to regulation is to accept the realities of the artists' labour market and build around this through a system of accruing entitlements that come from working in the industry rather than for any one individual or organisation. It is suggested that governments could also take a different approach by recognising the special nature of artists' work, specifically the fact that artists move in and out of the labour market over their lifetimes. A whole-of-life approach to the problem is therefore necessary.