Who should assume the risk when art gets controversial – the artist or their employer?

Vahri McKenzie, Edith Cowan University

How we value the arts comes down to much more than looking at the sector’s economic contributions. There are also the social benefits, and the importance of connection to culture on a societal level.

Importantly, we need to value art in all its forms – even when it’s confronting or politically risky. When artists take risks, they add value to society. They may express deeply felt convictions, or progress public discourse by challenging common beliefs.

But taking risks means being left exposed. The question then is: to what extent are arts organisation responsible for protecting artists?

An intro to governance

Australian organisations operate in three sectors with distinct governance obligations.

Private companies require at least one director, while a public company – a corporation open to investment by the public – must have at least three directors. A director makes major decisions on a company’s behalf and holds all legal responsibility.

Incorporated non-profits require “responsible people”. These are generally members of the governing board or committee who agree to act in the best interests of the non-profit, including through responsible management of finances.

There are also cultural statutory authorities, established by specific acts of state or federal parliament. These have board members appointed by government. Examples include funding bodies such as Creative Australia, and arts organisations such as the National Portrait Gallery and the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

Read more: Would Sidney Nolan be cancelled for painting Ned Kelly today? That’s what Creative Australia has done to Khaled Sabsabi

The importance of the board

In Australia, boards have become the dominant governing structure for arts organisations seeking legitimacy and government funding.

Boards provide a way to manage business while being guided by an organisation’s own rules and values. They will also, ideally, amplify a diverse range of voices to allow for robust debate.

Today, corporate board structures are a notable feature of even small and medium non-profit arts organisations. Board members may have skills in finance, law or marketing – which can be advantageous for growing an organisation.

However, tensions around the makeup of boards – which might render organisations somewhat corporate in their approach – reveal fault lines around how to manage risk and freedom of expression, and what artists can expect of the companies that employ them.

We saw these problems play out at Adelaide Writers Week earlier this year, when dozens of artists withdrew to protest the board’s decision to rescind its invitation to Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah.

Within days, Writers Week director Louise Adler resigned, board members stepped down, and the event was cancelled.

Jo Dyer, former director of Writers Week, has said board-level risk management is no longer confined to finances:

it is much more about managing the different perspectives that different stakeholders have on key political, and often very febrile, issues. […] And you cannot fix these problems that emerge by silencing the artists on whom you rely, and whose work is the raison d’être of the organisation itself.

As a statutory body, the Adelaide Festival is vulnerable to political interference, despite having strong artistic representation on its board.

Externalised risks

Fewer than one in four professional artists in Australia work for a salary or wage in their primary artistic occupation. Instead, they’re more likely to be hired to work on a project (such as an actor in a theatre company season), or be paid for a work (such as an artist being paid a gallery fee to display their art).

Because artists are often employed as contractors, and therefore don’t have the same rights as employees, they tend to assume certain risks from arts organisations.

For one thing, the organisation may only pay for the presentation or performance. It might not pay for the work that produces the performance, including the hours of practice required to be performance-ready. This means organisations can defray the financial risk of employing an artist whose work outputs wax and wane.

Work structured in this way also externalises creative risk. Artists as contractors can easily be cut loose when they behave or express themselves in a way that’s criticised by paying audiences or donors.

We saw this in the recent freedom-of-speech cases involving concert pianist Jayson Gillham, who lost his court battle against Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and broadcast journalist Antoinette Lattouf, who won hers against the ABC.

These structures are unsustainable, as they push risk onto those who can least afford it. Too often we have seen large arts organisations reactively fold in the face of criticism, rather than holding their nerve and leaning on their institutional value.

Cultural value needs courageous advocates

Professor of cultural value, John Holden, has described the value that institutions accrue as trusted civic spaces and agents of what the public wants.

As long-term beneficiaries of public support, arts organisations have significant influence in cultural debates. But this influence can be eroded when they withdraw support from artists – which is easily done with casualised labour.

To better protect artists from financial and legal risk, arts boards must slow down their decision making, while withstanding media scrutiny.

Moreover, diverse representation on boards – of cultural as well as professional backgrounds – is necessary to produce robust discussion that will help protect artists’ rights.

It’s true that arts organisations are bigger than any one individual, but they cease to exist without their artists.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.