Re: <nettime> Sorry, there's no fee, c'mon it's just a link!

[Peter Lunenfeld <peterl@artcenter.edu>]

>Do you think that artists shoul be paid everytime their website is linked?

Back in the 1970s, the structuralist filmmaker Hollis Frampton was offered a
retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This was the pinnacle of
the avant-garde media pyramid at the time, and Frampton was naturally pleased.
He wrote the curators and asked about the fee. They responded that their budget
was so small, and that it was such an honor to show at MOMA, that filmmakers
donated their work for the occasion. Frampton wrote back with asking a series
of questions: Was the museum director was being paid?  Were the curators being
paid? Was the graphic designer of the poster being paid? Was the printer of the
poster being paid? Were the delivery truck drivers from the printing plant
being paid? Were the poster hangers being paid? Were the guards opening the
doors of the screening room being paid?  Were the people taking tickets being
paid? Were the maintenance workers cleaning up after the event being paid? If
the answer to these questions was yes, he wanted to ask a final question. Why
then, was the artist whose work triggered all this economic activity expected
to donate his services for the cause of culture? 

Such are the vagaries of memory that I can't recall for certain whether the
retrospective went on and Frampton finally got paid (I think he did and that
MOMA changed its policies as a result). But I do remember that concise and just
letter.

Peter Lunenfeld


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