The New Agreement on Minimum Artist Fees

is an inter-institutional document setting out the minimum level of remuneration for participation in particular categories of contemporary art exhibitions in Poland. It represents a landmark development, introducing a new standard in the remuneration of – and the understanding of – artists’ work. It builds on the Civic Forum for Visual Arts’ first initiative on minimum remuneration, introduced in 2014.

Fees for participation in exhibitions vary – they may be lower, higher, and are often unpaid. For this reason, in an effort to address this problem and to ensure that artists’ work is properly remunerated, Forum has proposed a new system for calculating minimum fees. More institutions are joining the New Agreement, although it has not yet been implemented in many. Therefore, when participating in exhibitions at institutions that have signed the New Agreement, you may expect the rates set out in the agreement. For all other institutions, we propose that the New Agreement should at least serve as a point of reference, helping you to establish a starting point for valuing your work when taking part in an exhibition.

The solution proposed by OFSW introduces a new method for calculating the exhibition fee. Under the New Agreement, the amount of the fee is linked to the statutory minimum wage in Poland for the relevant year. Given the specific nature of contemporary artistic practice, the New Agreement proposes an approximate working time expressed in months – the time required to produce a given work – as the basis for the fee payable, with the minimum wage serving as the reference point.

The rates set out in the New Agreement therefore derive from the working time required to prepare the work, multiplied by the statutory minimum wage applicable in the given year. In this way, the New Agreement also introduces an automatic indexation mechanism, since the minimum wage in Poland is set each year by Regulation of the Council of Ministers. Each institution can therefore easily calculate the rates independently; however, for ease of use, the Civic Forum for Visual Arts will publish the annual calculations on its website at www.ofsw.pl.

At the same time, the New Agreement marks the beginning of further work to refine the proposed system. We hope that, over time, more institutions will join the agreement. Support from local government authorities overseeing individual galleries and art centres will be of particular importance in this regard.