[Nettime-bold] 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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