Negotiating Alone is Not the Point, with Lise Soskolne

Transcript

Alexis Clements  

Hello and welcome back to The Answer is No. I’m your host, Alexis Clements, and this week our guest is painter Lise Soskolne. Lise is also one of the people who formed and helps to maintain W.A.G.E. or Working Artists and the Greater Economy.

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Lise has maintained a painting practice for more than 20 years, and in the past couple of years has had solo exhibitions in the US and Europe, in addition to participating in a number of group exhibitions. However, for much of the past two decades, many people have known her primarily for her work with W.A.G.E.

W.A.G.E. was founded in 2008 by a group who decided to focus their energy on making sure that artists receive fees when presenting their work in cultural institutions. And W.A.G.E.’s work is part of a long tradition of organizing to try to get meaningful compensation for artists here in the US. 

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Some of you may be surprised just how often artists are asked to make and share work without receiving any compensation in return. It was actually W.A.G.E.’s survey, the results of which were released back in 2012, that brought them to my attention. And the survey results are stark and clear. 

58% of artists surveyed by W.A.G.E. who were exhibiting or presenting their work at institutions in New York, ranging from small nonprofit galleries like Artists Space or La MaMa, to major museums like MoMA, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, were receiving no compensation of any kind, not even to cover the expense of creating the works on display. 

Since that time, those involved in W.A.G.E., from the board to the artists who have participated in its efforts over the years, have come up with a number of approaches to tackle this issue. They created a certification program for organizations to sign on to a set of minimum fees for artists. They’ve created research and education projects like the survey I mentioned earlier. And more recently, they’ve created the project WAGENCY, which seeks to build solidarity among artists and provides a tool for artists who are negotiating fees with institutions.

Like many other organizations focused on cultural change around labor and pay, W.A.G.E. has more than once been the subject of controversy. Early on institutions were pushing back against the negative attention they were receiving from W.A.G.E.’s survey, and W.A.G.E. was even threatened with a lawsuit for exposing the lack of compensation in one arts organization in particular. And more recently, they’ve been the subject of criticism from other artists who feel wage has, at times, taken too much credit for change in the field, or that their tools and tactics homogenize artists.

Based on my conversations with many others, including some of those you’ve heard here in this podcast, organizing in general, and organizing artists in particular, is no easy feat. Particularly if you stay in the fight for more than a decade, which W.A.G.E. has.

All of this is part of why I was so interested to speak with Lise. Not only is she an artist herself, dealing with everything that goes along with building and maintaining an art practice. She’s also done an enormous amount of the heavy lifting to keep W.A.G.E.’s work going over the years, as the group’s only core organizer since 2012. This gives her a unique perspective on an organizing effort that’s long fascinated me, and whose tools I regularly use in my writing and workshops in order to help give people a picture of the realities artists face in their careers.

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How did you imagine your adult life as a child?

Lise Soskolne  

There are probably two phases. The first one was when I was maybe five or six, and I had a plan with my best friend named Katie, we were going to live in a camper van filled with pillows and drive across Australia, or live in Australia in a camper van, or something like that. And then when I was about 10, I changed my aspirations to wanting to be a bank teller and live in an apartment building. But all the while I think I always knew I was going to be an artist. So I’m not sure how, I think, except for that conservative period of the bank teller aspiration. [laughter] Yeah.

Alexis Clements  

I mean, maybe the bank teller makes sense in retrospect. 

Lise Soskolne  

Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, I mean, after W.A.G.E., [laughter] I might need a career change soon. I’m not sure what the image I had in mind of being an artist was, but it was definitely one associated with some kind of emancipation and rebellion.

Alexis Clements  

Did you ever have what you would consider a realistic picture of what life might be like as an artist?

Lise Soskolne  

Probably not. I think I knew one. No, I did know more than one artist. Maybe they weren’t, they weren’t visual artists. One was an art teacher that I had when I was maybe, it was more like an after school program, and she was actually a big inspiration for me — maybe the way we, the way she lived or something. I used to go to her apartment and do watercolors. 

And then, yeah, I guess there were other sort of craft-based people. I mean, I have always had a job since I was about 10. I’ve always worked. And then I had my own pillow-making business, [laughter] when I was about 13. I worked in a leather store sewing bags and coats, in this, like, hippie leather store. And my mum had a small business. So yeah, I’ve always had a job. So for me that there was never a question of not working. I’m not sure how that what that has to do with being an artist. 

But when I went to Vancouver in 1991, to go to art school, I mean, Vancouver was a place where you really, very few people did have jobs that I knew. People were living off unemployment insurance (UI) and doing tree planting in the summer, and then going on UI, and then living that way. And it was so cheap, it was really easy to live there without an income. 

And so, I think in my case, just to say that also, I’m not an American citizen. So when I came here, in order to stay here, I had to get a job because I needed a visa, but I also had to get a job because I needed to earn a living. In order to get a work visa to live here, you have to have a certain kind of level of professional skills. So you can’t get a visa for being an art handler, for example. So I started working in the nonprofit sector. That’s how my professional life started to develop. 

But after that, I was absolutely sure and actually, kind of railed against MFA programs, thinking that they were a way of buying your way into the art world, because it was pretty clear that they shunted artists into artist-dealer relationships with commercial galleries. That seemed quite obvious to me. But I ended up doing my master’s degree in order to get a work visa, because I couldn’t find a job. So I did end up in that system. But to me, commercial success was never a measure of anything.

Alexis Clements

The route that you took actually ends up getting to one of the questions. You had this big show in 2019 that was a retrospective of your work from 1999 to 2016. And one of the things that I read many times in reading about that show, is this conversation about the fact that you really were not interested in presenting your work.

Lise Soskolne  

Yeah, I would not say that was a choice. I mean, I think, no, it was, it was quite painful. It was difficult. I moved to New York in 98, and had a show at Artists Space, because I was an intern there, and one of the things you could do was show your work to the director and the curator. We had a little slideshow, and then they — it was great — they gave me a small exhibition and enabled me to bring my work down from Canada. 

And then I had another show at a small commercial gallery, also through Artists Space. And it just felt wrong. I didn’t like the work that I’d made. And it didn’t, yeah, I ended up suing the dealer [laughter] for expenses that he wouldn’t cover and, like, took them to small claims court. And then it was also just transitioning out of working on kind of large text-based monochromes into representational painting. And I just, I just needed to do that by myself. 

But it was a strange period of about five years or so where, you know, it was no studio visits, it was no interest. It was just a period of like a descent into invisibility. But it also coincided with my beginning to work in nonprofit institutions. So I became kind of like, my identity was more connected to an administrator, who was supporting the work of other artists. I was working at Anthology Film Archives, and then two years at Participant, and had been at Artists Space in that period, earlier than that. And then a bunch of other places after that. So at that point, yeah, it became really difficult. 

When I went to Bard, that’s where I did my MFA, Jutta Koether was one of my teachers. And I remember saying to her, you know, it’s strange, because, you know, there’s this period, where, like, kind of a window of time where you, you want success and visibility so much, and then that window kind of seems to close after a while if you don’t get it, and then you stop wanting it. [laughter] And she looked to me and she said, no, you don’t. And I thought, she’s absolutely right. 

Well, it just never seem to happen for me. And then yeah… It was just, it was really strange. I gave up my studio. I gave up my practice. And then it started to happen. It was just so uncanny. 

Alexis Clements  

Why did you decide to give up your studio? 

Lise Soskolne  

Well, I closed it up actually in January, I think it was 2018. But I hadn’t painted for about, at least a year and I think I did make my last painting, yeah, probably 2016. I closed, my studio lease ended, so I was gonna lose my studio. And it was just that I had become so focused on W.A.G.E., I really had, I wasn’t interested in painting anymore, and it didn’t feel, it didn’t feel relevant. I’m not sure. I mean, it just seemed that it was, it was a lot of money to be spending, you know, every month and I don’t know, I thought I was sort of resigning myself to a different fate, I guess. And it felt good. It was kind of a relief. I mean, the pressure of having a studio and not working is pretty intense. And so I was relieved to have that over. So yeah, I am surprised that I’ve now returned to it and have a studio again. So, very odd. Yeah.

Alexis Clements  

Well, it reminds me of a panel that I went to, gosh, probably like 10 years ago, hosted by The Field, which is a New York City organization that specifically helps to support performing artists and musicians. It was a panel on artists who were later in their career than either of us, I would say at least 30 or 40 years into their career. And every single one of them had walked away from their practice for at least a year. One had walked away from their practice for 10 years. And I thought that was so interesting, and such a story we never hear. There’s so much of, you know, you have to be successful, you have to be successful early, and you have to carry that success forward for years and years and years. That’s not the reality that most artists are going to experience over the course of their career. And I found it really reassuring. And also, that’s a pain point. Like, it brings up the fact that if you keep going, you are going to have serious, serious moments of questioning, to the point where you’re just gonna throw in the towel at some point, most likely. But I did find it reassuring, because it was like, oh, it’s okay to walk away.

Lise Soskolne  

Yeah, I think it is okay to walk away. I mean, you can also keep your practice and walk away, you know what I mean? Like, you can actually be thinking that you’re still doing your practice, but be kind of absent from it in a way.

Alexis Clements

How did you end up becoming involved in the founding of W.A.G.E.?

Lise Soskolne  

I mean, I also just wanted to add, thinking about what I said before about that period of being kind of invisible. I think the thing that was, I mean, as I said, there was a period where I continued to really want some success, you know. I think I always wanted to be in that “Openings” column in Art Forum, you know, that was like, I really remember that being important. And I, you know, I stopped wanting things like that. But I think what was important about it was I developed a very private studio practice, and a studio practice that was just for myself. I’d never ever made, well, just that one time for this exhibition in that small commercial gallery in 2000, or 2001, I always just made work for myself. And I think that that was what sustained me actually, for such a long time, because it didn’t require an audience. And it was really, it was, it’s very satisfying. And I think that’s why I was able to continue for so long. And returning to it now, I kind of want those conditions again, and strangely they’re not as available.

You know, the history of W.A.G.E., there are lots of other people who were involved at the beginning, and I’m not, you know, the writer of W.A.G.E.’s history. I can only talk about, you know, my perspective and my own involvement in it, and that doesn’t preclude other people’s experience or characterization. 

Alexis Clements  

Absolutely. Yeah.

Lise Soskolne  

I was in the midst of working on this kind of gigantic real estate project called Industry City. It was about providing artists with affordable studio space, and actually kind of asserted that that was the right of artists, to have that space. So I was coordinating that. And that included a lot of people who co-founded W.A.G.E. And those conversations, the W.A.G.E. conversation started in and around studios at Industry City, but also people’s apartments. And it was just sort of like a large conversation in and amongst a community of people that I was friends with and involved with. 

So I can’t say that, like I thought about my involvement as having a future or a past or, you know, it was just a kind of a present. 

It’s funny when people ask this question about how did you think about W.A.G.E.? How was W.A.G.E. going to emerge? Or what were the plans? How did you formulate it? And I think, I always say, at least for myself, I can’t speak to the others, but to me, there was never a plan. It was always just responding to conditions, and still is, as we find them. But I think it’s — one of its great strengths is that it’s evolved very organically.

Alexis Clements  

What do you feel like are some of the strategies or tactics that W.A.G.E. has used that you think have really been effective in shifting the conversation around compensation for artists?

Lise Soskolne  

I think the early days were critical in generating an amazing amount of energy around this very simple message. And the writing of the “Womanifesto,” which is this founding document, the survey, then, was like the addition of it being a kind of data-driven project and having some teeth. There’s also a component of education, which is a thread that’s run through the entire thing and still goes on to this day.

W.A.G.E.’s kind of early connection to large institutions — through that, I think, well, not necessarily through that, but adjacent to it — there was a kind of critical buy in to W.A.G.E.’s platform and to kind of the intellectual underpinnings of W.A.G.E.. And yeah, I think also the connections that were made to conversations that were going on in London, and conceptions of like the artist as worker that were palatable to like the London left were really important, I think, in defining what the fee was compensation for, and making clear that it was not a wage, but it was a fee. 

But I think W.A.G.E.’s success has been because it’s engaged on multiple levels. But the problem with that is that then, and this is what always happens in the art field, is that there’s an attempt to kind of absorb it into programming, right? So W.A.G.E. has always been super clear that it’s not an artist, it is not an art project. Over time, in fact, like I developed a rule for, at least for myself, that if I was ever going to engage with an institution, on a programmatic level, that part of that exchange had to be some kind of, they’d have to commit to some kind of conversation about W.A.G.E. certification. But that was the idea, to avoid the slippery slope into just providing content for institutional programming.

Alexis Clements  

And now you have WAGENCY, which is a really practical tool for artists who are negotiating fees with institutions. What kind of shift do you feel like you’re trying to make with that new project?

Lise Soskolne  

For me, the ultimate challenge was to form an artists union. And even when I was in art school in the early 90s, I did write a paper for a professional practices class. That was what I was going to do was start a professional guild. So I definitely had this in mind for a long time, but the idea was actually Suhail Malik’s. When we first started certification — he’s a board member, he’s been a board member for a long time — but he said we should start, we should certify artists. And so that was the genesis of WAGENCY, to have these kind of twin certification programs.

Alexis Clements  

How would you describe WAGENCY and what its role is for artists?

Lise Soskolne  

Because it’s a new form, it’s hard to, it is hard to explain. It enables artists to request and negotiate fees, meeting W.A.G.E. standards. And the fee requests come through W.A.G.E. So W.A.G.E. kind of steps in as a kind of representative, a virtual representative in the negotiating process. But the idea is that by building power, by coming together, and always as a group, and always requesting or demanding W.A.G.E. fees, you you know, over time, increase the compensation floor, you raise it. 

The idea behind WAGENCY, just on an organizational level, was to decentralize W.A.G.E., right? And to enlist artists in doing the work that W.A.G.E. does already. So it’s just too much work for a single organization, or single person, or people running an organization to do, so to outsource the work to the people who are actually making the demands rather than W.A.G.E. having to constantly publicly pressure institutions. The public pressure on institutions, some of the public shaming, the New Museum, all that sort of stuff was really important, I think. But we can’t keep doing that because it also alienates institutions, and artists need to step up and do that work, too. So the idea was that if artists are constantly demanding W.A.G.E. fees, that eventually institutions will just get certified, and just start paying W.A.G.E. fees. And that will be become the industry standard. So that really was the goal.

Alexis Clements  

I often use the W.A.G.E. fees when I give workshops to artists just to try to give them some sense of what compensation might look like within an institution. And I often get the sense from them that they’re surprised by the numbers, like they feel like the numbers are really low. Do you also hear that from artists, that they feel like they deserve more or that these minimum fees present some kind of, some kind of a barrier for them?

Lise Soskolne  

I think the fees are low. I mean I really do. But they were always a compromise between what was fair and what was possible. Because, you know, what is possible for small institutions is very little, and we just know that. But oftentimes what is possible is actually greater than what they tell you is fair. So the whole point is that the fee calculator and W.A.G.E. certification are a kind of scalable model and the introduction of W.A.G.E. fees are the introduction of a minimum, of a compensation floor. And then the idea, and I am really trying to stress this, is that you should be negotiating above it, and institutions should always be paying above it when they can. 

When W.A.G.E. certification first launched in 2014, there was criticism that the fees were too high. And times have really changed because now I think people generally see them as too low. And now, like right now, during the pandemic, there’s now so much emphasis and discussion about living wages, right? This was part of the planning of W.A.G.E. certification, there was a session called living wage or symbolic fee, to decide whether this should be a living wage campaign. And we decided that it shouldn’t, because it wasn’t going to be possible. 

And so I’m finding it a bit unnerving now that there are institutions who, some of them already very well-funded, are deciding to funnel a lot of money into a small group of artists, to pay them living wages, or to perform the activity of paying people living wages. And my question is, like, where were you before the pandemic, with your, you know, your desire to support artists to this extent. Because the problem with paying a few people a lot of money is then fewer people, you know, share in it. But, on the other hand — I mean, this is a big question, and I don’t know what the answer is. But I think maybe, yeah, I do wonder sometimes, like, did W.A.G.E. serve its purpose? And now, does it need to up the ante? Or maybe the conversation is shifting? I’m not I’m not really sure. I mean, we’ll see. I think that, you know, these are exceptional times. And when we return, if we do return to some form of normalcy, I think institutions will just go on exploiting people.

Alexis Clements  

I fear the same. But I think the kinds of consciousness raising that happened prior to this moment are part of why there’s been a huge explosion in conversations about equity.

Lise Soskolne  

Yeah, it’s really amazing. I mean, it’s great. I’m excited about it. 

What worries me is how institutions, you know, in their well meaning way, tend to capitalize on these kinds of conversations, right? So they’re now sort of virtue signaling around how much they’re supporting artists. And it’s around this idea of a living wage. And it just feels strange to me, because it’s like, why all of a sudden you’re able to pay living wages when you couldn’t even pay W.A.G.E. fees prior to the pandemic. And that that is a bit distressing.

Alexis Clements  

What are you hearing back from people who have been using the tool?

Lise Soskolne  

I can see what’s going on in the backend because I have to manage it. And people are, you know, I think, successfully negotiating W.A.G.E. fees. But sometimes negotiations look like they’re starting, and then I can’t see what happens. And sometimes, what I, what I think might be happening is that they make the fee request, and then the negotiation might move offline, or then it moves back into email, and then it isn’t completed. There’s a lot that needs to be done. And also even just raising consciousness that it even exists, I’m not sure how many people really know it is there and what it does.

It’s not going anywhere. And it took a long time for W.A.G.E. certification to become kind of normalized, or part of kind of institutional landscape. So I hope that WAGENCY will eventually reach that stage. 

Alexis Clements  

How do you feel about your role as the person who’s helping to keep the wheels turning, to some extent, to a large extent, actually?

Lise Soskolne  

I mean, I’m uncomfortable with it. I don’t think this is what it’s supposed to be. It’s just like this because we don’t have the resources. And that’s a function of my having not had the time to do the work that was needed to raise money. And it’s a hamster wheel that a lot of nonprofits, small, you know, single-person run nonprofits get into this situation. 

As I said, you know, WAGENCY was an effort to try to start to decentralize the organization. And those efforts are still underway in other ways as well, that are kind of going to become clearer this year. But no, I mean, I think W.A.G.E. absolutely should not be run by one person, and I don’t feel comfortable with the attention being paid to me, as an individual. I also just don’t think you should — social movements, or labor movements need to be built, you know, around many people and not individuals. 

But this is a really primary question, is like, how does W.A.G.E. sustain itself and plan for, yeah, the kind of, the long term that outlives me. I mean, there have been many times where I have wanted really very much to be able to, like, either take a break or move on and I just can’t. Because I just think that at this point, yeah, a kind of leadership transition has to happen. Then how do you find that person? I mean, I don’t know. But that’s very much in the, in the discussion with the board. 

And I think that’s been the frustration for me, is when people, many people have, you know, have emailed and said they want to help, they want to intern or contribute, and I just don’t have a way for them to plug in. There’s no office, you know, there’s no money to pay anyone, and again, these questions all come back to being under resourced. But I suppose now after the pandemic W.A.G.E. will not be the only, the only game in town and I guess that’s a good thing. Although I do worry a little bit about duplication of work and, and also, you know, kind of breaking up constituencies and having, creating kind of competing constituencies, which I really don’t think is productive. 

There’s so much I think that W.A.G.E. could do, but you know, I’m kind of, just sort of been, this year, just sort of trying to hang back and not try to take up space. Just wanting to see what comes out of this, and then maybe assess what W.A.G.E. can, how it can support those efforts or connect with them. I don’t know. 

Alexis Clements  

How has wage influenced how you think about exhibiting and sharing your work?

Lise Soskolne  

Being a practicing artist or being, participating as an artist is painful, it’s difficult, you know. So then we all have to develop our own ways of dealing with it. But for me, I really feel like I have a, I really do have an amazing network now, but it’s more around W.A.G.E. It’s a network of people that are struggling with the same problems. 

It’s really important to have a good community and I think that, that’s what every, I sort of believe that, that is kind of the core artist’s fantasy, is being part of this, of a kind of a family, of rebellion in a way. To me the two things were connected, you know? And it was through this community that there would be some kind of emancipation from these conditions. And I think there is to a certain extent, you know. We just have to make sure we’re not too tired from our precarity to enjoy it. And that’s what I see a lot of, is everyone’s just exhausted and not able to even enjoy, you know, the gifts that are our friends, and our, and the work that our friends make, you know?

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Alexis Clements  

You’ll be able to find links to Lise’s website, to W.A.G.E., and many of the other things mentioned in today’s episode in the show notes on our website, theanswerisnoshow.com. 

We also welcome you to share your stories of negotiating fees, organizing other artists, or advocating for yourself. You can email us or record a voice memo and send it to theanswerisnoshow AT gmail DOT com. And you can also find us on Facebook and Instagram @theanswerisnoshow. 

Please take a minute to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any of your favorite podcast apps, and share links with anyone you think might be interested in these episodes. 

Thanks so much to today’s guest Lise Soskolne, and to Ali Cotterill, our co-producer and editor

And remember, collectively saying no to bad gigs can help us all get to a better yes.

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