Art Scape: A threat to the ability of trade unions to represent freelance workers could have serious repercussions for the performing arts sector, writes Christine Madden
A press conference this week drew attention to what was termed a "misguided" application of the Competition Act of 2002 to deny performing artists - actors, voice-over artists, directors, writers, musicians, film technicians (as well as freelance journalists and photographers) - the right to industrial representation.
The challenge was initiated two years ago, after the Competition Authority received a complaint regarding "price fixing" for actors doing ads. Siptu organiser Jane Boushell said the Competition Authority approached them about the complaint in spring 2003. They denied the complaint, informing the Competition Authority that the union annually reaches agreement with the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland to determine standard fees. The Competition Authority initially responded positively, but returned a few months later saying "there was a case to answer".
In the case of radio and TV voice-overs and ads, artists hired may be employed for only a very short period of time. "Because of this, advertisers won't employ people as PAYE, so they get an invoice," explains Boushell. Such a situation, in the current interpretation of the Competition Act, defines an artist accepting such employment as an "undertaking"; a representative grouping of such freelancers could then be construed as a "cartel", the potential price-fixing activities of which would be illegal.
Having begun with voice-over artists, the consequences may well bleed into other areas of the performing arts and other activities in which freelance employment represents a norm.
Siptu general secretary Jack O'Connor referred to the recently released report on the socio-economic conditions of theatre practitioners commissioned by the Arts Council, which discovered that 50 per cent of theatre practitioners earn less than €7,200 a year. Performing artists earn an average of €5,500 a year.
The repercussions of this interpretation of the Act are already evident. Actor Rynagh O'Grady, speaking for Irish Equity, said "agencies and individuals have already been phoned up and offered as low as 50 per cent of the previous rate". Vincent McCabe, an actor and the president of Irish Equity, has heard of advertisers "bringing in top people to do the first sample, then getting someone else in who's cheap to copy it".
"Freelance rates are appallingly low anyway," states Boushell. Should the situation continue, "people will be forced to take on work that is paid less. We don't believe that when these laws were enacted that the idea was that workers who have no control over their work should be pushed to the wall. We need the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to come out and support the workers that he is bound by virtue of his office to defend."
Mining Yeats
Following the success of its Joyce exhibition - still running after more than a year - the National Library in Dublin has plans for a major new exhibition on WB Yeats next May, writes Gerry Smyth. For the first time the public will have the opportunity to view the library's substantial collection of Yeats manuscripts and memorabilia. Drafts of poems, plays and autobiographical works, as well as notebooks, diaries, personal papers and correspondence will go on display.
Normally only available to academics and specialists, this hoard of material was given to the library incrementally over many years, initially by the poet's widow George Yeats and then by his son, Michael Yeats.
According to the National Library the exhibition will allow visitors to follow the "transformation of Yeats's work from Celtic Twilight romanticism to the apocalyptic vision of the Second Coming". The exhibition will also explore Yeats's involvement in the Irish Literary Revival, his relationship with Maud Gonne and his acquisition of Thoor Ballylee.
Photographs of Yeats and Maud Gonne not previously available to the public will go on display as well as manuscripts of some of his best-known poems, including Sailing to Byzantium and Among School Children. Also promised is material relating to Yeats's interest in the occult, including tarot cards and samples of his wife George's automatic writing. The exhibition will feature an electronic "turning the page" version of one of the Rapallo notebooks described by Roy Foster in his biography of the poet as "sacred objects in the great Yeatsian mine of manuscripts".
The Joyce exhibition, which opened last year to mark the Bloomsday centenary, has so far attracted more than 50,000 visitors, and the library is hoping for a similar response to the forthcoming display of Yeats material.
New advisers for Helix
Imelda Dervin and Margaret O'Sullivan have been appointed as music advisers to the Helix, the Dublin City University concert hall, theatre and gallery complex, writes Michael Dervan.
Their role, according to the Helix, will be "to explore various avenues of music programming, which will make maximum imaginative use of the Mahony Hall in particular".
In spite of its much-praised acoustic, the Mahony Hall has not captured the public imagination as a venue for classical music. The number of classical and opera performances there has declined by more than 60 per cent since 2003, and low attendances at the RTÉ Concert Orchestra's classical series resulted in the concerts being dropped.
RTÉ has also moved its Living Music Festival from The Helix to the city centre. Next February's festival will include concerts at the Mahony's main rival - the similarly-sized, but acoustically inferior National Concert Hall. In the longer term, the proposed redevelopment of the NCH is likely to make things even more difficult for The Helix.
Dervin and O'Sullivan's track records include stints with Opera Theatre Company, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, Cumann Náisiúnta na gCór, as well as, most recently, Cork 2005.
Their experience should help them deal with some of the quality of programming issues. It remains to be seen whether they can turn around the other major issues facing the northside venue. At the moment, no one is prepared to divulge the size of the budget they will be working with to get The Helix back on track.
Abbey site surveys
What's the latest with the floating Abbey? In answer to questions on the proposed new IFSC site for the theatre last week - from Gerard Murphy (nominated by Jimmy Deenihan) and Pat Rabbitte (nominated by Jack Wall) - Minister for Arts John O'Donoghue indicated progress is being made. "In July 2005, the Government authorised investigative surveys to be carried out at the George's Dock site to inform further decisions on the development of the theatre there. At my request, the Office of Public Works arranged detailed examination of the site, including archaeological, geotechnical and structural surveys. These studies have now been completed and do not appear to have revealed anything that would cast doubt on the suitability of the site. I am currently arranging for the preparation of a report for the Government on the outcome of the OPW investigations with a view to moving forward with my plans for the Abbey Theatre redevelopment project." We'll have to wait to see what the estimated cost of preparing - never mind building - the site will be, and how it would be funded.
Chloe Morrison, a young artist from Coleraine in Northern Ireland, has been named as the winner of this year's Tony O'Malley Travel Award, writes Aidan Dunne. The award, sponsored by Waterford Crystal, is worth €2,500 and is made annually to an Irish painter in relation to a specific proposal.
Morrison, who studied at the Slade School in London before going on to complete her MA in the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, is currently based in Belfast. Her paintings are explorations of the figure, often delving beneath the skin to detail the inner workings of the body, and she will use the award to travel to La Specola Museum in Florence to make a close study of an unrivalled collection of 18th- and 19th-century anatomical models there.
The award honours the late Tony O'Malley, currently the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The Butler Gallery in Kilkenny, which organises the award, is showing work from his sketchbooks, which form a virtual visual diary of his life.