Crowds at the Papier 12 art fair, organized by AGAC / photo David Balzer
Earlier today, the Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels du Québec (RAAV) and the Contemporary Art Galleries Association (AGAC) announced the signing of their first general agreement.
Manon Pelletier, President of RAAV, and Emilie Grandmont-Berubé, President of AGAC and Director of Galerie Trois Points, met this morning to negotiate and sign the agreement, in the presence of representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Communications of Quebec. Discussions between RAAV and AGAC leading up to the agreement have been ongoing for the past three years.
The agreement, which is the first of its kind in the history of both organizations, sets out to establish standards for professional relations between artists and gallery owners. The agreement includes two major parts: a set of best practices for artists and commercial galleries, and a standard contract. Both appear in a document published by RAAV entitled Circulation in Private Galleries (La diffusion en galerie privée), which will be shared among artists and gallery owners as part of RAAV’s Best Practice Standards in the Visual Arts Sector in Quebec.
The agreement, Grandmont-Berubé says in a press release, “provides a solid foundation for critical relationships between artists and gallery owners.” RAAV General Director Christian Bédard adds in a phone interview that both organizations are in constant collaboration, “in the aim of boosting the art market in Quebec….We are both lobbying the Quebec government together to get it to recalibrate its investment in visual arts, [and to combine its effort in supporting] presenting venues like museums and artist-run centres with its investment in the market.”
RAAV was founded in 1989 to represent professional visual artists in Quebec, and to set standards for their professional status, representation, and the distribution of their artwork, in accordance with the Act Respecting the Professional Status of Artists in the Visual Arts, Arts and Crafts and Literature, and Their Contracts with Promoters (Act S-32.01). AGAC, founded in 1985, aims to increase recognition for the contemporary art market in Quebec and across Canada. Both organizations see the collaboration as an important step to stimulate the arts market in Quebec.
