Inerview with Julie Marmet

Transcribed and translated interview, February 2022

M: For starters, could you present yourself?
J: My name is Julie Marmet, I studied political science and contemporary art critique. I’m a curator, researcher and militant/lobbyist.
In the past 6 years if created 3 different independant art spaces. The latest one is also a platform from artist professionalisation.
I co-founded GARAGE, an action groupe for artist remunaration in Geneva. Through GARAGE and through Visarte (an organization representing artists intrests politically), I lobby for artist rights and to help better their working conditions.
Through my research, I try to rethink how artists can be paid, their legal and administrative status and how to educate artists about the professional art world.
M: Can you talk about the space you run now?
J: Yes, it is called Espace 3353 and is an indepedant or ‘Off-space’. We think about how to consider artist run spaces as professional and not just experimental, intership-like state of an artists career.
As curator and administrator, I try to pay artists a decent pay, higher than most other institutions and also covering production costs. We also discuss with exhibitors about how to make their practice here professional and not considered emergent.
M: How would you definie an independant art space?
J: It’s a tricky term, since we do depend grately on funding. ‘Off-space’ is also used but it refers to alternative, noninstitutionalized, squat culture, which we aren’t exactly either. Finally, Artist Run Space is sometimes used but this is not ideal either since I’m a curator not an artist.
M: Can you talk about funding possibilities in Switzerland?
J: There are public and private subsidies. There’s a national fund (Pro Helvetia) equivalent to the Mondrian one in NL and the lottery that give money annually but these are only accessible after 2 or 3 years. So until then, you must apply periodically to many smaller regional, city or private funds that give smaller amounts of money directed to specific projects.
Comparing Fine Arts to Theatre for example, subsidies are about a 5th of what a play would get, because paying a salary for technicians and actors is normal but for visual artist labour it is not.
M: What would your ideal system for artist remunaration be?
J: Universal Basic Income or some form of permanent research fund. It is impossible to quatify labour hours for artists. A ready made takes drastically less time to make than a sculpture but we cannot distinguish their artistic value.
Our solution, for now, is to pay a fixed amount of money for participating to an exhibition, the idea, the concept. And then have a budget for production costs. If he production is done by a craftsperson, they gets paid, if it is done by the artist, they should also get paid.
One question that we cannot ignore anymore is Art production and the pollution it creates. For artists to get paid they produce works that either get trashed or transported across the globe. How to we finance research and make non-producitve art practices viable?
A big problem in Switzerland is that Art sales are not taxed. Big auction houses and galleries postpone their sales and sign contracts here to avoid paying taxes. Taxing these sales could help to generate income from Art speculation that would be redistributed through a fund. Unfortunatley, politicians oppose this idea because fairs like Art Basel wouldn’t exist if they had taxes and these fairs generate a lot of money for the country.
M: Do you see links between unpaid art labour and unpaid internships?
J: Covid revealed that, even when museums and galleries close, artists keep working and need income to survive. In the UK, artist remunaration struggles are often united with other forms of unpaid labour like interns.
I find that looking into volunteers in festivals is more relevant. Both sectors are cultural but neither of them would run without unpaid labour. To me, this speaks a lot about how, unfortunatley, culture depends on free labour.