ORIGINAL COPY PRINT DELIVERY is an art and business experiment to get art to people where they are right now, and get artists paid in the process. Series One features work by Ellen YG Son, David Spooner, Jess Tan, Leonie Brialey, Loren Kronemyer and Mei Swan Lim.
Here’s how it works:
GETTING ART TO PEOPLE
Original Copy has worked with six artists to translate one of their artworks into a limited edition screen print. The prints will be released weekly from July 20 to August 24, 2020.
There are two ways to buy the prints:
1. Subscribe by 17 July and and you will receive a print in the mail each week, starting from 20 July. The exact details of each artist’s print won’t be revealed until their respective release day, so this is a surprise option! Subscribers will receive a matching full set of prints (i.e. the same number in the edition of all six prints) as well as extra subscriber-only goodies.
2. If you're less keen on surprises you can also buy prints individually as they are released.
How much does it cost?
The prints are for sale at sliding scale prices. Please pay as you are able :)
- $5 per print/$30 for subscription: covers materials & postage
- $15 per print/$90 for subscription: covers materials & postage and $10 artist/printer fee
- $25 per print/$150 for subscription: covers materials & postage and $20 artist/printer fee
Free digital download version of each print as a phone/desktop background will be available as prints are released
GETTING ARTISTS PAID
Original Copy is fronting the seed money for this project, which will pay artist fees and material costs. Each artist is receiving a $100 initial artist fee for the non-exclusive and non-acquisitive use of one of their existing artworks. At the conclusion of the series, all of the profit from print sales (income minus expenses [artist fees + materials]) will be divided evenly in eight ways—between each of the six artists, Original Copy and Kadjin Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Youth Arts Network. The money recouped to cover artist fees and materials expenses will then be used to fund the next series of prints.
The Original Copy Print Delivery budget can be viewed here. It will be updated throughout the project.
SOME CONTEXT ON THE PROJECT ORIGINS
One of Original Copy’s interests in printmaking is the decentralised nature of prints: they can be distributed to people where they are, rather than having to be viewed in one space at one time, which is exactly this thing we can't do right now given essential social distancing measures in pandemic times (although this is not the only barrier to accessing art spaces). This project isn’t a new idea: artists have distributed their work through subscription programs throughout art history. Think of Joseph Beuys' Multiples, through to artists using crowdfunding/subscription services like Patreon today. This project is just creating one more way for art to reach audiences.
Launching a project to sell art is pretty weird right now given that so many people (in particular artists and arts workers) have now been pushed into (even more) precarious financial positions by the economic impacts of the pandemic. Different people have been affected to different degrees, so the sliding scale pricing attempts to address this.
The experimental art/business form of this project has been informed by some training Original Copy recently did with trade artist Kate Rich, called the Feral MBA. Original Copy is interested in an experimental approach to accounting, a concept that opens up questions including:
- What changes in a project when the books (financial records) are open rather than closed?
- Can greater transparency lead to greater community engagement and accountability?
- What non-financial aspects of a project need to be accounted for?
- How can the myriad forms of creative labour be accounted for and remunerated?
- What is the balance between the resources required to create the project and the cultural value it creates?
An additional note: the very neoliberal capitalist push for everyone to always be productive has been particularly strong recently (Lost your job in the pandemic? Better push that side hustle!) and it's important that we push back against it, even in small ways, as it is the origin of the crisis we're in now. For this reason Original Copy is working with artists’ existing works rather than asking them to put in extra time and resources to produce an entirely new work.