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© Donald Richardson, 2006
When the Adelaide press announced in 1919 that a memorial would
be erected in the city to the late king Edward VII, the city
was assured that it would be made "by one of the best men
in the Empire" - but the artist was not named. Neither was
he named in a report of 19 June, 1920, that the sculpture had
arrived in Adelaide from London - "in 114 packing cases"
- and that the pedestal was nearing completion; however, it did
name the local people who had worked on its erection - the builder
(Walter Torode), the mason who cut the stone steps (W H Martin),
the Supervisor of Public Buildings (A E Simpson) and the City
Engineer (J R Richardson).
The memorial - which has recently been revealed in its true glory
by the re-designing of North Terrace - was unveiled by the visiting
Prince of Wales soon after, but the artist's name was still not
mentioned on the invitation to the unveiling! Adelaide had to
wait until the 16 July issue of The Advertiser to be informed
that the sculptor was none other than Bertram Mackennal, Australia's
only ever RA - who, soon after the unveiling, was dubbed our
first artist knight. Mackennal had made the memorial before the
1914-18 war, but - because bronze was commandeered for the war
effort - casting had to wait until 1919.
To us, this seems a surprising lapse in a city that prided itself
as an outpost of European civilisation among the savages of The
Antipodes, yet it is a paradigm of the attitude to public sculpture
and architecture - indeed to any visual art - of the press in
all Anglophone countries that still predominates. It takes the
position that works of art are produced by queer foreigners with
unpronounceable European names and questionable life-styles with
whom we will never come into contact again and, therefore, are
peripheral to all that really matters. So, these works appear
in our midst as if by magic, created by whom we know - and care
- not, descending like the "cargo" that the American
planes brought to the wilds of Niu Gini in the Second World War.
It's wonder that we don't hack an air-strip out of the parklands
for the Super Fortresses to land on!
Of course, it has always been the practice in Europe to acknowledge
the worth of artists - without whose genius and work the monuments
and buildings would never even exist - by naming them whenever
their work is discussed. It is also the established practice
in specifically art publications to give full accreditation to
authors.
This deficit in our wider culture was recognised by the Federal
Government in 2000 when it passed the Moral Rights of Authors
amendment to the Copyright Act of 1968. Necessitated by frequent
quarrels over the ownership of the rights to movie films between
directors, producers and writers, it also included the three
moral rights that all artists - including visual artists and
designers - must have:
o the right of attribution of authorship of the artist
who created the work,
o the right not to have authorship falsely attributed
(i.e., credited to someone who did not create the work), and
o the right of integrity of authorship (i.e., the work
must not be subjected to derogatory treatment of any sort, such
as its destruction or mutilation; nor must anything occur that
is "prejudicial to the author's honour or reputation").
So, you would think that the unconscionable treatment that Mackennal
suffered in 1920 would now not happen. But, not so! Mr Bill Morrow,
of the legal firm Norman Waterhouse, observes that our newspapers
breach the Act almost every day by not attributing the authorship
of a photograph, a building or a work of art they reproduce.
Observant readers will confirm that this is so. How often do
we see a photograph of a business magnate posing in front of
a flashy abstract or Aboriginal painting hanging in his board-room,
or a fashion-model posed before one of those sculptures architects
sometime characterise as a "turd on the plaza"? It
even happens in our own publication.(see last issue). In every
case, the artist or designer - without whose work the shot would
be less appealing - loses his or her due recognition.
How do they get away with it? As Mr Morrow says, the Act provides
only a civil remedy and only to individual artists. This means
that its practical application awaits an artist successfully
suing a publisher for non-compliance so that legal parameters
can be established and perpetuated. But this is not likely to
occur in the near future, artists having better things to do
than taking publishers to court. A group action might be possible,
but artists are as difficult to organise as cats. And the National
Association for the Visual Arts, which lobbied for the changed
legislation, says it lacks the resources to do anything about
the situation. In the meantime, busy newspaper proprietors and
editors allow the inertia of past practice to flow on.
However the moral rights do exist and it is in the interests
of both artists and publishers that they be observed. Artists
depend upon the publicity their works may receive to establish
their reputations and, consequently, their livelihood; publishers
would do well to avoid the potential of a punishing suit for
damages at some time in the future.
Moral rights are not propriety rights (i.e., they cannot be sold)
and they cannot be waived except by agreement - and this only
prior to publication. Mr Morrow points out that it is
possible that in-house newspaper photographers and cartoonists
have such an agreement, at least one implied by their historical
conditions of employment. Anyhow, cartoonists usually ensure
their attribution by signing their works. But unattributed photographs
are published every day. He also notes that, when a detail only
of a work is reproduced - as in the case of the coins the Australian
Mint has produced using snippets of iconic Australian paintings
on the reverse (reviewed in our issue of 9 December, 2005), the
publisher may plead that the legislation relates only to the
use of a work in "whole or substantial part".
But, the greatest problem is in relation to reproductions of
public sculptures, architecture and paintings. Readers who agree
that the situation cries out for redress might consider writing
to editors whenever they see a breach to the moral rights of
the artists concerned.
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