I have been finding the discussion fascinating not becaues we exhibit
contemporary artists in our museum, but because I have a sister who is an
artist, and a Canadian one to boot.  In the interest of seeing things
from both sides, I asked her opinion on CARFAC.  Not surprisingly she is
in favor of it, but made it clear that it is seen, by both sides I think,
as an honorarium - the amounts involved are too small even to cover
materials, much less time, cost of living etc.  She pointed out that the
CARFAC agreement was worked out to provide some benefit for artists
showing their work in noncomercial galleries, recognizing that in Canada
the art market is so limited that 'exposure' is unlikely to benefit most
artists in any material was (such as future sales of work), and that most
such galleries are funded by government grants (municipal, provincial and
federal).  The agreement was worked out in collaboration with the various
agencies in all levels of gov., and so artists fees are standard part of
the applications for grants which fund the exhibits (she didn't specify,
but I suspect an application that did not include the fees would be
unlikely to receive funding).In some ways, she suggested it acknowledges
the 'two way street' some have mentioned the (albiet small) art industry
in Canada works primarily on governmetn funding, but it does provide
employment for awhole variety of people, from the grant administrators to
the gallery employees, and why should artists be the only ones not to
receive some monetary recognition of their work?  Finally, because of the
way the fees are worked into grant applications, and the fee schedule
takes into account things such as sized of the gallery and number of
artists inthe exhibit (in a rather complex way as an earlier contributor
pointed out) small galleries are not penalized, not it seems are young
relatively unknown artists.
A formalized agreement like CARFAC might not work everywhere, but I think
it is still worthwile to provide contemporary artists some sort of
honorarium, and it need not penalize either the gallery or the artist.

Genevieve LeMoine
The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum
Bowdoin College
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