Last Wednesday, the Chamber of Deputies approved a law project that acknowledges artists (musicians, dancers and actors) as workers. This allows these communities to access social security. Even though it may seem incredible, until now, artists did not have the right to retire as artists, which reflected for many decades the indifference or lack or esteem of the ruling class towards the members of the cultural milieu. Many people think, no matter which one is their discipline that artists live on air and that, thus, they do not need material assistance. If you take a look at the programs proposed by political candidates to any governmental position, you can verify that arts do not figure in them, as opposed to economy, education, health, housing, agriculture, industry, commerce, international relations and even sports. The arts are not as popular as these other areas.
This is why we consider it very positive that the judicial field finally acknowledges professionals that work in drama, choreography and music. This project had been sent to the Parliament by the Executive power at the end of June and it was approved by Senators by August. Now that it is backed by the members of Parliament, it has a period of six months for the approval of the regulation, of a chapter that will allow for the creation of a National Artists Register and a Certifying Commission, two bodies that will have responsibility for artistic jobs, and for records that will later inform the corresponding retirement calculations. The brand-new law is the answer to an aspiration formulated, logically and a long time ago, by the professional organizations that bring together dramatists, dancers and musicians.
This leads us to positively view this achievement (to see the glass half full, and not half empty), even though the law’s text still leaves out “writers, visual and plastic artists”. The fact that these creators are left out is, to say the least, unusual, considering that they, like professionals from the performing arts, have also suffered neglect in the area of social security. Historically, Uruguay has been extraordinarily prolific in the field of visual arts, an indisputable phenomenon that places these creators, and the movement they form, are among those who have added to the prestige of the country and have contributed to improving its image nationally and internationally. We should not wait for them to die in order to exalt them.
As it is known, the local plastic arts market is small, which allows us to state that the experts of this field have given the best of themselves throughout their lives in exchange for very few incentives and rewards. People of wide notoriety and indubitable distinction are surviving scarcely if they are not suffering hardship, or are forced to resign from their artistic activities to take more profitable jobs. Outstanding artists like Blanes, Sáez, Barradas, Figari, Torres, De Simone, Cúneo, Barcala, Ventayol, Espínola, Hilda López, Solari, and Costigliolo, like other contemporary artists, create a reality that is at times stunning, and that in biennial exhibitions and in relation to the arts of the region, has proven the quality, beauty, interest and richness of Uruguayan art.
However, painters, sculptors, engravers, upholsterers, drawers, ceramists, goldsmiths, practitioners of new art forms (installations, videos, performances, urban interventions, and digital media) are not taken into account by the artists’ retirement law. Not familiar with the land of artistic creation, legislators fall into an archaism which was overcome a long time ago; this is to discriminate among the various genres privileging some of them over the rest. Instead of advancing towards an appropriate appreciation of the wide and large legion of visual artists of this country, the Parliament has taken a step backwards.
Talent is an inestimable quality that falls on some individuals and confers a perdurable aesthetic, cultural and social value to their artwork. This is an exceptional feature that nobody puts into question, and now that dramatists, dancers and musicians have been backed by a law, it is fair to ask ourselves when the time of plastic and visual artists will come.