Actividad Artística Y Precariedad Laboral En Andalucía: Análisis A Partir De Un Estudio Global

Resumen:Este artículo pretende contextualizar la actividad profesional de los artistas plásticos y visuales en Andalucía, en las actuales circunstancias económicas, sociales y laborales, partiendo de un estudio a nivel nacional. Primero, delimitamos los criterios que lo definen y la relación entre actividad, rendimiento económico y relación con el resto del sistema del arte, concentrándonos en la realidad andaluza. Posteriormente, analizando indicadores económicos y laborales nacionales y europeos, proponemos una primera cuantificación de artistas españoles, un dato inexistente y altamente demandado. Finalmente, segmentados los datos sobre Andalucía, aportamos algunos resultados significativos que confirman nuestra hipótesis sobre la precariedad del trabajo artístico.Abstract:This work starts from the need to contextualize the professional activity and the economic circumstances of visual and plastic artists in Spain, marked by the precariousness within the current economic, social and labor situation that affects this sector. They try to respond to the complex problems that arise from this, not only in terms of the professional artist's own consideration, but also in the absence of specific censuses to analyze the circumstances of this labor sector. Currently the professional artistic activity and its economic implications are being analyzed in depth both nationally and internationally, being the subject of studies and reports that seek to understand and explain the current situation of artists, especially critical due to the global crisis affecting the sector since 2008. To this end, the authors have developed a study that has consisted of several parts. In the first place, after a review of the most recent literature on the concept of artist, the authors define the place occupied by the professional artist in the labor context of the Spanish art system, as well as the working conditions of precariousness that affect the sector, comparing and counter posing them to other reports and recent studies in other countries and regions. For this purpose, to better understand the reality of artists in Andalusia, we have developed a thorough analysis of the context and its evolution during the last decades. Next, by analyzing the economic and labor indicators existing in our country and in the European Union, we propose a first quantification of Spanish plastic and visual artists at a professional level, a nonexistent information highly demanded by the sector, the sampling frame for our study, and at the same time a necessary fact to undertake the labor protection and advocacy measures currently in process. In general terms, the current labor situation of cultural workers shows clear signs of precariousness, especially in the case of visual and visual artists, with high levels of self-employment, low retribution, instability, low rate of affiliation to the social security systems in their different countries. In recent years, and due to the growing global economic crisis that affects sensibly the art market, they must exercise self-management, communication and professional promotion tasks that have to be combined with artistic production, although they nevertheless show a high level of acceptance of their situation and a positive vision of their work, despite the precariousness. In some countries, as in Spain, the special virulence of the crisis that began in 2008 resulted in the closing of numerous galleries between 2010 and 2012, so the source of income for many artists from the commercialization of the work was seriously damaged. In addition, the absence of an institutional recognition of the professional figure of the artist or of a statute that regulates its activity, of a census that quantifies the number of professionals in this sector and the conditions in which they work, the relatively low affiliation to the professional associations, the only structure of labor protection, together with the virulence with which the crisis has affected the entire fabric of the art system, makes an in-depth study of the situation of the sector indispensable, which allows us to venture into action and medium and long-term resource optimization. Thus, our research is a fundamental primary source to know the current reality of artists in Spain and the evolution that their relations with the rest of the agents of the system and the art market have suffered, and how this has affected their economic and employment situation. It also allows us to segment the data referred to certain groups of artists, as in this case the data provided by Andalusian artists, to know their particularities and compare them with the national average. The important contribution of data from Andalusia in our study, second autonomous community in number of responses after Madrid, makes this analysis exceptionally explicit. We developed a deep analysis of the reality of the sector in Andalusia during the last decades, a review of the reference sources that provide us with information about artists before and during the crisis, and about public and private policies to promote contemporary art that have favored its growth in Andalusia. We also studied the role of the artist in this region, as part of a structure legitimized by institutions, art critics and the art market, reaching conclusions about Andalusian artistic activity nowadays. A fundamental purpose of our research was to use the main primary source: the artists themselves. Thus, after proposing hypothesis and initial research questions, the bulk of our study is made up of the data offered by the artists consulted throughout 2016 and published in February 2017. In accordance with the theories expressed by numerous authors on the suitability of applying multimetodological techniques to understand social sciences in depth, we set out the criteria to design our method of analysis, opting in the quantitative phase of the study for a non-probabilistic or pseudo-random sampling that would allow us to study our population with the greatest rigor. Among the different techniques of non-probabilistic sampling, we chose an intentional sampling that would allow us to select those professionals capable of identifying with our type artist, so that the resulting sample would be as representative as possible, minimizing bias sample. The method used was divided into two stages: casual and snowball, beginning from the data bases in professional platforms grouped in the Union of Contemporary Artists of Spain, and expanding it via other creators and professionals from the sector, who served as a transmission band of our study. Considering the existing literature, its quantification proposals, the aforementioned state registries and other databases, we calculate a total number of plastic and visual artists active in our country around the 25,000 individuals. Considering these data as the size of our population, after the Arkin and Colton table (1962), and using a confidence level of 95% with a maximum error of 3%, the size of our sample should not be less than 1,064 individuals. The final sample exceeded the expected number of responses, reaching data from 1,164 artists. Of these, 5.3% were excluded from this study, either due to inconsistency, incompletion or errors. The remaining 94.7%, a total of 1,105 individuals, was the final sample on which our study was based. Thus, according to the aforementioned Arkin and Colton table, we guarantee a confidence level of 95% with a maximum error of 3% and, therefore, a high degree of accuracy. To develop the data collection, we elaborated a survey as a standardized procedure of quantitative descriptive statistical research, with the questions that the study would analyze. This took months of work and reflection, conversations with artists, gallerists, public and private managers, collaboration with specialists in surveys and statistics, tests and corrections, until the final model was reached. Thus, we chose the methodological model, a non-experimental transverse quantitative analysis, with a non-probabilistic sample and with an explanatory classification criterion. We issued an online survey via Google Forms application for its versatility in the configuration of the different types of questions, a predominant method during the last decades according to recent research, that would guarantee versatility, ease of handling in different devices, viralisation capacity to adapt to the chosen snowball sampling, and mainly the respect of anonymity, essential due to the sensitivity of the data that the artists surveyed were asked. To obtain the data, after defining the research questions and hypotheses, a survey of 42 questions divided into three large groups was designed: "On the artist", "On the economy of the artist" and "On the relationship of the artist with the market ". After a period of testing and evaluation with different professionals in the sector, we collected the data between May and September 2016.