CIAGP announces appointment of renown American sculptor, Joel Shapiro as President
This month, CISAC’s creators’ council for visual arts – the International Council of Creators of Graphic, Plastic and Photographic Arts (CIAGP) – met in New York for two days of meetings that included the signing of important agreements for Chinese artists and a change in the council’s presidency.
In the opening address of his last meeting as president, French visual artist Hervé Di Rosa, who was also the acting president of CISAC in 2012 following the untimely passing of Robin Gibb, has led the council for 2 terms and overseen an exponential increase in its representation and influence.
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He is stepping down as president to hand over to the prominent American sculptor Joel Shapiro from Artists Rights Society (ARS). Mr Shapiro has been the subject of more than 160 solo exhibitions and retrospectives all across the world and has executed commissions and publicly sited sculptures in major cities across Asia, Europe and North America. His experience from a fifty-year career as a visual artist will be invaluable in helping continue CIAGP’s work in promoting the Artists’ Resale Right and progressing the Automated Image Recognition (AIR) project which uses visual recognition software to help manage the rights of visual arts in the digital domain.
“CIAGP’s visibility has increased during the past years, our network is stronger, in particular due to the solidarity of the societies among themselves,” Said Mr Di Rosa. “The professional rules are making our organisations more transparent and efficient than before, and we have to continue its improvement for the artists’ benefit. I am certain my successor will be able to continue leading the campaigns that we started together.”
“Artists need all the representation they can get,” said Mr Shapiro. “While the relationship between artists and dealers could be one of deep love and respect, there can also be insecurity on both sides so a resale right is really complicated. There has to be broad legislation and a kind of universal right for that to happen.”
One of Mr Di Rosa’s last acts as president was the signing of unilateral representation agreements between the Images Copyright Society of China (ICSC) and CIAGP member societies. The ICSC was represented by its General Director, Mr Lin Tao, while seven CIAGP member societies were involved including ARS, DACS, ADAGP, BUS, JASPAR, VEGAP and Viscopy. This was witnessed by more than 50 attending representatives who travelled to the meeting from as far as Japan, China, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and all across Europe.
On behalf of all the visual artists across the world that are being promoted and supported by CIAGP’s work, CISAC would like to thank Mr. Di Rosa for his strong commitment and hard work during his presidency. He was a consistently passionate voice for creators and despite being one of France’s most prominent artists, always made himself available to share his voice wherever in the world it was needed.