NDAs in the art world

I was perusing the Substack chart for top newsletters in the “Art & Illustration” category this week, as Art Forecast was hovering between #5 and #34 thanks to new subscribers. I started to notice a theme: most of the newsletters were penned by artists and creators directly about the act of art-making.

Art Forecast differs, since I’m not an artist. But I have worked in the art world for the last decade—which gives me a unique angle for this newsletter. With many more subscribers (again, thank you) than when I first started, I wanted to take this chance to reintroduce myself. The basics: I live in Toronto with my husband, an incredible artist, and our cat Raffi, named after the children’s musician.

I started my career as a cultural critic, which I still dabble in from time to time. I’ve written for Artforum, Architectural Digest, Garage Magazine, The Globe & Mail, The Walrus, Lapham’s Quarterly, The Toronto Star, Vogue, and many more. I have a soft spot for using an interdisciplinary lens to understand art in unexpected ways. Some of my favourite essays used Stanley Kubrick, Bear by Marian Engel, and cable news to enter into artists’ practices.

During COVID, I took a tiny pivot and started working in art tech (a very long story, for another time). I stopped thinking of myself as “just a writer” and instead realized that my career as a writer primed me for brand strategy, project management, and marketing. This experience propelled Art Forecast into a multifaceted company that includes PR services for galleries and art institutions, brand strategy, and 1:1 artist consulting.

My experience working with artists, galleries, museums, auction houses, and collectors gives me a 360-degree view of the art world. The art world is opaque. I started this newsletter to articulate the nuances of the industry and help others. “Demystifying” is a word that’s thrown around a lot, but I truly believe that’s what I’m doing. The main goal always stays the same: support artists, support artists, and support artists.

This week on the newsletter: ART HOTLINE is back with a new episode after a brief hiatus, and an article about media training for artists. Below, I’m sharing some recent articles and career highlights from August.

In 2023, in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel and Israel’s counter-war, Wanda Nanibush abruptly left the Art Gallery of Ontario. What followed was a wave of speculation (including reporting in this magazine) about what had happened to the gallery’s inaugural curator of Indigenous art: Was she let go? Did she leave due to differences between her own pro-Palestinian political views and those of the organization and its donors? Did she want to leave? Was she okay? What was the AGO hiding?

These questions remain unanswered because Nanibush reportedly signed a confidentiality agreement.

In late 2023, the Indigenous Curatorial Collective Association sent a letter to the AGO titled “Let Wanda Speak.” A follow-up statement on their website in June 2024 reiterated their demands: “We see it as vital that Wanda Nanibush be able to speak freely about the circumstances regarding her departure from the AGO.” The central demand of their open letter was clear, that “the AGO release Ms. Nanibush from any legal obligations preventing her from speaking publicly about her tenure and dismissal, about how she sees what happened and why.”

A short back and forth commenced, with the AGO responding on January 30, 2024. “At the end of the day, the AGO signed an agreement with Wanda that is and remains confidential,” the letter reads. “We believe that the AGO and Wanda both negotiated in good faith and worked to come to a mutual agreement. We made commitments to confidentiality in the process. We will honour that commitment; we won’t be making further statement.”

In the AGO’s response, gag orders are reframed as benign commitments made in good faith. The ICCA pushed back on the suggestion of a mutual standing in their response on June 4, 2024: “If we are to be in conversation with the AGO, we expect that this will be a relationship that has balance. This balance cannot be achieved in an unequal power structure where the AGO defines what we can and cannot talk about.”

Confidentiality agreements—also known as non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or gag orders—almost always involve a power imbalance, and they’re becoming more prevalent in the art world. Silencing in the Arts, an organization in Canada that researches and tracks the impact of NDAs in the art sector, found that of their forty-five survey participants, over 66 percent had signed an NDA, with 51 percent saying they were not given adequate time to consider signing; 22 percent left the art sector altogether after signing.

Popularized during the Silicon Valley tech boom in the ’70s and ’80s to protect trade secrets, including proprietary algorithms and code, NDAs have gradually become a commonplace business practice. Anyone from interns at a high-profile company to a celebrity’s one-night stand might be asked to sign one. Can’t Buy My Silence, an organization focused on preventing the misuse of NDAs, co-founded by Zelda Perkins, the first person to break her NDA with Harvey Weinstein, and Julie Macfarlane, emerita distinguished professor of law at the University of Windsor and member of the Order of Canada, believes NDAs are increasingly being used as a way to conceal employer wrongdoing.

I’m excited to have a new monthly column about Toronto art exhibitions in Toronto Life, starting with what to see this August!

The Toronto art scene comprises dozens of galleries scattered all over the city—some are glossy and high-end, selling art that might as well be shown at a major museum, while others are scrappy and small, offering independent artists a chance to mount their first exhibitions. It can all feel a little intimidating, especially if you don’t know where to start. Thankfully, we’ve compiled the must-see exhibitions opening each month. Below, all the gallery shows you won’t want to miss this August.

Where: Hunt Gallery, 1278 St. Clair Ave. W., unit 8
When: July 18 to August 22
Artists: Group exhibition
Who comes here: Young artists, curators and collectors with their fingers on the pulse

Hawkins Headquarters, a contemporary art gallery in Atlanta, has a residency at Hunt Gallery to present a group exhibition of artists from the southeastern US, meant to articulate the current American cultural moment. Hawkins exhibits a healthy number of Canadian artists in Atlanta, so this exhibition flips the script by showing artists from the US in Toronto. The show features sculptures by Harrison Wayne, created by detonating explosives inside of ceramics, and Sergio Suarez, who reassembles broken ceramics to create a metaphor for touch. It’s refreshing to see these artists shown for the first time in Toronto.

I’m excited to be working with Art Toronto—Canada’s leading art fair—this year as the VIP Program Advisor. Assisting with both VIP program development and onsite support during the fair to connect VIP guests with galleries. We have roughly 25 events on the calendar (!!!), and I’m excited to be curating events that show art in new ways, including art runs, art and fashion parties, collection visits, and private access to museum shows.

I’d love to hear from you—feel free to introduce yourself in the comment section or by replying to this email! Comments, questions, and complaints are always welcome.

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