Specifically when it comes to the visual arts, legacies are a special case because of all the facets they include, such as an archive (which may be extensive), the oeuvre itself and the artist’s living and working environment that brings the artist’s world to life. Every legacy has its own specific quality and quantity, which is why a customised approach is required. There is no standard model for managing an estate. A crucial question that often serves as a starting point is: ‘how do you want to be remembered as an artist?’
In estate planning, the same questions always need to be answered:
- What condition is the legacy in?
- Who is able/willing to manage the estate?
- What aims do you want to achieve (in the short, medium and long term)?
- With which organisations or bodies do you want to establish partnerships (locally, nationally and internationally) to activate the legacy and make its presence felt?
- What legal/administrative structure do you want?
- How are you going to finance the estate?
- Can you / do you want to transfer the archive to a collection-managing institution?
Ideally, as an artist, you should consider these questions during your lifetime, and you may also decide to create a plan for establishing your future estate. When developing this plan, you can ask yourself the following questions: ‘What will happen to my legacy?’, ‘How do I want my work to be exhibited, stored or sold?’, ‘How can I protect my legacy?’ and ‘What steps can I already take as an artist?’. These questions are a starting point that you can use to organise your future estate and establish certain arrangements for the preservation and management of your artistic legacy.
As an artist, you can also make your own intentions for your legacy known to your family, friends and acquaintances by talking about it or involving them in the activities of your artistic career, for example by organising exhibitions together or giving them extensive access to the material that has been preserved. By putting this vision into words in the form of a will, the heirs will have a document that they can use as a guideline for establishing the estate and managing the artistic legacy. Furthermore, as an artist, you can use your will to make certain arrangements and decisions about the preservation and management of the artistic legacy, such as housing some of the works with a collection-managing institution or including the entire legacy in a foundation.
Being confronted with the impermanence of life, and perhaps its approaching end, is not easy, but there is much that an artist can do by considering it carefully. Preparing an estate plan or setting up an estate while you are still alive has several benefits in terms of inheritance tax and other taxes, and it offers the opportunity to develop and establish your own values, convictions and standards. Moreover, it enables you to continue exercising a degree of control over your legacy after your death, in terms of the choices and decisions that can be made. It offers support and continuity for the stakeholders who will continue working with it.
If this groundwork has not been done, it is up to the heirs or other people involved to work through the planning process themselves. They should also be guided by the artist’s (presumed) intentions, whether these have been set down in writing or not. The important thing here is to have as clear as possible an idea of the contents of the legacy, in order to make and justify decisions and set goals. Recording the collection is an essential condition to be able to manage it well. It also helps you to determine the correct focus and involve the right people in setting up the estate and preserving the legacy in the long term.
To find out what the potential is, what opportunities exist, what the artist themself would have wanted and if there is any interest in perpetuating the legacy in the long term, you can obtain advice and information from personal and professional contacts in the artist’s network, such as friends, family, acquaintances and experts in the field. The CVK can act as a sounding board or somebody to talk to, giving advice and offering support in establishing contacts.
Specifically: Dare to ask questions and obtain advice from everyone connected to the artistic legacy. Involve the artist’s personal and professional contacts, such as researchers, gallery owners and curators, in the planning process to explore the various possibilities and identify the support base of the artistic legacy.