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Exposing the good and bad practices of art institutions, galleries, and studios
Submit your case
About
Code of Acquisitions is a platform exposing both good and bad practices of art institutions, galleries,
and studios.
It is based on published policies as well as reported cases of misconduct and abuse.
Instances include artists not being paid, being misled post-sales, or not having their works returned.
Often, artists find it challenging to pursue legal action against a conflict due to their precarious
conditions, and particularly because lack of establishing individual legal proceedings overseas.
The Code of Acquisitions platform allows anyone to submit their cases, either anonymously or openly.
Cases could range from gender and race discrimination to misconduct of payments.
Such submissions contribute to a database of conflicts, codes, and interactive visualizations
that will increase awareness about the issues and hold organizations accountable through their
reputation.
Case Submission
Submit a case of
misconduct or abuse you've experienced with an
institution or a gallery or a studio.
Workshops
We conduct workshops upon invitation from institutions (contact for
workshops).
During these sessions, participants propose cases based on published sources, and collectively evaluate
them, and add the cases to the database.
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CASTRO (Contemporary Art STudios ROma)
Workshop with Fellows of CASTRO
April 2024
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Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Workshop with students of Department of Architecture and Urbanism
June 2023
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Irish Museum of Modern Art
Workshop with International Summer School Participants
June 2023
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UP Projects in partnership with Flat Time House and in association with Liverpool
Biennial
Workshop with Constellations 2023 participants
July 2023
Methodology
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Submissions: Submitted cases are collected through an open form into a database and
prioritized based on the provided information. If there are no sufficient information, they are
archived until additional sources are provided. A committee of fact-checkers including lawyers,
artists, gallerists, curators, and other art workers evaluate the cases.
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Assignment: Committee members periodically view the cases, and based on their
knowledge of the institution and the type of issue they assign themselves to a case.
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Research & Analysis: The assigned committee member conducts research within a fixed
period. After they complete their research, they provide a minimum of two evidence (documents, media
links, witnesses, or evidence of the issue being not a personal but a systemic one), and they mark
the case as FAIL, SUCCEED, COMPLEX, or UNCERTAIN. If a committee member is not certain about the
case, then they ask for a second look, and another fact-checker is assigned to work on it. [1]
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Publishing: After the case is marked as FAIL or SUCCEED, then a secondary review is
conducted by another committee member. If the reviewer says the research is valid, then the case is
published on the database and the graph is updated on the website. If a case is marked as COMPLEX or
UNCERTAIN, they are archived until more information is provided.
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Impact & Updates: After the case is published, if the institution fixes the issue
and reaches us about it, then the status of the issue is updated.
[1] A common fact-checking method used by the members of International Fact-Checking Network.
Principles
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Commitment to fairness: We are committed to be fair and open. We conduct research
on all sides of the issue. We follow the same process for every fact check and let the evidence
dictate the conclusions.
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Commitment to transparency of sources: We want our readers to be able to verify
findings themselves. Therefore, we are committed to transparency of sources. We provide all sources
in enough detail that readers can replicate their work, except in cases where a source’s personal
security could be compromised. In such cases, we provide as much detail as possible.
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Commitment to transparency of funding & organization: If we accept funding from
other organizations, we ensure that funders have no influence over the conclusions the fact-checkers
reach in their reports.
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Commitment to transparency of methodology: We explain the methodology we use to
select, research, write, edit, publish and correct the fact checks. We encourage readers to send
claims to fact-check and are transparent on why and how we fact-check.
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Commitment to open & honest corrections: We correct clearly and transparently to
ensure that readers can see the corrected version.