APT Action Group is organizing with artists nationally to challenge exploitative practices in the arts. The APT Action Group is a collective of artists, cultural workers, and educators spearheaded by artists York Chang, Elana Mann, Ken Ehrlich, Carolyn Castaño, Lordy Rodriguez, and Shirley Tse, who were each impacted by the actions of the Artist Pension Trust. Artists, as independent workers, often contend with financial insecurity due to their challenging gig conditions of low wages, unpredictable income, high debt, few assets, and lack of a social safety net. The Artist Pension Trust (APT) emerged in 2004 as a promising solution for artists' financial sustainability. APT was pitched to artists as an innovative way to create financial security for artists by pooling their artworks together, introducing them to a broader international art market, and allowing the artists to collectively share in the proceeds. APTs were established regionally and internationally, including in Los Angeles, New York, Mexico City, London, Berlin, and Mumbai. Each participating artist “invested” dozens of artworks with APT, which was contractually obligated to store and insure work locally, and to sell the works internationally. Eventually, APT gathered more than 13,000 artworks from 2,000 artists in 75 countries, with an insured value of at least $70 million as of 2013. In 2019, participating artists across the world began reporting that APT had stopped responding to phone calls, requests for institutional loans, and inquiries for sales. In May 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, the APT Action Group came together to develop a broad, multi-faceted media and public education strategy and recruited legal representation to recover their stolen works. Artists in Los Angeles investigated and were shocked to discover that all of their invested artworks had inexplicably vanished without notice from APT’s Los Angeles storage facility. The APT Action Group was able to locate their artwork in a facility in upstate New York. Threatening legal action against APT, they compelled APT to begin responding about the condition of their artworks, and are now in the process of negotiating the return of the works. What began in May 2021 as an online discussion with over one hundred artists, has transformed into three separate legal battles as well as a national discussion over inequality and unfair practices in the arts. Through the APT Action Group’s organizing efforts, they are collectively challenging exploitative practices in the arts.

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