This talk explores some of the ethical challenges that shape contemporary artistic and curatorial practice today. Drawing on real cases and international professional ethics standards, it offers practical frameworks for navigating key questions such as conflicts of interest, corruption risks, abuse of power and fair remuneration. It examines core issues including plurality and equity, harassment and discrimination, and how these intersect with curatorial integrity and the sector’s duty of care toward artists.
The session also addresses the rights and responsibilities that artists and curators have in their interactions with co-stewards in the art ecosystem, including institutions, collectors, funders, galleries and the media. The talk positions ethics as a form of agency, enabling artists and curators to make meaningful, responsible decisions in a complex and unequal art world.
Image credit: Artoon by Pablo Helguera, commissioned for Ethics of Collecting
Piergiorgio Pepe (he/him) is a senior ethics practitioner, scholar and contemporary art collector based in Paris, Athens and Bangkok. A solicitor of the High Court of England and Wales, he has over 20 years of experience leading ethics programmes in global companies and advising museums, art organisations and art-worker unions on compliance, codes of conduct and ethics policies. He teaches ethics at Sciences Po in Paris and is Executive-in-Residence at INSEAD.
Since 2006, he has collected art with his partner, Iordanis Kerenidis, with whom he co-authored a code of conduct for art collectors. Together they run Phenomenon, the Anafi island-based biennial and a grant program supporting queer, feminist and anti-colonial artistic practices.
Piergiorgio previously served on the board of the curatorial office Council.
