The Politics of Speculative Labour

In this essay, I will endeavour to outline the connection between the contradictions of the social development of artistic labour in capitalism and the formation of the aesthetic subject in modernity as the displacement of labour from the category of art, bringing it into closer affiliation with the speculative forms of capital valorisation.

On Merit

W.A.G.E. is an activist and advocacy organization currently focused on regulating the payment of artist fees by the non-profit arts organizations and institutions that subcontract artistic labor. W.A.G.E.’s myopic focus on artist fees has sometimes been the subject of criticism by those who would argue that artists have always been unpaid

The Dark Arts

Prologue Imagine that you are in your studio, or at the desk of the office where you work, or in the classroom where you study. You are temporarily lost in thought about your creative process, thinking about what you will work on next, trying to make something of value.

When Politics Becomes Form. The Venice Biennale, 2015

On Karl Marx’s birthday this year, a six-month public reading of Das Kapital was iniated not far from a video-installation documenting the thoughts of two leading Marxists of our time – Stuart Hall and David Harvey. On the same day, the same artist who initiated these politically-charged projects launched a preview of a new film.

Cruel Economy of Authorship

Let me start this reflection about reputational economies with a telling example. In 2011, together with my fellow collaborators from the Free/Slow University of Warsaw (F/SUW), I organized a conference titled “The Labour of the Multitude? The Political Economy of Social Creativity.”

Notes on Artists, Workers and Cooperation in Norway

When working with art, you are not doing it for the money. But all people need to eat. Most people would presume that if an artist is having a lot of solo shows with established institutions and is participating in group shows during the year, it would secure her or him an acceptable economical situation.

Art Workers Between Precarity and Resistance: A Genealogy

On present-day and historical stakes In the backstage of art fairs, biennales, shows, before artworks are exhibited, sold, collected or gifted, artists, interns, assistants, handlers, curators research and plan, they acquire working materials, necessary tools, to draw, to write, to build, to rehearse, or to film, to publicize and invite audiences on social media.

Artist as Slave

Slave 2 The System Slave Lyrics Artist: Prince Album: Emancipation CHORUS: Everybody keeps tryin’ 2 break my heart Everybody except 4 me I just want a chance 2 play the part The part of someone truly free Like candle slowly burning, I can feel my world unravel