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 On Merit

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. The Dark Arts

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), 1 I organized a conference titled “The Labour of the Multitude? The Political Economy of Social Creativity.” Cruel Economy of Authorship

Notes:

  1. As I will lean on example of F/SUW, it is important to present it briefly. F/SUW is a project-based mock institution. It came into being as a result of a cooperation with Bęc Zmiana Foundation, a small but vibrant NGO in Warsaw. F/SUW’s program consists mainly of research-oriented activities, both publically funded or not funded at all. F/SUW is run by a collective of fellow cultural producers, of whom it is important to mention Michał Kozłowski, Janek Sowa, Bogna Świątkowska, Szymon Żydek, Agnieszka Kurant, and Krystian Szadkowski, among many others.

“Administration of aesthetics” or on underground currents of negotiating artistic jobs; between love and money, money and love

“Paint what you love and love what you paint”
Tom Roberts, 1890

“Your money or your life!” – was a threat or a false pick that the 19th century bandits, just about the time when Roberts wrote his credo, used with unguarded passengers on picturesque English countryside roads or in the wilderness of British colonies. “Administration of aesthetics” or on underground currents of negotiating artistic jobs; between love and money, money and love

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. Art Workers Between Precarity and Resistance: A Genealogy

On alliances – of the impossible, unlikely, circumstantial, conventional or emancipatory kind

In his recent text Greece: The Courage of Hopelessness  1 , Slavoj Zizek suggests that the EU is pushing the Greek government into siding with extremists like Ukip and Le Pen, and conceding (literally) ground to Russia as to threaten the position of NATO in the region; On alliances – of the impossible, unlikely, circumstantial, conventional or emancipatory kind

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 Artist as Slave

Artistic work through a working-life-research lens: A preliminary introduction to a possible research project

A story about what can happen when ideas meet across fields

This essay is based on my encounter with the art-scene in Trondheim, and the reflections I have made both personally as well as through my academic lens as a researcher in the field of working-life studies. Artistic work through a working-life-research lens: A preliminary introduction to a possible research project