Our first Summer Session theme is labor, and today’s Help Desk advice column answers a tricky question about support, “exposure,” and compensation with some help from Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.). Columnist Bean Gilsdorf notes that “uncompensated exchange can still be ethical.” This article was originally published on May 25, 2015. I espouse fair labor initiatives like W.A.G.E.* to pay artists. However, my own[…..]
Today from our friends at Guernica, we bring you an excerpt from a conversation between Jen Delos Reyes, J. Morgan Puett, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. The former is the founder of Open Engagement, an annual conference “committed to examining how artists, institutions, and publics approach art and social practice”; the latter two are artists who work the everyday—including labors such as chores and childcare—into their practices.[…..]
For the first part of our Summer Session, we’re thinking about labor, and today we’re also considering its opposite—leisure. Steve Ruiz’s review of Sofia Leiby’s most recent show at Devening Projects + Editions considers the artist’s time: “With so much else in an artist’s life productively structured, purposefully performed, and in general feeling like work, what could be more radical than insisting that the center of an[…..]
Today from our friends at REORIENT, we bring you an excerpt from Elnaz Bokharachi’s consideration of Afghan War Rugs: The Modern Art of Central Asia at the Scotsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. In keeping with our Summer Session theme of labor, the author discusses weaving, production, and the impact of war on both. This article was originally published on September 21, 2015. Rug weaving amongst the Iranian peoples dates back[…..]
The first theme in our Summer Session series is labor, and today we’re revisiting Anuradha Vikram’s essay on the so-called creative economy and its effects: “The mythology of the creative economy explains much of why San Franciscans who have pioneered this approach to work are under-invested in the arts despite some apparent affinities. Why support artists with your hard-earned income when you are fully convinced you[…..]
Continuing our labor-themed Summer Session, today we bring you Michael Tomeo’s review of Today I Made Nothing at Elizabeth Dee Gallery in New York City. This article was originally published on August 23, 2010. I’m so over jobs right now. Sure, we need them, we’re thankful for the paycheck and it’s fun to hang out with coworkers (sometimes), but let’s face it, jobs blow. While the total[…..]
From our sister publication Art Practical, today we bring you the next installment of our Summer Session—for June, we’re considering the idea of labor. Author Heidi Rabben assesses the exhibition Proximities 3: Import/Export at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and notes that it “provocatively address[es] the larger issue of material and immaterial labor across transactional flows.” This article was originally published on February 17, 2014. Proximities 3:[…..]
