Art Workers


Book Description

From artists to art workers -- Carl Andre's work ethic -- Robert Morris's art strike -- Lucy Lippard's feminist labor -- Hans Haacke's paperwork.




Women Art Workers and the Arts and Crafts Movement


Book Description

Women Art Workers provides a new social and cultural history of the Arts and Crafts movement which offers unprecedented insight into how women constructed alternative, creative lifestyles and disseminated the ethos of the social importance of the Arts and Crafts across new local, national, and international spheres of influence.




Art for the Workers


Book Description

Art for the workers explores the mythology and reality of post-revolutionary proletarian art in Russia as well as its expression in the festive decorations of Petrograd between 1917 and 1920. It covers this brief period chronologically, and so permits a close inspection of the development of artistic policies in Russia under the Provisional Government followed by the Bolsheviks. Specifically, this book focuses on the pre-and post-revolutionary debate about the nature of proletarian art and its role in the new Socialist society, particularly focusing on festive decorations, parades and mass performances as expressions of proletarian art and forms of propaganda.




Art Work


Book Description

In Art Work, Katja Praznik counters the Western understanding of art – as a passion for self-expression and an activity done out of love, without any concern for its financial aspects – and instead builds a case for understanding art as a form of invisible labour. Focusing on the experiences of art workers and the history of labour regulation in the arts in socialist Yugoslavia, Praznik helps elucidate the contradiction at the heart of artistic production and the origins of the mystification of art as labour. This profoundly interdisciplinary book highlights the Yugoslav socialist model of culture as the blueprint for uncovering the interconnected aesthetic and economic mechanisms at work in the exploitation of artistic labour. It also shows the historical trajectory of how policies toward art and artistic labour changed by the end of the 1980s. Calling for a fundamental rethinking of the assumptions behind Western art and exploitative labour practices across the world, Art Work will be of interest to scholars in East European studies, art theory, and cultural policy, as well as to practicing artists.




Feminist Art Workers


Book Description

Feminist Art Workers: A History is the first comprehensive monograph to survey the groundbreaking work of the collaborative performance art group Feminist Art Workers. Founded in 1976 at the Woman's Building in Los Angeles, the group included Nancy Angelo, Candace Compton, Cheri Gaulke, Vanalyne Green and Laurel Klick. This 230-page publication brings together historic images, archival documents, personal recollections, and critical essays that illuminate artwork that addressed a wide range of issues including women's relationships, sexual violence, and economic rights. Often bringing their work directly to a non-art audience, Feminist Art Workers pioneered new artistic strategies such as tours, floats, phone calls and presented their work in unconventional venues such as cafeterias, conferences, buses and planes. Published by Otis College of Art and Design in conjunction with the exhibition Doin' It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman's Building, as part of the Getty initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980. Those interested in the historical precedents of contemporary art practices such as collaboration, interactive performance and community based art will discover roots in the work of Feminist Art Workers. Contributing writers include January Parkos Arnall, Temma Balducci, Betty Ann Brown, Meiling Cheng, Marlena Doktorczyk-Donohue, Osayi Endolyn, Joanna Gardner-Huggett, Andrew D. Hottle, Jennie Klein, Tirza True Latimer, Carey Lovelace, Marie B. Shurkus, Barbara T. Smith, Anne Swartz, and Terry Wolverton. This publication is a must for contemporary art scholars, university and college libraries.




The Death of the Artist


Book Description

A deeply researched warning about how the digital economy threatens artists' lives and work—the music, writing, and visual art that sustain our souls and societies—from an award-winning essayist and critic There are two stories you hear about earning a living as an artist in the digital age. One comes from Silicon Valley. There's never been a better time to be an artist, it goes. If you've got a laptop, you've got a recording studio. If you've got an iPhone, you've got a movie camera. And if production is cheap, distribution is free: it's called the Internet. Everyone's an artist; just tap your creativity and put your stuff out there. The other comes from artists themselves. Sure, it goes, you can put your stuff out there, but who's going to pay you for it? Everyone is not an artist. Making art takes years of dedication, and that requires a means of support. If things don't change, a lot of art will cease to be sustainable. So which account is true? Since people are still making a living as artists today, how are they managing to do it? William Deresiewicz, a leading critic of the arts and of contemporary culture, set out to answer those questions. Based on interviews with artists of all kinds, The Death of the Artist argues that we are in the midst of an epochal transformation. If artists were artisans in the Renaissance, bohemians in the nineteenth century, and professionals in the twentieth, a new paradigm is emerging in the digital age, one that is changing our fundamental ideas about the nature of art and the role of the artist in society.




Art Was Their Weapon


Book Description

The politics, art and culture of Perth's Workers Art Guildare detailed in this comprehensive history, as well as the personal andprofessional lives of some of the movement's key figures.The Workers' Art Guild was a left-leaning political force andinfluential cultural movement of the 1930s and 1940s in Perth. Policeand intelligence arms kept close tabs on the Guild and its members,jailing some and intimidating many others prior to and during theperiod of the banning of the Communist Party in Australia.The book covers the personal and professional lives of key figuressuch as writer Katharine Susannah Prichard and theatre maverickKeith George, while charting the influence of the Communist Party onWestern Australian artists.




Work Ethic


Book Description

Examines the proliferation of new ways of making "art" in the 1960s by focusing on the changed organization of work in society at the time. Co-published with The Baltimore Museum of Art in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name.




ART/WORK


Book Description

The definitive, must-have guide to pursuing an art career—the fully revised and updated edition of Art/Work, now in its fourteenth printing, shares the tools artists of all levels need to make it in this highly competitive field. Originally published in 2009, Art/Work was the first practical guide to address how artists can navigate the crucial business and legal aspects of a fine art career. But the rules have changed since then, due to the proliferation of social media, increasing sophistication of online platforms, and ever more affordable digital technology. Artists have never had to work so hard to distinguish themselves—including by making savvy decisions and forging their own paths. Now Heather Bhandari, with over fifteen years of experience as a director of the popular Chelsea gallery Mixed Greens, and Jonathan Melber, a former arts/entertainment lawyer and director of an art e-commerce startup, advise a new generation of artists on how to make it in the art world. In this revised and updated edition, Bhandari and Melber show artists how to tackle a host of new challenges. How do you diversify income streams to sustain a healthy art practice? How can you find an alternative to the gallery system? How do you review a license agreement? What are digital marketing best practices? Also included are new quotes from over thirty arts professionals, updated commission legal templates, organizational tips, tax information, and advice for artists who don’t make objects. An important resource for gallerists, dealers, art consultants, artist-oriented organizations, and artists alike, Art/Work is the resource that all creative entrepreneurs in the art world turn to for advice.




Wages Against Artwork


Book Description

The last twenty years have seen a rise in the production, circulation, and criticism of new forms of socially engaged art aimed at achieving social justice and economic equality. In Wages Against Artwork Leigh Claire La Berge shows how socially engaged art responds to and critiques what she calls decommodified labor—the slow diminishment of wages alongside an increase in the demands of work. Outlining the ways in which socially engaged artists relate to work, labor, and wages, La Berge examines how artists and organizers create institutions to address their own and others' financial precarity; why the increasing role of animals and children in contemporary art points to the turn away from paid labor; and how the expansion of MFA programs and student debt helps create the conditions for decommodified labor. In showing how socially engaged art operates within and against the need to be paid for work, La Berge offers a new theorization of the relationship between art and contemporary capitalism.