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(An)Other Art World(s)? Imagination Beyond Fiction// An ArtLeaks Research Room at Divus London
What are the problems and challenges posed by the contemporary art system? What does it mean to be an agent of change in the art world today? How do we move beyond exposure and breaking the silence towards sustainable forms of engagement? What are the potentials of a new comparative institutional critique, written by cultural workers, and which forms could it take?
Today, the production of culture is an expanding sphere of activity: on the one hand, it is the space where new meanings and forms of subjectivity are created and where the most radical forms of activity are tested – yet at the same time it is precisely at this juncture where we encounter some of the most glaring forms of exploitation and control, where the gain of profit seems unrestricted and speculation is embedded in the very logic of production. At the same time, cultural processes cannot be reduced simply to production schemes. The system of production and reproduction of hierarchies and values inevitably comes into conflict with the very nature of free creative acts. Culture must retain its amateurish, joyful approach, to freely share its values with society – it should refuse to conform directly to the vulgar logic of sale and speculation.
We invite you to imagine a different system of art and culture, which would not only guarantee decent working conditions to the majority of its participants, but also stimulate the creation of an emancipatory cultural sphere. What are the conditions and possibilities of alternative art worlds? How can we engage and use our imagination, avoiding, at the same time, the traps of utopian thinking?
These are some of the questions at the center of the new issue of the ArtLeaks Gazette, entitled “(An)Other Art World(s)? Imagination Beyond Fiction.” The gazette will be presented in a site-specific research room at Divus London realized by Corina Apostol. The research room can be accessed starting with Friday, July 25th and until August 22nd. Users are also welcome to bring their own relevant materials.
For more information and directions please go here.
Free and open to the public.
This research exhibition includes a selection of visual works from the ArtLeaks Gazette No. 2 by: The Assembly for Culture Ukraine, Daniel Blochwitz, OFSW (Citizen Forum for Contemporary Arts), Noah Fischer /Occupy Museums, Iulia Toma, SOS (The Self-Organized Seminar),
with a collective timeline of Art Workers’ Struggles and Organization designed by Corina Apostol, based on materials selected from the Art Workers’ Pride Archive and an ArtLeaks posters’ timeline including designs by Eduard Constantin,Vladan Jeremić and Nikolay Oleynikov. Visitors are also welcome to browse through a selection of ArtLeaks cases from our Archive and our recent publications: The ArtLeaks Zine, The ArtLeaks Gazette No.1 & No.2.
Special thanks to Ivan Mecl / Divus.
Photo-documentation from the opening evening.
The ArtLeaks Gazette is an activist publication produced by core members of ArtLeaks, an organization founded in 2011 as an international platform for cultural workers where instances of abuse, corruption and exploitation are exposed and submitted to public inquiry. Through our gazette, we stress the urgent need to seriously transform these workers’ relationships with the institutions, networks and economies involved in the production,reproduction and consumption of art and culture. We pursue these goals through developing a new approach to the tradition of institutional critique and through fostering new forms of artistic production that might challenge the dominant discourses of criticality and social engagement that tame and contain creative forces.
Invisible Labor Inquiry (San Francisco, USA)
Dear YBCA [Yerba Buena Center for the Arts],
Please accept my deep congratulations for your inclusion of Bay Area Art Workers Alliance in Bay Area Now. I’m writing in support of B.A.A.W.A., whose project “Invisible Labor” has the potential to act as the most provocative contemporary use of a Bay Area museum to celebrate and reveal the work that maintains it. As you know, B.A.A.W.A. draws support from a group of 200 people, and fifty of those art workers are currently and anonymously installing works in the museum. The significance of the title is not to be underestimated– not only are preparators necessarily unseen by common museum viewers and administration, they are invisible to one and (an)other. This is due to the type of labor required of a prepator’s work—many B.A.A.W.A. workers have little institutional security, are on-call, temporary, independent contractors, freelancers and project-based workers, working odd hours, at night, and competing for jobs. To clarify, all of these people are using their unpaid hours to install work as a way to demonstrate solidarity with their trade and their community for the first time.
In the process of administering this project, it is possible that the meaning of “Invisible Labor” slipped from YBCA’s attention—and with this letter I hoped to highlight what I find to be at the core of the work. This exhibit is a decoy—it looks like a ‘art installation’, but the real work being accomplished by the installation is the revealing of an unseen network of people (to each other and to the public) who make the museum function. The work in the show is most powerful when it is seen as a byproduct of the alliance of people who care for the museums and institutions of the Bay Area. The real exhibit is of a community of alienated precarious workers who see themselves and each other as a part of a mutual aid network that offers infinite care and visibility. This community is the beautiful product of the “Invisible Labor”, and it must be revealed as such, for free, at the opening of Bay Area Now this Friday.
It has been stated by YBCA in its communication with B.A.A.W.A. that only 25 out of 200 art workers who are a part of this work will be invited to attend the opening of Bay Area Now for free this Friday. This decision has been described to us a fiscal necessity for YBCA, and as such, 175 of our members will be asked to pay $15 to attend the opening night of their own project. This is a contradictory decision that will cost the museum significant support by B.A.A.W.A. members, many of whom will not be able or willing to pay to see their labor. At the rate of $15 per B.A.A.W.A. member, YBCA stands to earn $2625 from the sale of tickets to the 175 members not comped for Friday’s event. That is $125 more than YBCA spent on the budget for this exhibit. While you give yourself the potential to break even on costs, you also risk the total failure of your commission to B.A.A.W.A. : the project of revealing the people behind the “Invisible Labor” will remain invisible—to you, to the visitors, and most importantly to each other. In this way, you stand to completely miss the point of the work that you commissioned, and to trap the exhibition in a cycle of fiscally responsible irony.
I am also aware of your labor, and your beautiful attempt to make impossible moments happen within the confines of a huge institution. With this awareness, I would like to offer you a B.A.A.W.A. membership card, which will allow you free admittance to any and all museums and institutions that are a part of the infinite network of care and visibility.
Thanks for your time and attention,
The Feminist Economics Department (the FED)
B.A.A.W.A.
___________________________________________________________________________
Dear Cassie,
Thank you so much for contacting us with your well articulated and thought provoking email. We certainly agree that the economic structure of labor and the work force in the United States is changing with more people working as independent contractors on a project basis. We also agree that the B.A.A.W.A. “Invisible Labor” exhibition, one of 15 exhibitions presented in Bay Area Now 7, does a wonderful job at highlighting important aspects of these issues.
We are thrilled to be presenting the work of artists selected by curators from 15 Bay Area visual arts partners. We are committed to valuing each partnership equally.
I will take the opportunity here to respond to the segment of your email specifically referencing YBCA’s policy on complimentary tickets for our opening night party. The arrangement for all of our partners is articulated in the signed contract:
“Complimentary tickets:
ii. YBCA will provide ORGANIZATION 25 complimentary tickets for the opening night party on July 18, 2014. These tickets are to be used in any way that ORGANIZATION sees fit, including invitations for the artists and their guests.”
In addition an email was sent to the partner organizations articulating how the groups can obtain their complimentary tickets.
YBCA deeply believes that partnerships are central to its success. We worked across department to develop an equitable approach for all of our partners for the opening night reception that we believe is both generous and fair to every participating organization regardless of their range in size and membership. Our strategy represents our enormous respect for the artists, curators, and the entire Bay Area arts community. In addition to providing 25 complimentary tickets for the opening night party, each organization is also provided 50 complimentary tickets for their own public program, and an 25 additional complimentary tickets to be used at their discretion throughout the exhibition. That is a total of 1500 complimentary tickets!
We also always welcome dialogue and exchange about YBCA, the economy, labor and the arts, and any other important topic of interest to the Bay Area community. We welcome your thoughts about how we can deepen our partnership in order to have these conversations.
Thank you again for sharing your thoughts with us and for the important work you and B.A.A.W.A. are doing. We look forward to seeing you at the opening night reception and hope you will join us for some of our many public programs. YBCA is free to the public every firstTuesday of the month and from 4-8 pm on every third Thursday of the month.
Sincerely,
Director of Visual Arts
___________________________________________________________________________
Dear Betti-Sue,
Thank you for the thoughtful and detailed reply. It means a great deal to me that you care enough to write.
My specific concern and request is that YBCA offer complimentary passes to the preparators in the exhibition, if not all preparators. Perhaps a portion of the complimentary passes not used by other organizations could be reallocated to them and left at the door? My request is based on the principle of letting something that is RIGHT happen over pre-determined RULES: because we are working within an art context. My participation in any art comes out of a belief that art can transcend common limitations in order to do something that is really really good. This is why I am a paying member of YBCA, whose core values include risk, innovation, inclusion, and adaptation in pursuit of radical community.
I understand that you mean to create a sense of equity between the groups in the show. However, as an art institution, it seems like there is an opportunity for meaning-making to prevail over blanket rule-making. After years of being on the artist’s side of the institution, I believe in the necessary softness of contracts. I also think that the other groups, if given the chance, would choose to support BAAWA’s initiative by getting preparators in for free (especially since it was the preparators at YBCA who allowed this show to take place).
I was (and am now more so, thanks to your email) aware of the contract that offers 25 tickets to the opening exhibition. However, it is clear to me that the nature of the exhibit requires completely free entry at least for the exhibiting preparators, as a way to celebrate the network of solidarity that is being launched with Bay Area Now.
Please do consider the opportunity to let the work you have commissioned do the work it has the potential to do. I believe in the power of art to overcome a sense of what is impossible, and right now we are so close to letting something that is RIGHT happen in spite of the RULES. We live in a world of regulation, this is the perfect moment to let art in to make what is truly ‘equitable’ (aka just), possible. I will be in attendance on Friday if I don’t give my free tickets (from my membership at YBCA) to the preparators who worked on the show.
Thank you again for your considered response, I know this is an extremely busy time for you.
All the best!
Cassie
Bay Area Art Workers Alliance is a support network of laborers involved in the installation and fabrication of exhibitions within art institutions. BAAWA fosters a mutually supportive relationship between these art workers and their contractors, by facilitating open dialogue, as well as providing an educational resource regarding best practices for the installation, collection, transportation, storage and archiving of artworks.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts was founded in 1993 out of an expressed need for an accessible, high-profile San Francisco venue devoted to contemporary visual art, performance, and film/video representing diverse cultural and artistic perspectives. Distinguished by its support for contemporary artists from around the world, YBCA is also recognized for the important role the organization plays in the San Francisco Bay Area arts ecology and in the community at large.
ArtLeaks Gazette No. 2 (An)Other Art World(s)? Imagination Beyond Fiction – Launch and public discussions
ArtLeaks Gazette No. 2 – Public Launch and Discussions
While in our previous issue we sought to bring awareness of the challenges and obstacles of the contemporary art system as a initial, necessary first step in enacting meaningful transformations, with this gazette we aim to move beyond exposure and breaking the silence, towards ways of engagement – or what does it mean to be agents of change in the art world today? What are the conditions and possibilities of alternative art worlds? How can we engage and use our imagination, avoiding, at the same time, the traps of utopian thinking?
We will be presenting our new issue “(An)Other Art World(s)? Imagination Beyond Fiction” and would like to invite you to attend the events below. Some of the gazette’s editors and authors, together with other artists, activists and theorists will facilitate the discussions. Free entrance.
Saturday, June 28th, 16:00
Oldschool Bar
Naberezhnaya Admiralteiskogo Kanala, No. 27
St. Petersburg, Russia
Directions here.
Corina L. Apostol and Andrey Shental will lead the discussions, part of the Public Program of the School of Engaged Art “Chto Delat.”
For more details join the event on fb: https://www.facebook.com/events/798442093513033
The School of Engaged Art for Russian artists was initiated in 2013 by the collective Chto Delat, with the support of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. It freely offers courses on art theory, philosophy, aesthetics and visual culture, choreography and critical writing in the current Russian context, where basic democratic freedoms are under threat, there is no support for an independent, critical culture, and hardly any academic programs in contemporary art. The school is based on the idea of a collective practice, encouraging its participants to take a position in a world where fundamental struggles are drawn by developing a particular artistic movement.
Monday, June 30th – Sunday, July 6th
Museum of Contemporary Art of Voivodina(MSUV)
Dunavska 37
Novi Sad, Serbia
Vladan Jeremić will present the gazette, part of the FACK MSUV – Performing the Museum as Common
For more details join the group on fb: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1422326548041447
FACK MSUV is an operation of temporary “liberation” of the museum (it can be conceived too as a sui generis occupation or re- appropriation) with the aim of making it open and freely accessible for use for both local and international (art) community without classical institutional filtering and control “from the top down”. The event is launched by the mobile art platform F.A.C.K. from Cesena (Italy) in collaboration with “liberated spaces” MACAO (Milan), Teatro Valle (Rome), SALE.Docks (Venice) and Embros Theatre (Athens) and is realized with the contribution and participation of numerous artists, curators, researchers, activist and citizens from the ex-Yugoslav region and the rest of Europe.
Friday, July 25 and Saturday, July 26
Divus
Enclave 5, 50 Resolution Way
London, U.K.
The gazette will be presented in a site-specific display at Divus London by Corina Apostol, opening July 25th. On July 26th there will be a participatory workshop. More information here: http://divus.cc/london/en/article/b-artleaks-b-an-other-art-world-s-imagination-beyond-fiction
DIVUS London is a new gallery and artspace based in South London hosting exhibitions and events from national and international artists. DIVUS London is also the London office of international magazine Umelec, and the space boasts an archive of art magazines, video and audio art published by DIVUS.
RSVP on fb here: https://www.facebook.com/events/331604437002183
The ArtLeaks Gazette No. 2 includes texts by: Corina L. Apostol, Larissa Babij, Daniel Blochwitz, Joanna Figiel, Noah Fischer with Artur Żmijewski, Vladan Jeremić and Rena Rädle, Sean Lowry and Nancy de Freitas, Andrea Pagnes, Heath Schultz, Andrey Shental
Visual works reproduced in the gazette are by: Assembly for Culture Ukraine, Roisin Beirne withClare Breen, Andreas Kindler Von Knobloch, David Lunney, John Ryan and Tom Watt, Daniel Blochwitz, Department of Biological Flow, Noah Fischer with Pawel Althamer andArtur Žmijewski, G.U.L.F. (Global Ultra Luxury Faction), Ellie Harrison, Vladan Jeremićand Rena Rädle, Deana Jovanović, Mark Shorter, Occupy Museums (OM), OFSW (Citizen Forum for Contemporary Arts), Self Organized Seminar (SOS), Iulia Toma, Winter Holiday Camp
Graphic interventions for this issue: Federico Geller
ArtLeaks Gazette editors: Corina L. Apostol, Vladan Jeremić and Raluca Voinea
Editing assistance: Jasmina Tumbas
We are very happy to announce the release of our latest issue of the ArtLeaks Gazette entitled (An)Other Art World(s)? Imagination Beyond Fiction
While in our previous issue we sought to bring awareness of the challenges and obstacles of the contemporary art system as a initial, necessary first step in enacting meaningful transformations, with this gazette we aim to move beyond exposure and breaking the silence, towards ways of engagement – or what does it mean to be agents of change in the art world today? What are the conditions and possibilities of alternative art worlds? How can we engage and use our imagination, avoiding, at the same time, the traps of utopian thinking?
Some of the contributions that we gathered for this issue investigate models of communing within art and education, focusing on examples of free schools and self-organized groups based on skills sharing. Others offer analyses of the economic relations within the art academies that lead to precarity, and exemplify ways to strike against the system of debt and expendable labor. There are also those who focus on approaches for supporting critical art practices that remain disconnected from the art market, as well as on ways of establishing new paradigms that do not displace artists, workers, local residents, insisting on the possibility of a sustainable community of working people.
As a learning tool, this gazette is meant to contribute to the critical debates around censorship, exploitation and abuse highlighted on our online archive since 2011. We hope many of you will use it in your own self-organized schools, seminars, workshops, protest meetings, and join our community to push these issues even further. We encourage you to share it widely with your peers that may be interested in the aforementioned topics.
The gazette can be downloaded freely here: ArtLeaks_Gazette_2
The gazette is also available via print on demand. You can make an order by sending us an email at: artsleaks@gmail.com
We would like to invite you to a gazette launch and open discussion to be held in St. Petersburg (Russia) on Saturday, June 28th. The exact time and location will be announced shortly before the date on our facebook page. Corina L. Apostol and Andrey Shental will facilitate.
Vladan Jeremić will also hold an open discussion about the gazette, part of FACK MSUV / performing the museum as a common at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina (MSUV) in Novi Sad (Serbia), from June 30 to July 06, 2014 . More information here.
More discussions and workshops will be announced in the near future. If you would like to host one please contact us.
The gazette includes texts by: Corina L. Apostol, Larissa Babij, Daniel Blochwitz, Joanna Figiel, Noah Fischer with Artur Żmijewski, Vladan Jeremić and Rena Rädle, Sean Lowry and Nancy de Freitas, Andrea Pagnes, Heath Schultz, Andrey Shental
Visual works reproduced in the gazette are by: Assembly for Culture Ukraine, Roisin Beirne with Clare Breen, Andreas Kindler Von Knobloch, David Lunney, John Ryan and Tom Watt, Daniel Blochwitz, Department of Biological Flow, Noah Fischer with Pawel Althamer and Artur Žmijewski, G.U.L.F. (Global Ultra Luxury Faction), Ellie Harrison, Vladan Jeremić and Rena Rädle, Deana Jovanović, Mark Shorter, Occupy Museums (OM), OFSW (Citizen Forum for Contemporary Arts), Self Organized Seminar (SOS), Iulia Toma, Winter Holiday Camp
Graphic interventions for this issue: Federico Geller
ArtLeaks Gazette editors: Corina L. Apostol, Vladan Jeremić and Raluca Voinea
Editing assistance: Jasmina Tumbas
Special thanks to: Vlad Morariu and Dmitry Vilensky
Nikita Kadan’s “Procedure room” excluded from the 3rd Annual Xinjiang Biennale because of political issues
Artist Nikita Kadan’s project “Procedure room”(2009-2010) was recently excluded from the 3rd Annual Xinjiang Biennale, “New Art on the Silk Road,” where he had initially been invited to participate. Kadan received an email from the organizers that his project had been rejected in the end, because a representative from the XinJiang government had found some “political issues” in the works. According to the same source, 80 artists were rejected out of the 120 originally invited international artists.
“Procedure room” is a project about the widespread practices of police torture in contemporary Urkaine. It consists of a set of souvenir plates printed with drawings of instances of police torture and the text of an email dialogue between Yekaterina Mishchenko and Kadan. The project speaks to the absence of visual documentation around torture practices, and their typical ‘invisibility,’ also drawing attention to the collective responsibilities of all those who know and remain silent. More information here.
According to the organizers, the exhibition ‘New Art on the Silk Road’, “draws parallels between the region’s historical influence and contemporary resonance.” The Biennale is meant to represent “a celebration of the exchange of art and culture that the Silk Road embodied, and which is even further amplified in today’s globalized world.” The Biennale features works from contemporary artists in Central Asia, China, and the Mediterranean region.
The 3rd Annual Xinjiang Biennale is supported by the central government of China and co-organized by the Ministry of Culture and the Xinjiang province.
More information here.
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