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Call to Action: Frieze New York
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Gulf Labor Adds Its Voice to the Protests Against Frieze New York
As the weekend arrived, by most accounts business was gathering steam at the second-annual Frieze New York art fair. So, however, was the simmering controversy over the fair’s use of non-union construction labor. This morning, the group Gulf Labor added its voice to those condemning fair organizers, publishing a statement of solidarity with the unions and other groups who have been protesting the event.
Gulf Labor was formed to call attention to the poor conditions for workers in the construction of the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim and other cultural institutions in the United Arab Emirates’s massive Saadiyat Island cultural development. In the past, the group has threatened to boycott the new Guggenheim if it can’t guarantee worker’s rights and agitated for independent monitoring or labor conditions on Saadiyat Island. Its statement on Frieze New York explicitly draws parallels between the struggle for worker’s rights around the world.
The full statement, below:
Gulf Labor statement on Frieze New York
It has been Gulf Labor‘s position since its inception that the disregard of worker rights is a global phenomenon which requires resistance wherever it emerges, and wherever one is able to act. We have stated that this disregard for the safety, social conditions, and rights of workers is a problem not unique to Saadiyat Island in the United Arab Emirates.
A sometimes invisible but palpable line conjoins a Foxconn factory worker in China, a garment worker in Bangladesh, a miner in South Africa, a construction worker in the United Arab Emirates, a Frieze art fair builder in New York, and even the artists who have worked on this statement.
We have chosen to highlight the conditions of work in Saadiyat Island because we see an opportunity to convince institutions, such as the Guggenheim Museum, to live up to their visionary words. Moreover, we hope to bring these issues to the forefront and build solidarity elsewhere, to demand fair labor practices not only in the UAE, but globally; not only in the visual arts, but in all spheres of work.
For this reason, we share the concerns raised by the Arts & Labor group, labor unions and organizations, as well as local city council members around labor practices at Frieze Art Fair in New York. Gulf Labor supports calls to Frieze, their various sponsors including Deutsche Bank and BMW, and all affiliated parties, to meet the basic standards for living wages and protection of workers from injuries.
Sincerely
Organizing Committee of Gulf Labor
Gulf Labor’s letter follows several other solidarity actions that have dogged the fair. L.A. artist Andrea Bowers prominently hung letters stating her opposition to Frieze’s labor policy, and yesterday Suzanne Lacy and Nato Thompson yielded a part of their Frieze Talk to an activist from the group Arts & Labor to speak about the issues.
via Jasmina Tumbas
Marika Schmiedt, one of the most politically engaged Roma activist artists in Austria (and Europe), has been censored, threatened, and attacked for her politically controversial artworks, which expose and critique various forms of racism, nationalism and fascism in Europe. By linking the history of the persecution and killings of Roma and Sinti to the current forms of systematic and violent discrimination and murder of Roma and Sinti in Europe and worldwide, Schmiedt’s work has hit a nerve in the neo-fascist atmosphere of European politics, enraging nationalists from various countries, as well as politicians, intellectuals, and activists who find her work too confrontational.
On Sunday, April 14, 2013, at the opening of Marika Schmiedt’s exhibition, “Thoughts are free”, a Hungarian nationalist and her Austrian husband attacked Schmiedt, tore her cell phone out of her hands, and began to tear down her posters on the construction site fence. One of the organizers of the exhibition and Schmiedt stopped the attack. The Hungarian woman called Schmiedt a racist and threatened to sue the artist for her purported defamation of the Hungarian nation.
Those of us, who read daily about Hungary’s outrageous violations of human rights, censorship of the media and the cultural sector, welcome Schmiedt’s poignant and loud critique of these political developments. Since the EU continually fails to address the rampant hatred of Roma, anti-Semitism and homophobia in Hungary, Schmiedt’s work bears witness to these developments and offers resistance against complicity and capitulation of civil courage.
Such artistic interventions raise many enemies. The 30 posters were all torn down within two days, leaving only traces of her exhibition. It remains to be seen who was responsible for tearing down all the posters. But one thing is certain: Schmiedt does not shy away from – and does not fear – confrontation; she incites it. As she has said:
“My work attempts to break this silence and expose the visual culture of racism – and its many languages – and simultaneously counteract the continuing discrimination.”
Jasmina Tumbas
Images from the exhibition (taken from: http://www.hofkabinett.at/cms/index.php mact=News%2Ccntnt01%2Cdetail%2C0&cntnt01articleid=3&cntnt01origid=15&cntnt01returnid=70 ):
At the opening:
After 2 Days:
After 2 Days and 3 Hours:
Other graphic works by Marika Schmiedt : Marika Schmiedt – ARTBRUT’s photostream on flickr
FILMS by Marika Schmiedt
Eine lästige Gesellschaft / An Undesirable Society (2001)
VERMÄCHTNIS. LEGACY (2010–2011)
Roma Memento. Zukunft ungewiss? / Roma Memento. Uncertain future? (2012)
About Marika Schmiedt
Born in 1966 in Traun, Upper Austria, activist, filmmaker and visual artist. Since 1999 – present: Research with survivors (witnesses) of the persecution of Roma and Sinti (including the Holocaust and the present). Her artistic work focuses on addressing the situation of ethnic Roma before and after 1945. Academic lecturer in youth and adult education.
Breaking the Silence on the Art World: ArtLeaks Gazette Launch @ Brecht Forum (May 4th, NYC)
Credit: Zampa di Leone
We are happy to share with you the details of the official public launch of our ArtLeaks Gazette which will take place at the Brecht Forum in NYC on Saturday, May 4th from 7 PM! Hope to see many of you there – we promise it will be an exciting evening! Please help us spread the word by sharing this announcement!
ArtLeaks members would like to initiate an open discussion at the Brecht Forum in NYC on May 4th from 7 PM, around our upcoming ArtLeaks Gazette, focused on establishing a politics of truth by breaking the silence on the art world. This will be the official public launch of our gazette, which will be available online and in print at the beginning of May 2013, and will be followed by a series of debates in the near future.
Artleaks was founded in 2011 as an international platform for cultural workers where instances of abuse, corruption and exploitation are exposed and submitted for public inquiry. After almost two years of activity, some members of ArtLeaks felt an urgent need to establish a regular on-line publication as a tool for empowerment, reflection and solidarity. (More about us here: https://art-leaks.org/about)
Recently, this spectrum of urgencies and the necessity to address them has come sharply into the focus of fundamental discussions in communities involved in cultural production and leftist activist initiatives. Among these, we share the concerns of groups such as the Radical Education Collective (Ljubljana), Precarious Workers’ Brigade (PWB) (London), W.A.G.E. (NYC), Arts &Labor (NYC), the May Congress of Creative Workers (Moscow), Critical Practice (London) and others.
Eager to share our accumulated knowledge and facilitate a critical examination of the current conditions of the cultural field from a global perspective, we are equally interested in questioning, with the help of the participants in the event, the particular context of New York City with its cultural institutions, scenes and markets.
The event will be divided in two parts. In the first, we will announce and present the forthcoming ArtLeaks Gazette. Focusing on the theme “Breaking the Silence – Towards Justice, Solidarity and Mobilization”, the structure of the publication comprises six major sections: A. Critique of cultural dominance apparatuses; B. Forms of organization and history of struggles; C. The struggle of narrations; D. Glossary of terms; E. Education and its discontents; F. Best practices and useful resources (More here https://art-leaks.org/artleaks-gazette). This publication gathers contributions from different parts of the globe, highlighting both historical initiatives and emerging movements that engage issues related to cultural workers rights, censorship, repression and systemic exploitation under conditions of neoliberal capitalism.
This also becomes an opportunity to bring up for discussion a series of questions that have defined ArtLeaks’ activity and that we would like to tackle anew in conjunction with local cultural producers in the second part of the event: What are the conditions of the possibility of leaking information concerning institutional exploitation, censorship, and corruption in the art world? What does it mean to speak the truth in the art field and to whom may it be addressed? What analogies and what models can we use in order to describe and operate within the conditions in which cultural workers pursue their activities? We aim to bestow a greater level of concreteness to these questions by inviting the participants to share its own concerns and experiences related to inequality of chances, structural injustice and forced self-censorship within the context of their work. We are also interested in discussing current collaborations and future alliances and projects that unite common struggles across international locales. Visual and scriptural material which documents the evening will be uploaded on the ArtLeaks platform.
Gazette Contributors: Mykola Ridnyi, Gregory Sholette, Marsha Bradfield & Kuba Szreder (Critical Practice), Fokus Grupa, Amber Hickey, Lauren van Haaften-Schick, Organ kritischer Kunst, Veda Popovici, Milena Placentile, Jonas Staal & Evgenia Abramova
Gazette Editors: Corina L. Apostol, Vladan Jeremić,Vlad Morariu, David Riff & Dmitry Vilensky.
Editing Assistance: Jasmina Tumbas
Graphic Intervetions: Zampa di Leone
Facilitators of the event @ Brecht Forum: Corina Apostol & Dmitry Vilensky
The Brecht Forum has a donation sliding scale of 6 to 15 $. We recommend registering for this event in advance here. Even if you are unable to make a donation, we still encourage you to come – we will not turn away anyone that wishes to participate in the discussions.
“A Roma Model/ The Cosmopolitan Other?” (Berlin, Germany)
Daniel Baker and Ethel Brooks’ performative conversation in the frame of the Former West project, entitled “A Roma Model/ The Cosmopolitan Other” which takes place today, March 20th 2013 in Berlin, sparked a chain of criticism on the internet from the artistic and activist community for the problematic way in which it appears to gloss over Roma repression in Europe today, instead chosing to idealize and distort their experience. With the permission of the authors, here we reproduce the original statements and comments posted on Facebook, together with the abstract for Baker and Brooks’ conversation and a link to the livestream where it was broadcast .
Many thanks to Jasmina Tumbas and 
Mike Korsonewski for translation assistance.
via Former West
A Roma Model/ The Cosmopolitan Other
Abstract
It seems to be a commonplace assumption that the misery of Roma who live amidst our societies is a direct consequence of their self-chosen “freedom” that stands against the prevailing consensus in the so-called West. Now, as this very consensus gets uncovered as one of order, control, and disciplining aimed at breeding the fiction of western hegemony, the Roma model of life—arrested through social and aesthetic prejudice—might offer knowledge on how a new possibility might emerge from the current condition of emergency. Artist and researcher Daniel Baker and theorist Ethel Brooks examine what Roma thought has to offer today if it manages to migrate from the margins to central societal discourses on politics, economics, and aesthetics. The discussion on issues such as nomadic sensitivity, extraterritoriality, camp, survival, and collectivity—underlined by the principles of the makeshift and of contingency—get punctuated by two instances of divinatory dialogue: a palm reading by Brooks and a Tarot card reading by Baker. These marginal “fortune-telling” acts are stereotyped as primitive practices of those who have been circumvented by modernity, yet they resonate in many established western structures ranging from commerce to politics to culture and art to religion. Whether taken seriously or not, these acts of divination signify particular modes of engagement and a potential performative departure to embrace “Othered” knowledges in imagining alternate kinds of prospects for being together.
Reactions
via Filiz Demirova
Hello Ethel, I found out that you and Daniel Baker are giving a talk titled “A Roma Model The Cosmopolitan Other”. I think the description of the talk and this event are very problematic. I think it is for many reasons problematic. For example rather than tackle the oppression of Roma in Europe, I feel it idealizes a distorted, whitewashed image of Romani existence. This whole discourse sidesteps the issues of lived oppression, racism, and exclusion, and instead idealizes “nomadic sensitivity, extraterritoriality, camp, survival, and collectivity”. To make matters worse, you are going to perform what they call “divinatory dialogue”: you will hold a “palm reading” session and Baker will do “Tarot card reading”. I am a Romni and a activist and just looking at it makes me feel sick. This is unbelievable.
via Ethel Brooks
Dear Filiz,
I am sorry that you are so upset by the title and the subject of the talk. I also am a Romni and an activist, and hope that the dialogue will actually address some of the very issues of racism, exclusion and lived oppression. I did not write the “nomadic sensitivity” part, but do think that the collectivity and survival are urgent questions that have to be addressed. I am hoping that what I will be doing will be useful to Romani activists; the palm reading that I am doing and what I will talk about I draw from my own family background –this was work that our women did to feed our families, not the gadze fantasy that people portray it as– and will talk about race and gender and class in that context. Are you in Berlin? If so, I would be happy to meet and to talk more about it, or to have you come. If not, then I will share the link with you as well. Again, I am sorry that I have offended and sickened you. I think that it is crucial to talk about our history in Europe, as part and parcel of the racism –death, violence, eviction, etc– that Roma face. I also think that we have to claim, as activists and as Roma, and not deny that these have been the labor market practices –the only alternatives– of our people. We brought palm reading to Europe from India, and it kept us fed and alive for centuries… there is not need to deny that in the name of some sort of push for belonging to the gadzekane world.
I would like to talk more if you want. But baxt, Ethel
via Jasmina Tumbas
A very important intervention by Filiz Demirova – especially given the description of the event (!!!). However, I am curious how Ethel Brooks will approach the topic, and hope, given her immediate and thorough response to Filiz, that this panel will be a lot more “critical” than it appears in the description, meaning that it engages with the very stereotypes and racism that enforced and perpetuated these kinds of “labours” of survival, and how those forms of racism are systematically perpetuated by European “nostalgia” and “primitivizing” of Roma as “ideal cosmopolitan Others” (one must only remember Salman Rushdie’s talk at the Pavilion in Venice) or villainized as criminals and social parasites (the status quo in the European approach to Roma, politically and socially), all the while the brutal REALITIES of the living conditions (and their histories) are often conveniently ignored or brushed over… Thankfully there will be a live stream.
via Marika Schmiedt
via Ethel Brooks
Dear Marika,
I am sorry if you are offended by the presentation that I will make tomorrow. You have seen my response to Feliz Demirova. I am doing this as an anti-racist intervention. I think that we need to talk about labor practices and the ways in which Roma and Sinti kept body and soul together for a millennium. My presentation will be about gendered and racialized labor and the ways in which practices such as palm reading are work, pure and simple. but also how such divinatory practices have been taken up by non-Roma, not just through liberal fetishist racism, which you rightly say, but also through capitalist speculation, commodity production and other forms. I am making an intervention, one that I hope is useful to our community and will push back against gadjekane obsessions with our difference.
via Marika Schmiedt
dear ethel, well intentioned, but wrong thinking approach.
we have no more time for experiments.
for a change, it finally needs more discussions and other interventions!
A livestream of the performative conversation between Daniel Baker and Ethel Brooks can be accessed on the Former West main site March 20th, 2013 from 10 PM (Berlin Time).
Marika Schmiedt‘s reaction to Daniel Baker and Ethel Brooks’ performance
an impossible intervention!the challenge of rigorous intellectual engagement was not present.i found the undifferentiated treatment and blending of roma “culture”, concentration camps and camps in general very problematic.for me, it also raised the question of whether brooks or baker lost relatives in the concentration camps?my spontaneous thought was no. because i think the outlook would be different.in general, i have the impression that there are big differences between those roma who live in the usa and the uk, and those who reside in various european states.the concern and hence the involvement is very different.at times, i also thought about the use of such events.who actually benefits from them?what remains is a lack of solidarity with roma among intellectuals and artists.
I was travelling without access to email or facebook these past few days, but I want to respond to Marika’s reaction to Daniel Baker’s and my intervention, particularly around the question of whether UK/US Roma are different from European Roma: we are, certainly. However, I think that this production of difference, between an “us” and “them” among Romani people is disingenuous. As we know, there is a tremendous diversity amongst Romani communities –some of us speak Romanes, others don’t, or some speak poghadi chib or other dialects of Romanes –of those who don’t speak Romanes, there are many who do not do so (Spanish Roma) because the language was forcibly taken. Some of us have collective memories of genocide –and lost family in the Holocaust, in particular– others don’t have that direct connection, but feel the loss and pain deeply nevertheless. Some of us have collective histories of traveling, others were forcibly settled; some of us were enslaved, others we not. some of us have been forcibly evicted and moved from place to place, denied home, citizenship, school, others not. We have so many battles to fight –but to fight each other, rather than those who are killing us, is merely divisive and not productive. We are a diverse people –and just as I don’t believe in the nation-state, I also don’t believe in the necessity of a homogeneous notion of who we are. It makes us no less a people ==we are Romani people, and have ties to each other across nation-states, across history and across oceans, that has lasted a millennium. I celebrate those connections, and mourn our losses and our collective history of genocide, and I hope that our interactions begin a dialogue that will be based on our connections, and our common struggles. But baxt, Ethel
I agree with your statement Marika Schmiedt . In addition to that, I´d like to mention that at the same conference we witnessed a number of artists performing all kinds of stereotypes of their otherness. Such as Nastio Mosquito in “African? I Guess”. He brought to us ALL stereotypes of “nigger” sexist, “sexy nigger” in awfully entertaining show where audience was amused by being sexually excited and hearing over and over “nigger” “sex” “bitch” words + “I like the sound of word bitch!..” and similar.. I wonder how comes that the discourse has been brought so much backwards. Remembering Josephine Baker´s Banana-dance (in 1920´s and 1930´s) and the “Sweet Sweetback…” move (1971).. It´s hard to believe.. Why do the artists of color have to paint their skin with black?! Why do we need all the stereotypes over and over? Why artist of Turkish origin, a Phd candidate Köken Ergun is exposing Turkish community.. etc.. and claims that they say that they do isolate them selfs voluntarily within the German society?! He further more claims that with his work with “isolated communities” he kind of enlightens their “sterile lives”.. And why our beloved Russian collective Chto Delat teaches us within their learning play simply that “communism is bad and it brings dead people”.. i wonder ..
In my opinion, every crtiticism regarding the performance/event, Brook and Baker and the organizers should not mean that Roma fight against each other. More central is a self-criticism, which is, in my view, urgently necessary to learn from mistakes, grow with them and getting the current dramatic situation changed. The question Marika asked, ” Who profits from such kinds of events?”, is adequate and legitimate in my opinion. I am not likely to speak of “we” because I think that there is no such thing as a “we” in reality. I want to have the right to criticize Non-Roma and Roma, as well, when they cooperate with the system and thus do more harm to Roma instead of standing up against the existing power structures.
In reaction to the Roma Pavilion, Venice (2011), and Former West’s “A Roma Model/ The Cosmopolitan Other?” panel (Berlin, Germany, 2013).
BAK, basis voor actuele kunst 2011
Zampa di Leone: FORMER FRIENDS
Graphics and text by Zampa di Leone
What is FORMER FRIENDS?
FORMER FRIENDS is a long-term international research, education, publishing, and exhibition project (2008–2014), which from within the field of contemporary art and theory: (1) reflects upon the changes introduced to the friends (and thus to the so-called Friends) by the political, cultural, artistic, and economic events of 1989; (2) engages in rethinking the histories of the friends of the last two decades in dialogue with post-communist and postcolonial thought; and (3) speculates about a “post-friendly” future that recognizes differences yet evolves through the political imperative of equality and the notion of “one friend.”
Why FORMER FRIENDS?
The project takes the year 1989—as a critical landmark in recent history of the friends and a catalytic moment in the move away from the three-friends partitioning of the Cold Friends and towards to the “new order of friends”—as its starting point. The so-called Friends, blinded by the (default) victory of neoliberal capitalism on a global scale, failed to recognize the impact of the massive shifts put into motion by the events of that year, and has continued to adhere to its own claims of hegemony. The term “former Friends” never articulated as a counterpart to the widely used “former Enemies,” thus does not refer to the status quo, but is rather an aspired to, imagined “farewell” to the “bloc” mentality; it is a critical, emancipatory, and aspirational proposal to rethink histories of our friends and to speculate upon futures of the friends through artistic and cultural practice.
What does FORMER FRIENDS consist of?
(1) An extensive transnational, transdisciplinary research undertaking including: a series of educational activities, individual research projects, research seminars and symposia, research exhibitions, and major public events in the form of Research Congresses. The constantly evolving process of the research trajectory is registered and made publicly accessible through this online platform; (2) major publications: a critical reader and a catalogue (2012–2013); and (3) an international exhibition (2013).
ArtLeaks 