Monthly Archives: January 2014

The International Institute of Social History

After wrapping up my successful talks at rum46 and Bureau Publik in Denmark, I’m spending a couple days in Amsterdam to marvel at the city, and to do some research at the International Institute of Social History.

 

 

 

 

I’m specifically looking at Seth Siegelaub’s International Mass Media Research Center documentation, which is housed here, among many other amazing collections.

If you have never been here while in Amsterdam, go.

 

Making Social Realities with Books at rum46 in Aarhus, January 22 and 23

I’m very pleased to be heading to Denmark to participate in the upcoming series Making Social Realities with Books at rum46, organized by the space in partnership with Bret Bloom and the Jutland Academy of Art.

social realities with books

The talk takes place on Wednesday, January 22nd at 19:00 at rum 46 in Aarhus. The workshop is the following day at rum 46 starting at 10:00.

 

Talk: Critical Circulation: Artists’ Books, Labor, and the Law

A dual economic and legal history of contemporary art can be traced through the histories of artists’ publishing practices, and in the attachment of legal terms to works of art. As an alternative exhibition format, publications have been employed as a crucial means of disseminating documentation and information on a wide and accessible scale, potentially in ways that are more historically stable and accessible than a traditional exhibition. Employing legal instruments such as the contract and certificate of authenticity, artists have attempted to gain control over the circulation and exhibition of their work, while critiquing a market-driven cultural economy. Each of these strategies instrumentalize circulation as a site for critique, allowing for the politics surrounding the creation, presentation, exchange, and future provenance of art to become at least as relevant as the work itself.

Conceptual art and institutional critique of the 1960s-70s stand as important historic examples in which the discourses of communications, labor, and the law are utilized to further artists’ rights and develop critical forms of production, dissemination, and reception. Beginning with Seth Siegelaub’s abandonment of a traditional gallery model to realize exhibitions as publications, and his later development of the “Artists’ Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement,” and concluding with current examples explored in the recent exhibition Canceled: Alternative Manifestations & Productive Failures, we will re-examine how these strategies have been used to create new modes of artistic agency.

 

Workshop: Non-Participation

Non-Participation is an ongoing collection of letters of refusal written by artists and other cultural producers to decline their participation in cultural events or exhibitions for political or ethical reasons. The issues raised by these artists’ letters include the non-payment of artists’ fees, the denial of copyright ownership, censorship, rejections of corporate funding, and many others. To quote one such letter by artist Michael Rakowitz, “sometimes what we say ‘no’ to is more important than what we agree to.”

Workshop participants will explore issues of how artistic labor is evaluated, consider ways for artists to better assert their needs or negotiate compromise, and compare the situations of artists in different national and cultural contexts. These considerations are particularly pertinent given the increasingly unstable state of arts funding internationally, and as privatization and debt become deeply politicized. We will discuss past and present examples of cultural producers advocating for improved labor conditions, such as the Art Workers Coalition, W.A.G.E., The CarrotWorkers Collective, and others. We will also explore various legal and other practical tools developed by cultural producers for asserting one’s rights and expectations as arts workers, including Helena Keeffe’s Standard Deviation, Mary Beth Edelson’s Artist Contract, and Seth Siegelaub’s The Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement. Participants will formulate scenarios for their own “non-participation,” considering when they can and should say “no.”

 

Non-Participation lecture at Bureau Publik, Copenhagen

I’ll be in Denmark next week to give a series of presentations on my upcoming project Non-Participation, and on the notion of Critical Circulation.

My first stop is Bureau Publik in Copenhagen on January 21, followed by rum46 in Aarhus on the 22nd and 23rd.

van-Haaften-Schick-flyer

 

Non-Participation

Non-Participation is an ongoing collection of letters of refusal written by artists and other cultural producers to decline their participation in cultural events or exhibitions for political or ethical reasons. The issues raised by these artists’ letters include the non-payment of artists’ fees, the denial of copyright control, censorship, corporate funding, and many others. To quote one such letter by artist Michael Rakowitz, “sometimes what we say ‘no’ to is more important than what we agree to.”

We will discuss past and present examples of cultural producers advocating for improved labor conditions, such as the Art Workers Coalition, W.A.G.E., The CarrotWorkers Collective, and others. We will also explore various legal and practical tools developed for asserting one’s rights as arts workers, including Helena Keeffe’s Standard Deviation, Mary Beth Edelson’s Artist Contract, and Seth Siegelaub’s The Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement. In a climate of increasing precarity, class stratification, and pervasive pressure upon artists to offer their labor for free, the agency in the act refusal has gained new urgency.

Valuing Labor in the Arts at UC Berkeley

I’m very pleased to announce that this April I’ll be participating in the conference Valuing Labor in the Arts at the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley, organized by Art Practical and Helena Keeffe.

 

Valuing Labor in the Arts

Worshop and Debate
April 2014

In April 2014, ARC will partner with Art Practical and MFA candidate Helena Keeffe to present “Valuing Art Labor: Strategies, Tools, Definitions”, a series of artist-led workshops that develop exercises, prompts, or actions that allow participants to navigate the complex and nuanced landscape of art and labor. Workshops will consider questions such as: What kinds of tactics allow artists to create a sense of agency regarding the economics of creative production? What are the key questions artists should ask themselves in defining standards for valuing their labor? How might artists and cultural producers disseminate or appropriate successful models to accomplish their own projects? How do different artistic forms (visual, public, relational, choreographic, theatrical) engage and revise different types of art economies? ARC will host artists, curators, and writers from the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, to stage an intimate yet wide-ranging exploration about art and labor, about alternative economies in the arts and cultural fields, and about strategies for working in ever changing “art world” landscapes.

Please check our website for updates and more information soon.

Valuing Labor in the Arts