Professional practice - labor and capital

It’s the economy stupid!  That famous behind the scenes campaign phrase coined by Presidential advisor James Carville, and which fueled Bill Clinton’s road to the White House, should be tacked on every artist’s wall or stuck to the fridge.  As if artists needed a reminder of the odds of making it big – might as well buy into the lotto – or even, sadly, making a living.

W.A.G.E. (working artists and the greater economy) strives to draw attention to economic inequalities that exist in the arts, and to resolve them. 

Based on the premise that artists provide a work force and advocates for supporting institutions to pay for work costs associated with preparation, installation, presentation, consultation, exhibition and reproduction, they lobby against the exploitation of artists and demand equality.  They are working toward developing a more inclusive environment of mutual respect between artists and institutions.    

Working within a system which encourages and promotes exposure as currency, inherently devalues the very work it’s purporting to champion, and is tantamount to holding up the trope of the starving artist – the romantic and mysterious starving artist as a viable option for success – that figurative and literal idea that we’re all willing to die for our art, compensation be damned!  Compensation – what a base and common notion to be bothered with when creating brilliant art.

Collectively, artists are our own worst enemies, because, truth be told, we are willing to work for free.  But this mold is set by academia.  As young artists struggle to get their art noticed, to get shown, each next step that seems to move them up the ladder to more recognition, greater gallery prestige, larger markets, they sacrifice fair payment, forego certain associated costs, and tell themselves that one day – when they’re famous – they’ll be compensated for their art.  If an artist can determine their priorities – where one comes from, what do you really want – art and life, work and life.  These are things are connected if you consider it the art itself and set it up to empower yourself. 

The idea of the Fordist model – that the artist is producing a thing – is counter to what Apple’s approach is.  There you have the freedom to work from home, to surf the web, to not wear suits or heels, to access all the meaning in the world online – it’s the freedom to work all the time.  The idea that you're available to work all the time and should work all the time.  The idea of constraint vs. freedom, awareness vs. tools, labor vs. capital is inherent in the Apple model.  You get trapped in the ‘work is a real downer/don’t worry, be happy binary. 

The question every artist should ask is:  Why subjugate oneself to a system that is based on devaluing the person and the work?  And then, what are you willing to do about it?