Philosophy – Plumbing
“The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.” – John Gardner
Art Worker – WAGE – Artistic Labor
Abigail Satinsky’s recent post on Bad at Sports Protest culture: Wisconsin and WAGE and recently seeing a group called “Artists Call for Workers Rights” has me thinking again about the idea of the art “worker” and artistic “labor.” Could anyone tell me what these terms even mean? They get thrown around quite a bit as if there is some self-evident justification for their use or understanding of what they are supposed to mean. Maybe if I used other terms my confusion will be more evident – Does juggler worker or juggling labor make immediate sense? Or hike worker/hiking labor? Pinball worker/labor? Bird watching worker/labor?
Obviously there are many activities that people enjoy without monetary compensation. They often have to have jobs to support undertaking them. Yet again and again, I see artists singling themselves out as engaged in some sort of special endeavor. Calling themselves “workers,” calling their activity “labor” in some honorific sense. In the interview Satinsky cites conducted by Nato Thompson with W.A.G.E., Thompson does at least ask why just artists, but W.A.G.E will have none of it – apparently having fully accepted the capitalist paradigm, self-interest reigns. “What do we need?” is the motivating impulse. They complain about artists having to “cobble together a living” and assure us that “The dream [of state funding of artists] is alive and well” in a perfectly self absorbed art cocoon. Why not state funding for jugglers? For hikers? The answer seems to be that artists are special, providing a uniquely meritorious “service” to the world if only the world would recognize that. And in the cavalier dismissal of social capital, it appears that the only real recognition an artist can receive is in the form of monetary compensation.
In my more snide moments I think yes, go ahead W.A.G.E., go ahead art workers, join the calls for a General Strike in solidarity with the labor protests in Wisconsin (the second line of thought in Satinsky’s piece). Let the resounding fury of artistic labor “withheld” be felt across the nation. Deny us Bruce High Quality Foundation’s self-indulgent Teach 4 Amerika tour. Refuse to publish the next issue of the e-flux journal. Teach the world a lesson…except that lesson is already established, which is that the art world this whole discussion takes place in, the art world that clamors for criticality and “radical” action will not be missed much by the people who live outside of it and the problem for its advocates is that most people do…I am quite sure that transit workers, nurses, firefighters, garbage collectors, and teachers will be missed a bit more and thus their cries of economic injustice are not met with my same skeptical ears.
Highlights from 2/10
1. Setting off expired rescue flares 150 miles from land.
2. Ghost Town (2008)
Say what you like about the film, but there are some profound moments in it. If nothing else, Téa Leoni’s character Gwen utters this impossibly simple and haunting truth, “What happens matters. Maybe only to us, but it matters.” See the film for context.
3. Sunrise at fueling dock in Brunswick, GA
4. The Humane Economy – Norman Pollack
The “Great Man” Syndrome – Everyday Heroism
I was recently reminded about having clipped out a letter written in response to an article (about William F. Buckley Jr. ) in the New York Times Magazine (5/09). The letter writer (Al Larkin of Milton, MA) expresses, more eloquently than I am capable of, his reservations about the “Great Man” syndrome. The tenor of his letter resonates with my abiding interest in “ordinary” people, and “ordinary” achievements. The letter [emphasis mine]:
I have long been a fan of both Buckleys — William F. Jr. and Christopher. However, the younger, in writing about the elder, has proved again that a son should think twice before writing publicly about his father. It is always a complicated relationship, and to blame William F. Buckley Jr.’s parental shortcomings — and some of them were simply astonishing — on the ”Great Man” syndrome does an injustice to the average guy who works two jobs, pays the bills and still finds time to coach his kid’s Little League team. If only he were ”Greater”: he could justifiably skip the ballgames, the hospitalizations and the graduations. And who could blame him? Worse, for those unfortunate kids stuck with paternal miscreants who don’t also happen to be Great Men, is there any convenient way for them to explain their plight? I agree that the elder Buckley was a great man. But I prefer the story of my mother, who never wrote a book or appeared on a television show but raised six happy children. At her funeral, someone described her as ”an extraordinary woman who lived a very ordinary life.” She was, in other words, a great mom.
More Tailgating, Less Curating.
More Tailgating, Less Curating. – a little something for Bad at Sports.
Highlights from 1/10
1. Wishes fireworks display at Disney World.
2. Crossing the Postmodern Divide – Albert Borgmann
3. Human Scale – Kirpatrick Sale
4. Food
Chicken Paprikash at Tony Tasset’s (Oak Park), everything at Stella Sola (Houston), Sweet Potato/Goat Cheese Ravioli (yours truly), Arctic Char w/soy bean stew and cilantro chutney also Linguini w/ littleneck clams, rock shrimp, and tomato broth – both dishes at The Wave (Orlando).
5. Henry David Thoureau and The Moral Agency of Knowing – Alfred Tauber
6. The Resurgence of the Real – Charlene Spretnak
Art Work Redux – Temporary Services – Basic Income vs. Workfare
There is much to like in this interview with Temporary Services. They do a good bit to qualify their ambition for their recent project Art Work, but the message is still muddled to me. They clearly have larger ambitions for economic justice than establishing what they consider just compensation for artists, but likely due to speaking from their personal experience the larger ambition seems to lose its way.
I certainly support the rehabilitation of their art-centric focus expressed here:
“Our concern is about creating a new language and methodology around art *and other creative fields* that sees this output as essential to the daily life of humans.”
And:
“In general, we want to get rid of the idea of work for everyone. We believe that people from all fields can work together in order to create an environment that takes care of everyone and is not dependent on the outdated model of Capitalism. “
My concern is that there isn’t much “new language” used in discussing these ideas. They seem to speak in pretty conventional leftist terms – especially around the idea of exploitation. They’re absolutely right that the commercial gallery system limits how “art can be conceived,” but this is true of any art context of which the commercial is just one. That is what makes it a context in the first place. It is only by accepting the primacy of that context and its measures of success that these arguments have weight. The charge of exploitation is a complicated matter. There are a VAST number of artists supporting themselves fully or partially in commercial galleries. Maybe they mean commercial galleries in Chelsea or other Art Forum/frieze sorts of galleries? There are artists thriving in commercial galleries in Mobile, AL – Taos, NM – Galveston, TX – Brunswick, GA – and many other ‘off the map’ locations. Additionally, there are many Chelsea artists who don’t feel exploited at all (some of whom have only marginal economic success with their work). Are we to know better than they do whether they are “exploited?” Certainly Temporary Services has provided rich documentation of many who do feel exploited, but let’s not pretend it is anything other than a polemic (yet one I am very sympathetic to).
When asked to imagine what working full time outside an art/commerce model, we get into the muddiest waters with regard to larger notions of economic justice/freedom. They look to the Works Progress Administration which I think is good in that it was not exclusively for artists, but I offer the counter-example of a Basic Income/Participation Income model as that does not emphasize the productivist values of work and employment. Work should not be the organizing principle of society which is what I thought Temporary Services was getting at in mentioning getting rid of the idea of work.
We need less work, less labor, and more emphasis on generating wealth outside of an economic rubric. I think we’re basically on the same page here, but they focus on the plight of artists far more than I care for. In fact, I rarely see anyone lament the sorry state of arts funding other than arts professionals and wannabes. It makes one pause to see a group (here I am not speaking specifically about TS) proclaim over and over how important what they do is, yet decry the fact that no one else seems to recognize this. Maybe that should tell them a bit about how much value they actually offer. If I were to be concerned about one group being justly compensated for what they do, it would be stay at home moms or adult caregivers, not artists. This singling out, of course, is pointless though.
TS says, “but we could do this exclusively if we were actually paid well for what we do. We have to have other jobs.” To this I say yes, welcome to the real world where people routinely get paid to do something they don’t like in order to facilitate pursuing things they actually enjoy. There are plenty of car customizers, gardeners, jugglers, SCA types, etc. that would love to be freed from the obligation to work. I support this fully, but rather than the WPA, or selecting artists for special treatment due to their self-perceived value to society, we need to rethink fundamental assumptions about work and leisure. While I applaud the effort and dedication Temporary Services brings to exploring ideas around art and economics, I can’t help but be disappointed at how easily the discussion falls into the trap of productivist, and often elitist thinking.
Related material here.
Nikhil Chopra – He Said She Said – Review
Nikhil Chopra’s performance at He Said – She Said received this review.
Thoreau – Art/Life
The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper, coincident with the production of this, stereotyped in the poet’s life. It is what he has become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvass or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince’s gallery. [italics in original; bold emphasis mine] – H. D. Thoreau in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Leisure – Amy Lowell
Leisure, thou goddess of a bygone age,
When hours were long and days sufficed to hold
Wide-eyed delights and pleasures uncontrolled
By shortening moments, when no gaunt presage
Of undone duties, modern heritage,
Haunted our happy minds; must thou withhold
Thy presence from this over-busy world,
And bearing silence with thee disengage
Our twined fortunes? Deeps of unhewn woods
Alone can cherish thee, alone possess
Thy quiet, teeming vigor. This our crime:
Not to have worshipped, marred by alien moods
That sole condition of all loveliness,
The dreaming lapse of slow, unmeasured time.
From A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass | 1912
Draft of a manifesto written in defense of a group of people that did not ask for my defense, using words they would not use and engaging people they ignore.
[descending into Mobile, AL - turbulence - warming sunlight a pale stripe against a cloud tundra]
The resistance to being theorized, examined, abstracted…isn’t this a basic sort of dignity?
We are not your intellectual playthings. Perhaps you see something publishable, a critical opportunity, but we reject your representation and demand our autonomy. We might not have read your recent darlings (Rancière, Agamben, etc.), but you have not lived our lives either. We refuse to meet on your terms within your own idioms – prejudged by your theoretical dogmas.
While you wring hands over what it all means, we are trying to change the world, build relationships and communities. Are we naive? Possibly. We prefer a world of naive dreamers to cynical observers. Keep your beloved “criticality.” Hold it close to your heart and tell us what you feel. We are friends, not “colleagues” and we choose to embrace humane values and each other. We offer a different vision. Against the professional hegemony of academic intellectualism we offer – trust, love, sentiment, passion, egalitarianism and sincerity.
We won’t live our lives in “quotes” and think being thought silly is preferable to the safety (and cowardice) of the knowing wink. In short, we reject the antiseptic posturing of the theoretical class. We welcome the messiness of lived human experience – all the stuff that resists intellectual appropriation and is routinely dismissed as petty, mundane, insignificant.
We are gamblers, believing in the value of risking everything for the sake of our “foolish” dreams and schemes.
Feel free to stand aside and critique yourself into a corner, into passivity, but save your elitist judgments for your fellow bibliographic temple builders…your heartless (and gutless) intellectual fundamentalism is not welcome here.
Highlights from 12/09
Thus begins a new monthly feature and a further descent into idiosyncrasy.
1. The Interview Show No. 20
Hands down the greatest thing happening in Chicago I’ve seen.
2. Slow Living – Wendy Parkins and Geoffrey Craig
Thanks Shannon.
3. Common Culture – Paul Willis
See my highlights here.
4. Party in the USA – Miley Cyrus
A family musical favorite of the month along with LOTS of christmas tunes and Lady Gaga.
5. Food
Brussels Sprouts at The Publican, Cassoulet at home, and the opening of Red Hen Bread in Oak Park.
6. The Bumble
Love the teeth and eyes.
Josef Pieper – Leisure – Chad Lakies – How Might Life Live?
An abstract for the forthcoming paper “Challenging the Cultural Imaginary: Josef Pieper on How Life Might Live” by Chad Lakies discovered at his blog here:
“Asking anew “How might life live?” is to offer an opportunity to re-imagine. In the midst of a cultural imaginary that imagines life in terms of the Protestant work ethic, resulting in a culture of total work, Josef Pieper imagines a different way of living. His work emphasizes the place of leisure in the life of the human creature. From within a culture of total work it seems impossible for leisure to have a place, yet Pieper’s reflections pose leisure as the very basis of culture itself, ironically the basis from which the current culture of total work may have emerged and at the same time, the only place from which it can be escaped. It is in the imaginative moment of leisure that one can affect a transformation of the cultural imaginary, for at one and the same time leisure is the basis for a new formulation of culture against total work and a living of life in a way that inherently stands in disobedience against the total work world.”
Common Culture – Paul Willis
From Common Culture: Symbolic work at play in the everyday cultures of the young by Paul Willis:
“In general the arts establishment connives to keep alive the myth of the special, creative individual artist holding out against passive mass consumerism, so helping to maintain a self-interested view of elite creativity…Against this we insist that there is a vibrant symbolic life and symbolic creativity in everyday life, everyday activity and expression – even if it is sometimes invisible, looked down on or spurned.”
“There can be a final unwillingness and limit even in subversive or alternative movements towards an arts democracy. They may have escaped the physical institutions and academies, but not always their conventions…we don’t want to start where ‘art’ thinks is ‘here’, from within its perspectives, definitions and institutions.[emphasis mine]“
“We argue for symbolic creativity as an integral (‘ordinary’) part of the human condition, not as inanimate peaks (popular or remote) rising above its mists.”
“Art is taken as the only field of qualitative symbolic activity…We insist, against this, that imagination is not extra to daily life, something to be supplied from disembodied art.”
“…young people feel more themselves in leisure than they do at work. Though only ‘fun’ and apparently inconsequential, it’s actually where their creative symbolic abilities are most at play. “
“The fact that many texts may be classified as intrinsically banal, contrived and formalistic must be put against the possibility that their living reception [emphaiss mine]is the opposite of these things.”
“Why shouldn’t bedroom decoration and personal styles, combinations of others’ ‘productions’, be viewed along with creative writing or song and music composition as fields of aesthetic realization?”
“Ordinary people have not needed an avant-gardism to remind them of rupture. What they have needed but never received is better and freer materials for building security and coherence in their lives.”
“The simple truth is that it must now be recognized that the coming together of coherence and identity in common culture occurs in surprising, blasphemous and alienated ways seen from old-fashioned Marxist rectitudes – in leisure not work [emphasis mine], through commodities not political parties, privately not collectively.”
What is so refreshing about this book is that it is filled with the actual accounts of lived responses to culture rather than the usual empty academic pronouncements about how culture is processed and taken up. Rather than opine, Willis listens.
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