READING - Manifesto: Towards a Free Revolutionary Art
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We’ve decided to start reading art manifestos in full and providing light commentary. First up, of course, is 1938’s Towards a Free Revolutionary Art ghostwritten by Leon Trotsky, signed by Diego Rivera and André Breton. Trotsky was one of the leaders of the Russian revolution, he was famously forced to flee to Mexico. Thanks to funding from the American communist party, he was able to stay near Rivera and Frida Kahlo, but was eventually assassinated there. The manifesto denounces both fascism and Stalinism, and is a seminal text to the history of Muralism and Surrealism/Dada.
We yelled at the mayor! This episode is a response to a recent Chapo Trap House interview about music, identity politics, and activism (listen here: https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/unlocked-amber-interviews-aaron-j-leonard). We want to challenge the podcast left to do better coalition building, and to think more critically about art’s potential in revolution. We encourage folks to consider Rivera’s Manifesto: Towards a Free Revolutionary Art, and will be posting another episode where we read the whole thing.
A Fucking Didactic Educational AUDIO File! We basically spin a weird collage about surveillance and privacy (a lost cause). A lot of time traveling this episode. We go back in time 5-7 years when folks were rushing Youtube with How To videos like it was the dang gold rush. We receive a prescient transmission from Jack Smith about the commodification of counterculture and the hyper capitalization art fairs were about to cause. We also heed lessons from David Wojnarowicz. Thank you queer history. Folks on the margins are often destroyed by the state, listen to them, and give them space.
The department of defense, the CIA, and the FBI have all had a hand in influencing art, culture, and academia. We discuss the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Marvel movies, Rockefeller, modernism, futurist fascism, and Mexican muralism. Are you bummed about MFAs and institutional partnerships with banks? Us too buddy. If you like us please consider donating for bonus writing, memes, and art:https://d.rip/art-and-labor
Episode 9 - The YouTube Shooter (The Internet vs Dasein)
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Content warning right at the top, this episode we discuss guns, violence, and suicide. We read through the Hito Steyerl essays “Is the Internet Dead?” and “The Terror of Total Dasein: Economies of Presence in the Art Field” We get into the complicated life and death of Nasim Najafi Aghdam, algorithms, junktime, access, and therapy. If you like us please consider donating for bonus writing, memes, and art:https://d.rip/art-and-labor
We saw Sorry to Bother You and it was THE BEST MOVIE and THE ONLY MOVIE! We celebrate Chairman Boots Riley’s new masterpiece. We try to process the race and gender roles depicted in the film, but we’re way more excited to do a working class analysis. We’re now offering bonus materials on our Drip page! Feel free to skip the first 15 minutes of this ep that is just an ad for it. If you like us please consider donating for bonus writing, memes, and art:https://d.rip/art-and-labor
Episode 7 - Museums in an Age of Planetary Civil War
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Art is being used to fund and perpetuate war. The stateless wealthy use the art market as a tool to extend and maintain the class divide. Learn all about it in this mostly serious and depressing episode. My cat lightens the mood at one point. I wonder if the next 20 episodes of the show will just be us discussing a different Hito Steyerl essay every week.
We had a tweet go viral! Artnet published a pseudoscience garbage article claiming that artists’ brain chemistry causes them to not what to be paid for their work, we told them to fuck off with that noise. This episode breakdown the discourse, and get into plenty of tangents along the way!! This episode was recorded on the streets of Chelsea and Bushwick. Later doodle-bitches!
Welcome new listeners! Art and Labor focuses on the on-going struggle to survive as an art or cultural worker. We chronicle the stories of social justice organizing within the arts, and believe in centering the human cost of the “art world” and advocate for fair labor practices for artists, assistants, fabricators, docents, interns, registrars, janitors, writers, editors, curators, guards, performers, and anyone doing work for art & cultural institutions.
Helpful links that provide context for this episode:
HITO STEYERL DANK MEME STASH! Hey ya’ll, we’ve got some FEELINGS this episode. Half this episode is venting about some strange/shitty art world jobs we’ve had. We also mention decolonization practice, Walter Benjamin, cultural Marxism, and Imperfect Cinema as a foundation for Steyerl’s In Defense of Poor Image. Accessibility is the key word of this ep. It’s extremely hot in New York City! It’s punishingly hard to focus. We drank a couple cold ones and left the AC on so this is a long ep with a little rumbling sound in the background. I’m not going to apologize, we needed that AC to pod.
*UPDATE* ICE has cancelled all hearings for Monday June 25th at 201 Varick in response to #OccupyICENYC. Follow @MACC_NYC for updates. There are other sites of deportation in the city the protest may move to. Apologies for the sound quality of this episode, we decided it felt better to just continue to hold space at the occupation (please see the previous episode for our conversation with some of the organizers). Lucia is back from Berlin and imparts some insights from collectives over there; from the recently raided anarchist library Kalabalik to the direct action performance art group Center for Political Beauty. We also get into tricky intersections of rainbow capitalism and the potentials of queer liberation and socialism (for more come to this discussion: https://www.facebook.com/events/187818712052570/) Oh, and we started a Lupin the Third section.
Article referenced about murderous white supremacists groups that have never been held accountable:
