Art and Labor 2 is back! We take a second to decompress and to welcome new cohost Marshall, who’s talking to us today about United Musicians and Allied Workers. The group recently had campaigns bringing attention to SXSW underpaying artists and taking money from the Department of Defense. We talk about building alternative spaces and the inefficiencies of the Armies official E-sports team. If you like us, please consider spreading the good word! Directly sharing our episodes with friends helps defeat the algorithm. And consider joining our patreon to help defeat our brokeness!
It’s the Christmas reunion special! And how else to possibly celebrate the reason for the season but a long hard look at the Ukranian Russian conflict whose escalation this year has injected so much misery into our lives? That’s right folks, Lucia’s back for one night only, coming out of their well as an update to our earlier episode this year on the art world’s response to a war nobody seems to be able to process with nuance. The reading list today comes from Howard Zinn, the Venice biennale, Soviet war correspondent Vasily Grossman, and maybe a special spectre haunting Europe from a past century. Just like the real Truth Coming Out of Her Well, maybe it’s an episode about photography, maybe it’s about the Dreyfus Affair, maybe it’s about knowing you’re about to pass the veil so you prop yourself up to a portrait of Rembrandt to go out looking at the big guy himself!
A special presentation for all the “social-sim” listeners- take a deep breath, and when you’re ready, slowly close your eyes to imagine yourself in a world where your friend is high out of their mind, and yet still able to set up a mixer? What if someone took longer to explain the plot of a movie than the movie’s actual run time? It’s real, and it’s happened to your hero Sarah 3 times now- I’ll never need watch 2012, Open Water 2, or, now, The Report (2019). Supposedly starring Annette Bening, we all know who’s the real star of this hyperfixation- the perpetually clammy Seme Adam Driver, playing a perpetually clammy Seme Perfect Lib on a mission to uh– you know, uh, it’s like that time some HS acquaintances of yours did the college town farm larp thing where they paid to kill a goat and then take all the meat home, and have a bonfire to eat it, and for some reason you’re there even though you haven’t seen these guys since one of them broke both their legs trying to paper mâche a chimney into a penis? Imagine that, now imagine we’re all talking about American complicity with the CIA torture program. Here at A&L, we would strive to provide the highest quality “older sibling’s burnout friend” experience, but we’re kinda tired this week :/
The state continues to pinkwash, reaching it’s deepest pits. We continue our thread of takes on the CIA rebrand, and push back against the stupidpol takes permeating the discourse. Some of the usual terminally online suspects think intersectionality is a concept to completely disregard because of co-option. Nobody’s saying to throw away the labor movement when it’s also often absorbed or pandered to by liberals. These struggles are linked, and are more likely to win demands when in solidarity with each other. It’s very clear to anyone who regularly touches grass. The world is burns while the western left debates PMCs again. Free Palestine within our lifetime. If you like the podcast and want more, please consider supporting us: https://www.patreon.com/artandlabor. Follow us on twitter and instagram. You can contact Art & Labor atartandlaborpodcast@gmail.com. Please reach out to join the discord for Lucia school “Constructing the Real” Also! Write us a review on Apple podcasts or whatever other platforms!!
We braved covid to bring you another Chelsea dispatch! Nobody stopped us, turns out podcasts are essential work. Consider this the third in a on-going series about the arts and gentrifcation. Last year we processed the opening of Hudson Yards, two years ago we visited the museum of markets before touring Warhol at The Whitney. We return to The Whitney for what is in many ways the polar opposite show. Because of covid it’s been up for a year, but it’s extremely sad to think about how many big buses of students missed out on seeing this show. Socialist realism reminded people what to fight for, it was powerful enough that when the ruling class tried to absorb it, they couldn’t, so they tore it down. It was powerful enough for the spooks to send Jackson Pollock to take from them (theory! just a theory!) If you like the podcast and want more, please consider supporting us: https://www.patreon.com/artandlabor. Follow us on twitter and instagram. You can contact Art & Labor at artandlaborpodcast@gmail.com. Please reach out to join the discord for Lucia’s school “Constructing the Real” Please write us a review on Apple podcasts or whatever other platforms!!
New President, same bullshit, but perhaps slightly more annoying given the faux progressive pandering. Not to mention the cultural pandering! No matter how communal an aesthetic might feel, there’s always some asshole willing to sell it off to the political class. Hope everyone gets their half a vaccine so we can at least become cool mutant creatures before we go. If you like the podcast and want more, please consider supporting us: https://www.patreon.com/artandlabor. Follow us on twitter and instagram. You can contact Art & Labor at artandlaborpodcast@gmail.com. Please reach out to join the discord for Lucia’s school “Constructing the Real” Please write us a review on Apple podcasts or whatever other platforms!!
2021 is here with a spear (the 1 is a spear). Perfect time for a rebrand! We discuss the CIA’s embrace of new media aesthetics and effort to recruit people from backgrounds historically fucked with by the CIA. There is an effort to emphasize surveillance culture. We discuss how “cyber attacks” are being utilized to justify further murderous interventions overseas. Which art bro is responsible? A net art troll or a Yale MFA? Tho both are insufferable there is no aesthetic safe from recuperation, and as the economic crisis worsens more of us will be forced to take increasingly unethical jobs. Stay tuned for our announcement at the end! If you like the podcast and want more, please consider supporting us: https://www.patreon.com/artandlabor. Follow us on twitter and instagram. You can contact Art & Labor at artandlaborpodcast@gmail.com. Please reach out to join the discord for Lucia’s school “Constructing the Real” Please write us a review on Apple podcasts or whatever other platforms!!
Header Image by @avocado_ibprfn on twitter, a fantastic artist who I’m not sure wishes to be unmasked further
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
