Lucia, Sarah and OK finally succumb to their greatest foe: internet monopolies and 1/4” of rain. Dana Kopel of @153local, and formerly @newmuseum_union, returns! Dana’s new piece in the Nation, a review of Laura Raicovich’s Culture Strike with the extremely metal title “Is it Time to Abolish Museums?” (Editors, folks, am I rite?) pokes at the soft spots in art world people’s heads that let them doublethink their way into the Barcelona chairs of institutional power. We talk about our eternal will they/won’t they Strike MOMA, the limits of culture, the limits of strikes, and add a layer to the Art and Labor lost media iceberg simply titled “super donuts”
Episode 117 - The Museum Union Wave Dossier w/ Maxwell Paparella
/
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed
After a lot of laughs and a few boners, all 4 elemental stones have been carefully nested onto their pedestals, and now we’re emitting lasers onto Leeloo to bring about that wacky 5th element, the Art and Labor podcast! We chat with Maxwell Paparella on his new (enormous) work in Art Papers, a dossier on the ongoing unionization struggle for museum workers in 18 different institutions. Through valiant effort and rhetorical wizardry, we do in fact find good news on planet Earth! Paparella keys us in on some victories for the movement (we love you Nan), and the unique hiccups that come with organizing artists (aka, having to be both inside/outside the gala/protest, although you know, with a quote from Byung-Chul Han that’d be a fantastic start to an artist statement for a show in a humid 9’x6′ room on the fourth floor of a chinatown walkup. Do you see our problem?) 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 discuss the bleak the state of art institutions. Schools and museums have been laying off staff without many cuts to executive pay or dips into endowments. They started with low level freelancers, moved on to anyone who to dared unionize, and are now making serious cuts to full-time positions. We use the viral gun-toting wealthy couple and their Louvre of a house to compare institutions to the democratic party—can they be reformed within capitalism, should they be abolished, and how? 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”
While congress is on vacation after finally committing to the slightest gesture towards holding the president accountable, workers all over the country are taking power into their own hands. At General Motors in Detroit 50,000 United Auto Workers have been on strike due to contract disputes, meanwhile some of the newest UAW Local 2110 members at the New Museum announced yesterday that they have authorized a strike if their demands for a fair contract still cannot be met. Plus, even more art workers have unionized! UOVO Fine Art workers join the Teamsters Local 814 and the New Children’s Museum joins IBEW Local 465! Stay tuned to the end to hear our thoughts on Amanda Schmitt’s Appeal Against Knight Landesman and Artforum, legal fights like hers is another important way workers can fight back against abusive employers. If you like the podcast and want more, please consider supporting us: https://www.patreon.com/artandlabor. Follow us on twitter and instagram.You cancontact Art & Labor at artandlaborpodcast@gmail.com