::fibreculture:: Labours of Love

[dt]

thanks, andrew, for that post and the very interesting blog entry.

it dovetails with the recent, frustrated vibe on empyre, picking over  
the bones of Documenta XII and in particular Documenta's gargantuan  
global magazines project. when it comes to the potential precarity of  
their labour, there's no shortage of parallels between the art  
community and the academic community - in fact, an inability to  
reconcile these parallels into a common thread is one of the key  
stories of ::fc:: - but perhaps they're nowhere more clear than when a  
big Contemporary Art Jamboree appropriates intellectual (in this case  
editorial) labour for sprucing up its critical credentials, and  
viralising its discursive marketing.

rather than try to make a theoretical case for artists' labour  
somewhere within Andrew's love framework, i thought i'd post here (via  
empyre) a wonderfully frank exposé-piece by the disaffected editors of  
Malmoe magazine (Vienna, i think), who participated in the D12  
experiment.

cheers all,
dt

----------------------------

"The economics of Documenta are a prime example for the functioning of  
the art system. Our experiences as participants of the magazines  
project. "


http://magazines.documenta.de/frontend/article.php?IdLanguage=1&NrArticle=1714
(English version)

by Kati Morawek and Beat Weber



  The opening of documenta12 in June was an event in many respects:  
While new price records for art worksin auctions and art fairs were  
the main topic of art journalism in recent years, reporting on  
Documenta focused on artistic content only. The documenta positions  
itself as a countermodel to the market dominated art world. Its main  
claims are "education" and "emancipation" which was reflected in  
reports about documenta. At the same time, there are no reports about  
working conditions or internal economies of the event. Aesthetic  
questions dominate - despite the fact that the economics of documenta  
are a prime example for the functioning of the art system. As  
participant of documenta magazines project, Malmoe got a glimpse of  
how it works.

The documenta Magazines project invited around 90 independent and self  
organized non-profit publications from the fields of culture and  
political theory from around the world to come together and reflect on  
the main topics of documenta.

Participating magazines were asked to publish and discuss articles  
among them through an electronic platform provided by the institution,  
on the topics proposed by the documenta team. The documenta would then  
select the most interesting ones for their own three magazine issues,  
which accompany the exhibition. In return, possibilities for  
networking and exchange with other magazines would be provided as well  
as the outlook of getting invited to workshops and conferences abroad.  
But no money was offered for the work of the participating magazines,  
except for the authors chosen for publication in documenta's own  
magazines.

On the one hand, this is an interesting project: Instead of  
cooperating with established fancy elite art journals from the centers  
of the global art world, documenta brought together marginal and  
critical publications from all over the world and provides them with a  
unique visibility and possibility for exchange.

On the other hand, the form and framing of this project are very  
typical for the art field. They make the project a good example for  
the functioning of the art system in general. Seven aspects come to  
mind here:

1. Outsourcing of idea scouting

The magazines project is designated as "research system" by the  
documenta directro. It shall provide the curators with information to  
be used in the exhibition. As remarked by participating magazine  
Radical Philosophy, this is a form of outsourcing of innovation on  
independent small players, which is typical for the cultural  
industries. With this move, the institution gets their credibility on  
board and cheaply procures information from decentral networks, which  
would have required a major research effort for outsiders. Similar to  
deals between majors and indie labels in the music business, the  
question of balance of costs and benefits, giving and taking is key in  
assessing this situation.

2. Casting show principle

The intellectual cooperation within the documenta magazines project  
seems to represent the total opposite of commercialised events like  
the casting shows of the "Pop Idols" variant. But on a structural  
level there are striking parallels: A limited amount of participatns  
is selected to take part in a kind of competition, where they are to  
provide unpaid work containing performative aspects within a  
prespecified framework involving special tasks. Among these, winners  
are selected via a mixture of group processes and expert decisions.  
This is nothing unusual in the art world, but the common model in most  
exhibitions below the upper segment of the market.

3. The attraction of the promise of glamour

Why is this offer to work on assignments of an institution without  
getting paid accepted by the cultural workers? Because taking part in  
such a project promises social and symbolic capital which is valuable  
in itself and might even be transformed into economic capital in the  
future.

All gate keeping systems in the art world like galleries, exhibitions  
etc. work on the assumption that people are willing to work for  
reputation, without expecting to get paid. This is especially visible  
at documenta, where a legion of interns are working for 400 euros a  
month.

The only "real" payment documenta magazines project offers are rare  
and sporadic fringe benefits like tickets for conferences, free issues  
of magazines. The rest is the promise of social and symbolic capital:  
Getting in contact with other magazines, profiting from the reputation  
effect of participating in documenta.

Some of the participating magazines seemed to be satisfied with these  
opportunities, and made documenta subject of their cover stories and  
their promotional material. In other editiorial groups, doubts were  
raised tot the point of internal conflict, centering around the  
problem of taking part in a state-sponsored project under exploitative  
conditions.

4. Distribution of money according to the principle of maximum  
representational effect

One of the rules of the cultural field: Money is primarily used for  
representation. The more distant the contributing work processes are,  
the lesser the chances for them to getting paid (except if they are  
indispensable for other reasons).

At the presentation party of the first documenta magazine edition in  
Vienna, a rather opulent buffet was offered compared to local  
standards. Everything which has representational value is being  
financed generously. But people from publications participating in the  
documenta magazines project do not get travel funds to visit the  
exhibition, even if they have an official presentation - their  
representational value is too small.

5. Maximum number of participants - minimum individual payout

Another characteristic feature is the minimisation of the payout for  
individual participants as a result of the maximisation of the  
representative dimensions.

Of course it would cost a lot of money to pay author's fees and travel  
expenses etc. for the 90 participating magazines from around the  
world. But why does it have to be that many? Which audience can  
appreciate such a vast amount in a reasonable way? Who in the small  
editorial team can handle such an enormous project in an appropriate  
manner? Experience has shown: It is too much, and this leads to  
mistakes, defects, discontent and overcharge among the participants.  
This could have been foreseen, but it was not the decivise point in  
the selection by the curators, because the attraction of big numbers  
predominated their choice. They wanted to signal: Our project is  
representative, and it is of unprecedented, gigantic, astonishing  
dimensions. In exhibitions there are also usually too many artists  
invited, so that the available budget does not allow the payout of any  
meaningful sums for individual artists.

6. Personal relations make it hard to keep critical distance

At the documenta which is run mostly by people from our city (Vienna),  
we experienced what is typical for local art scenes: One is acquainted  
or even befriended with the people involved, one is part of the same  
networks, appreciates each other, sometimes is even dependent from  
each other. This involvement makes it hard from time to time to keep  
up critical standards, which one would hold firmly onto in other  
contexts.

7. Star system and invidualising, anti-collective framework conditions

Despite the fact that he is heading the documenta together with Ruth  
Noack, Roger Buergel officially functions as the artistic director,  
because the rules of documenta enforce the appointment of an  
individual. This is not an exception, it is characteristic of the  
individualistic art system. This also shows in the way of dealing with  
groups participating in the magazines project: There was only one  
ticket available per editorial team for project conferences - forcing  
editorial collectives to choose a representative among them, which is  
sometimes in stark contrast to the working style of the magazine  
concerned. The principle of individualisation is put aside only when  
the collective itself gains a spectacular quality: For instance in Wei  
Wei's project of bringing 1001 people from China to Kassel.

Dealing with the double role as on the one hand individual eager for  
symbolic capital and on the other hand memeber of a collective,  
sometimes leads to conflicts of interest which can be explosive for  
collective projects.

This individualising pressure makes it difficult in most cases to  
challenge the problematic distribution of resources in cultural  
projects. Even more than in regular employment relationships, whrer  
there are many regulatory protections, the collectivisation of  
discussions about distribution of resources is absolutely necessary in  
project work.  Even more so in projects which claim to be critical. In  
that respect, documenta is not worse, but also not better than the  
usual exhibition project.

The participating magazines, scattered around the globe and mostly  
unacquainted with each other outside the project, have failed to  
collectively articulate their annoyance about the working conditions  
offered to them, or organize. The exhibition guides in Kassel at least  
have succeeded in negotiating about their salaries. How the artists  
participating in the exhibition have fared still longs to be  
researched by paid journalists in the art sections of commercial media.



MALMOE magazine - http://www.malmoe.org





-- 
Dr David Teh
Independent Curator/Writer/Teacher
Bangkok, Thailand
m. +66 (0)84 673 7178
e. david.teh at arts.usyd.edu.au
w. bangkokok.typepad.com/platform | www.halfdozen.org