by Sarah Jaffe
58. Erin Heger, “‘Frustrating,’ ‘Confusing’: Planned Parenthood Workers Grapple with Organization’s Union Fight,” Rewire, June 14, 2018, https://rewire.news/article/2018/06/14/frustrating-confusing-planned-parenthood-workers-grapple-organizations-union-fight.
59. A report from the Economic Policy institute said of Trump’s NLRB: “Under the Trump administration, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has systematically rolled back workers’ rights to form unions and engage in collective bargaining with their employers, to the detriment of workers, their communities, and the economy. The Trump board has issued a series of significant decisions weakening worker protections under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA/Act). Further, the board has engaged in an unprecedented number of rulemakings aimed at overturning existing worker protections. Finally, the Trump NLRB general counsel (GC) has advanced policies that leave fewer workers protected by the NLRA and has advocated for changes in the law that roll back workers’ rights.” Celine McNicholas, Margaret Poydock, and Lynn Rhinehart, “Unprecedented: The Trump NLRB’s Attack on Workers’ Rights,” Economic Policy Institute, October 16, 2019, www.epi.org/publication/unprecedented-the-trump-nlrbs-attack-on-workers-rights; Joey Bunch, “Lawmakers Back Denver Planned Parenthood Workers’ Union Cause,” Colorado Politics, June 13, 2018, www.coloradopolitics.com/news/lawmakers-back-denver-planned-parenthood-workers-union-cause/article_5f4df23c-d39a-5e9c-a840-615bfc46a422.html.
60. Chávez, “Planned Parenthood.”
61. Dennis Carter, “Planned Parenthood Drops Its Fight Against Unionizing Workers in Colorado,” Rewire, August 17, 2018, https://rewire.news/article/2018/08/17/planned-parenthood-drops-its-fight-against-unionizing-workers-in-colorado.
62. “Mass Exodus at Boulder Women’s Health Center: Whistleblowers Disclose Damning Allegations That Contributed to Institutional Breakdown,” The Nation Report, September 17, 2019, www.thenationreport.org/mass-exodus-at-boulder-womens-health-center-a-whistleblower-discloses-damning-allegations-that-contributed-to-institutional-breakdown; Charlie Brennan, “Nearly Half of Boulder Valley Women’s Health Center Staff Leaves, Citing Leadership,” Boulder Daily Camera, August 27, 2019, www.dailycamera.com/2019/08/27/nearly-half-of-boulder-valley-womens-health-center-staff-leaves-citing-leadership.
63. Alex Caprariello, “Planned Parenthood Employees Laid Off, Claim It’s Retaliation for Voicing Concerns,” KXAN News, April 10, 2020, www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/planned-parenthood-employees-laid-off-claim-its-retaliation-for-voicing-concerns; Melissa Gira Grant, “A Worker Uprising at Planned Parenthood,” New Republic, June 18, 2020, https://newrepublic.com/article/158224/planned-parenthood-covid-racism-union.
CHAPTER 6: MY STUDIO IS THE WORLD
1. Megan Garber, “David Foster Wallace and the Dangerous Romance of Male Genius,” The Atlantic, May 9, 2018, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/05/the-world-still-spins-around-male-genius/559925; Cristina Nehring, A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Harper, 2009), 3.
2. Garber, “David Foster Wallace”; Miya Tokumitsu, Do What You Love: And Other Lies About Success and Happiness (New York: Regan Arts, 2015), 2.
3. John Berger, Landscapes: John Berger on Art, ed. Tom Overton (New York: Verso, 2016), loc. 753, Kindle; Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, 25th Anniversary Edition (New York: Vintage, 2009), 186–189; Howard S. Becker, Art Worlds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 14.
4. Berger, Landscapes, loc. 949–965; Hyde, The Gift, 249.
5. Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 82–84, 143; John Patrick Leary, “How ‘Creativity’ Became a Capitalist Buzzword,” LitHub, March 11, 2019, https://lithub.com/how-creativity-became-a-capitalist-buzzword. See also John Patrick Leary, Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2019).
6. John Berger, Ways of Seeing (New York: Penguin, 2008), 4, 11; Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1969 [1935]) 2, 6–7; Ben Davis, 9.5 Theses on Art and Class (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2013), loc. 1318–1320, Kindle.
7. Becker, Art Worlds, 14–15, 353; Davis, Art and Class, loc. 1446–1448, 2906–2909; Berger, Ways of Seeing, 30–31, 49, 51–52; Berger, Landscapes, loc. 2944–2946.
8. Becker, Art Worlds, 15, 100, 354; Berger, Landscapes, loc. 2750–2752, 2768–2777; Berger, Ways of Seeing, 42; Julia Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 1–13; Williams, Keywords, 41.
9. Berger, Ways of Seeing, 5–7; Frans Hals Museum, “Regents of the Old Men’s Alms House,” www.franshalsmuseum.nl/en/art/regents-of-the-old-mens-alms-house.
10. Davis, Art and Class, loc. 1452–1461; Becker, Art Worlds, 109.
11. Becker, Art Worlds, 354; Raymond Williams, Culture and Society: Coleridge to Orwell, 1780–1950 (London: Vintage, 2017), 1, 4, 48–56, 66–67; Williams, Keywords, 41–42; Eileen Boris, Art and Labor: Ruskin, Morris, and the Craftsman Ideal in America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), xii.
12. George Orwell, All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays, ed. George Packer (Boston: Mariner Books, 2009), 255; Berger, Landscapes, loc. 894–906; Williams, Culture and Society, 71.
13. Davis, Art and Class, loc. 2924–2925; Becker, Art Worlds, 182.
14. Williams, Culture and Society, 183–187, 207; Andrew Ross, No Collar: The Hidden Cost of the Humane Workplace (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 4; Boris, Art and Labor, xi–xv, 14–15, 138, 153, 156.
15. D. Anthony White, Siqueiros: Biography of a Revolutionary Artist (Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishing, 2009), loc. 424–430, 722–723, 875–878, 930–933, 1058–1061, 1261–1298, 1351–1398, 2045–2047, 2149–2155, Kindle; Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers, 3–13.
16. Angela Y. Davis, “Art on the Frontline: Mandate for a People’s Culture,” in The Angela Y. Davis Reader, ed. Joy James (Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell, 1998), 235–239, 250–253; E. Doss, “Looking at Labor: Images of Work in 1930s American Art,” Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts 24 (2002): 231–257, https://doi.org/10.2307/1504189; “The Future of America: Lewis Hine’s New Deal Photographs,” International Center of Photography, www.icp.org/browse/archive/collections/the-future-of-america-lewis-hines-new-deal-photographs; E. Doss, “Toward an Iconography of American Labor: Work, Workers, and the Work Ethic in American Art, 1930–1945,” Design Issues 13, no. 1 (1997): 53–66, https://doi.org.10.2307/1511587; A. Joan Saab, For the Millions: American Art and Culture Between the Wars (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 2, 6–8, 15, 24–27.
17. Saab, For the Millions, 15–17, 20, 31–32, 34–38.
18. Saab, For the Millions, 40–42, 54–59, 61–63, 140–141; Doss, “Looking at Labor,” 250.
19. Saab, For the Millions, 80, 44, 163, 165–166, 171–173; Berger, Landscapes, loc. 2536–2579.
20. Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers, 2–13; Leary, “How ‘Creativity’ Became a Capitalist Buzzword”; Saab, For the Millions, 173, 181. John Berger, typically, had a different understanding: “The majority of Russian painting is bad—the new developments are still embryonic. The majority of Western art is equally bad, but for the opposite reasons. In one case it is a question of art being too superficially literal; in the other of it being too profoundly remote. They have made art cheap. We have made it a luxury.” Berger, Landscapes, loc. 2577–2579.
21. Mark Fisher, K-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher, ed. Darren Ambrose (London: Repeater Books, 2018), loc. 8650, 12654, 12706, 12777; Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers, 5–13; Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Verso, 2018), loc. 6692–6694, Kindle.
22. Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers, 1–13.
23. Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers, 1–13.
24. Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers, 1–13; Sarah Resnick, “Issu
es & Commentary: Organizing the Museum,” Art in America, April 1, 2019, www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/museum-unions-issues-commentary-organizing-the-museum-63617.
25. Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers, 4–13; Davis, Art and Class, loc. 283–285; Federica Martini, “Art History Cold Cases: Artists’ Labour in the Factory,” in Vanina Hofman and Pau Alsina, coords., “Art and Speculative Futures,” Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Artnodes, no. 19 (2017): 1–8, http://dx.doi.org/10.7238/a.v0i19.3099.
26. Martina Tanga, “Artists Refusing to Work: Aesthetic Practices in 1970s Italy,” Palinsesti 1, no. 4 (2015): 35–49.
27. Bolanski and Chiapello, New Spirit of Capitalism, loc. 6692–6734, 8381–8386, 8711–8715, 9329–9331.
28. Davis, Art and Class, loc. 2956–2972.
29. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 47; Astra Taylor, The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (New York: Metropolitan, 2014), 56–59, 66; Kate Oakley, “‘Art Works’—Cultural Labour Markets: A Literature Review,” Creativity, Culture and Education, October 2009, 29.
30. Berger, Landscapes, loc. 2668–2689; Becker, Art Worlds, ix–x, 23, 113.
31. Becker, Art Worlds, x, 1–5, 9–10, 13.
32. Kerry Guinan interview with author.
33. Becker, Art Worlds, 34–36, 52, 77–81, 91–97, 103–106, 172, 350.
34. Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (London: Zer0 Books, 2009), 76; Davis, Art and Class, loc. 210–213, 241–249, 274–275, 280–283, 438–441, 481–484, 492–497, 2917–2919; Oakley, “Art Works,” 25–25.
35. Davis, Art and Class, loc. 298–300, 249–250, 1276–1297, 1298–1318, 1422–1431; Susan Jones, “By Paying Artists Nothing, We Risk Severing the Pipeline of UK Talent,” The Guardian, May 19, 2014, www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2014/may/19/paying-artists-nothing-uk-talent; Susan Jones, “Rethinking Artists: The Role of Artists in the 21st Century,” Seoul Art Space, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture International Symposium, November 4, 2014, https://sca-net.org/resources/view/rethinking-artists-the-role-of-artists-in-the-21st-century. The 2018 US study was done by researchers affiliated with crowdfunding site Kickstarter, which itself is a reminder that most working artists’ lives involve asking other people for money. “A Study on the Financial State of Visual Artists Today,” 2018, The Creative Independent, https://thecreativeindependent.com/artist-survey; Angella d’Avignon, “Got to Be Real,” The Baffler, March 7, 2019, https://thebaffler.com/latest/got-to-be-real-davignon.
36. Claire McCaughey, “Comparisons of Arts Funding in Selected Countries: Preliminary Findings,” Canada Council for the Arts, October 2005, www.creativecity.ca/database/files/library/comparisonsofartsfunding27oct2005.pdf; Drew Wylie Projects, “Scottish Parliament—Arts Funding Inquiry Comparative Analysis,” May 2019, www.parliament.scot/S5_European/Inquiries/CTEEA_Arts_Funding_Research.pdf; Jones, “Rethinking Artists”; Danish Artist Union, accessed August 11, 2020, www.artisten.dk/Forside/The-Danish-Artist-Union; Oakley, “Art Works,” 130.
37. Mark Brown, “Arts Industry Report Asks: Where Are All the Working-Class People?,” The Guardian, April 16, 2018, www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/16/arts-industry-report-asks-where-are-all-the-working-class-people; Jones, “Rethinking Artists”; Alexander Billet and Adam Turl, “The Ghost Ship Is Our Triangle Fire,” Red Wedge Magazine, December 12, 2016, www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/ghostship; Jillian Steinhauer, “How Wealthy Are Artists’ Parents?,” Hyperallergic, March 21, 2014, https://hyperallergic.com/115957/how-wealthy-are-artists-parents.
38. Davis, Art and Class, loc. 1429–1490; Hito Steyerl, “If You Don’t Have Bread, Eat Art!: Contemporary Art and Derivative Fascisms,” E-Flux, October 2016, www.e-flux.com/journal/76/69732/if-you-don-t-have-bread-eat-art-contemporary-art-and-derivative-fascisms; Oakley, “Art Works”; Rachel Corbett, “Why Are Artists Poor? New Research Suggests It Could Be Hardwired into Their Brain Chemistry,” ArtNet, July 2, 2018, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/why-are-artists-poor-research-suggests-it-could-be-hardwired-1310147.
39. Davis, Art and Class, loc. 1658–1721; Natasha Lennard, “New York City’s Cops Are Waging War on Subway Performers,” Vice, May 7, 2014, www.vice.com/en_us/article/nem9vm/new-york-citys-cops-are-waging-war-on-subway-performers.
40. Davis, Art and Class, loc. 1542–1544; Becker, Art Worlds, 260–267; d’Avignon, “Got to Be Real,” 24–25; Tokumitsu, Do What You Love, 46–47.
41. Ben Davis and Sarah Cascone, “The New Museum’s Staff Is Pushing to Unionize—and Top Leadership Is Not at All Happy About It,” ArtNet, January 10, 2019, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/new-museum-union-drive-1436788; Resnick, “Organizing the Museum”; Frances Anderton, “Marciano Art Foundation and the Value of ‘Art Labor,’” KCRW, November 12, 2019, www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/design-and-architecture/marciano-and-art-labor-shortlisted/marciano-art-foundation-and-the-value-of-art-labor; Benjamin Sutton, “An Online Spreadsheet Revealed Museum Workers’ Salaries,” Artsy, June 3, 2019, www.artsy.net/news/artsy-editorial-online-spreadsheet-revealed-museum-workers-salaries.
42. Stephen Tracy, “Milieu Insight Response and Clarification on The Sunday Times Essential Workers Poll,” Milieu, June 15, 2020, https://mili.eu/insights/sunday-times-essential-workers-poll-response; Sarah Jaffe, “Belabored Stories: Someday the Museums Will Reopen,” Dissent, March 30, 2020, www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/belabored-stories-someday-the-museums-will-reopen; Sarah Jaffe, “The Union Drive at the Philadelphia Museum of Art,” Dissent, June 15, 2020, www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/the-union-drive-at-the-philadelphia-museum-of-art; Zachary Small, “Workers at Philadelphia Museum of Art Vote to Join Union,” New York Times, August 6, 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/arts/workers-at-philadelphia-museum-of-art-vote-to-join-union.html.
43. Bill Mazza, personal communication with author.
44. Heather Abel, “The Baby, the Book and the Bathwater,” Paris Review, January 31, 2018, www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/01/31/baby-book-bathwater; Rufi Thorpe, “Mother, Writer, Monster, Maid,” Vela Magazine, n.d., http://velamag.com/mother-writer-monster-maid.
45. Davis, Art and Class, loc. 1778–1862.
46. Fisher, K-punk, loc. 8289–8297; Jeremy Lovell, “Hirst’s Diamond Skull Sells for $100 Million,” Reuters, August 30, 2007, www.reuters.com/article/us-arts-hirst-skull-idUSL3080962220070830; Davis, Art and Class, loc. 2074–2093, 2246–2248; Julia Halperin and Brian Boucher, “Jeff Koons Radically Downsizes His Studio, Laying Off Half His Painting Staff,” ArtNet, June 20, 2017, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/jeff-koons-radically-downsizes-his-studio-laying-off-half-his-painting-staff-998666; Pernilla Holmes, “The Branding of Damien Hirst,” ArtNews, October 1, 2007, www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/the-branding-of-damien-hirst-176.
47. Becker, Art Worlds, 77; Lucia Love, Interview with author; Paddy Johnson and Rhett Jones, “Jeff Koons Lays Off Workers Amidst Reports of Unionization,” Art F City, July 18, 2016, http://artfcity.com/2016/07/18/jeff-koons-lays-off-workers-amidst-reports-of-impropriety; Eileen Kinsella, “Jeff Koons Lays Off Over a Dozen Staffers After They Tried to Unionize,” ArtNet, July 19, 2016, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/jeff-koons-lays-off-staff-members-563018.
48. Halperin and Boucher, “Jeff Koons Radically Downsizes”; Valeria Ricciulli, “Domino Sugar Factory: A Guide to the Megaproject’s Buildings,” Curbed, November 11, 2019, https://ny.curbed.com/2019/11/11/20954204/domino-sugar-factory-redevelopment-williamsburg-brooklyn-buildings; Dia: Beacon, “Richard Serra, Long-Term View, Dia Beacon,” www.diaart.org/program/exhibitions-projects/richard-serra-collection-display; Doreen St. Félix, “Kara Walker’s Next Act,” Vulture, April 17, 2017, www.vulture.com/2017/04/kara-walker-after-a-subtlety.html; Christopher Beam, “Kehinde Wiley’s Global Reach,” April 20, 2012, https://nymag.com/arts/art/rules/kehinde-wiley-2012-4.
49. Benjamin, “Art in the Age”; Taylor, People’s Platform, 44–66, 168–1
69, 175.
50. Molly Crabapple, interview with author; Malcolm Harris, Kids These Days: The Making of Millennials (New York: Back Bay Books, 2018), 179; Steven Rosenbaum, “Death of Vine Should Be a Lesson to Other Social Media Platforms,” Forbes, November 2, 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/stevenrosenbaum/2016/11/02/death-vine-lesson-social-media.
51. Fisher, K-punk, loc. 8034; OK Fox and Love interview with author; Billet and Turl, “Ghost Ship.”
52. Davis, Art and Class, loc. 2825–2827; Devyn Springer, “Cultural Worker, Not a ‘Creative,’” Medium, October 23, 2018, https://medium.com/@DevynSpringer/cultural-worker-not-a-creative-4695ae8bfd2d; Alison Stine, “Why Art Matters, Even in Poverty,” TalkPoverty, April 18, 2016, https://talkpoverty.org/2016/04/18/why-art-matters-even-in-poverty.
53. Art, Architecture, Activism, “Spare Room Project,” 2019, www.spareroomproject.ie.
CHAPTER 7: HOPING FOR WORK
1. Imagine Canada, “Non-Profit Sector Continues to Grow,” press release, March 5, 2019, www.imaginecanada.ca/en/360/non-profit-sector-continues-grow.
2. Ross Perlin, Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy (New York: Verso, 2012), loc. 94, Kindle, pp. 1–3, 196; Josh Sanburn, “The Beginning of the End of the Unpaid Internship,” Time, May 2, 2012, http://business.time.com/2012/05/02/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-unpaid-internship-as-we-know-it.
3. Perlin, Intern Nation, 23–24.
4. Kathleen M. Kuehn, “Hope Labor as, Well, Hope Labor,” KMKuehn.com, July 15, 2013; Kathleen Kuehn and Thomas F. Corrigan, “Hope Labor: The Role of Employment Prospects in Online Social Production,” Political Economy of Communication 1, no. 1 (2013): 9–25.
5. Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Verso, 2018), loc. 3103–3104, Kindle; Kuehn and Corrigan, “Hope Labor.”