announcements report backs:
- rad arts
- labor cluster-Labor assembly
AGENDA
- MAY DAY
- COOPER UNION Continue reading
April 17, 2012
Reply
Arts and Labor Meeting Minutes Archive October 18 through April 3, 2012
We are currently transferring our minutes on Arts and Culture directly to our webpage. For now, you can find them in the links below. Thanks for visiting.
An archive of our Weekly Meetings!April 10, 2012
April 3, 2012 – Debrief and Visioning Session.
*Minutes will not be recorded during this meeting
March 28, 2012
March 20, 2012
March 13, 2012
March 6, 2012
February 29, 2012
February 21, 2012 *missing. soon to follow
February 14, 2012
February 7, 2012
January 31, 2012
January 24, 2012
January 3, 2012
December 13, 2011
December 6, 2011
November 22, 2011
November 15, 2011
November 8, 2011
November 1, 2011
October 25, 2011
October 18, 2011
April 10, 2012
Arts and Labor Meeting Minutes, 60 Wall Street co-facilitators: MP & DG stack: LB time: IE minutes: B
*****
Announcements/reportbacks
Agenda items/Proposals
1. May 1 statement [PASSED]
2. Alt Econ pamphlet
3. Julia Bryan-Wilson teach-in [PASSED]
4. Visioning session pt. 2 [PASSED]
5. Protocol document [PASSED]
6. Giant A&L banner for May 1?
Continue reading
May Day Arts Assembly II
This is the second May Day Arts Assembly, involving different arts groups and artists from within OWS, but also expanding collaborations beyond the OWS crowd. Everyone is welcome: artists, musicians, cultural workers, photographers, writers, dancers, filmmakers, interns, art handlers, designers, administrators, curators, assistants, and students. Join us!
The assembly is particularly focused on making sure everyone has the resources to support the projects they’re involved with.
WHEN: Saturday, April 7 at 2pm
WHERE: Union Square in Manhattan, NYC
Arts Assembly II on Facebook
Join the May 1 Arts email list here.
To email May 1 Arts: may1arts@gmail.com
Previous Arts and Labor statement on the May Day Arts Assembly:
Arts & Labor, a working group founded in conjunction with the New York General Assembly for #occupywallstreet, echoes the call for an Arts Assembly of artists, musicians, cultural workers, photographers, writers, dancers, filmmakers, interns, art handlers, designers, administrators, curators, assistants, and students. JOIN US!
We gather to discuss May Day, to build solidarity and coordination between OWS arts groups, and to plan outreach efforts to those not already involved in May Day actions.
Arts & Labor is dedicated to exposing and rectifying economic inequalities and exploitative working conditions in our fields through direct action and educational initiatives. By forging coalitions, fighting for fair labor practices, and reimagining the structures and institutions that frame our work, Arts & Labor aims to achieve parity for every member of the 99%.
April 3, 2012
Debrief and Visioning Session.
*Minutes were not recorded during this meeting
Report Back: At the Whitney Biennial Opening
Outside the VIP opening on February 28, the golden auction hammer threatens to crush a teamster. Photo: David Martinez.
Some members of Arts & Labor, Occupy Museums, Occupy Sotheby’s, and Arts & Culture, acting autonomously, paired with locked-out Sotheby’s art handlers from Teamsters Local 814 to bring their struggle to the Whitney Biennial, of which Sotheby’s is a major corporate sponsor. Many gathered outside the museum on the night of the VIP opening, February 28, for a loud demonstration denouncing Sotheby’s treatment of its workers. Signs including “Occupy Wall Street,” “Quit Sotheby’s” and “CULTURE Day 1 of Biennial + BARBARISM Day 210 of Local 814 Lock Out = Sotheby’s” were accompanied by a giant, inflatable fat cat and two giant, walking silver locks courtesy of Occupy Museums.
Two giant, walking locks from Occupy Museums arrive at the VIP opening. Photo: David Martinez.
The line of protestors, which also included supporters from other labor unions in the city, was visible from the main stairway and the fat cat loomed over the windows looking into the cocktail reception in the basement. Those waiting in the red-carpet VIP line seemed most amused by the chant: “Who are the V-I-Ps? Work-ers! Work-ers!”
After mic-checking the opening party on February 29, a Sotheby’s art handler explains the lockout and asks for support.
The following evening, February 29, brought an action less visible to those standing in line. Invited guests paired up with art handlers and union activists to take as their plus-ones. Smuggling their dates in, they got the locked-out Sotheby’s workers off the street and into the exclusive confines of the museum opening. Inside, the group convened on the fourth floor, which has been designated the performance area for the biennial and outfitted with bleachers facing an open, floor-through dance stage. After some smaller conversations, an assembly began with a mic check and banners were unfurled that read “Quit Sotheby’s” and “Occupy Wall Street.” Participants, sympathetic listeners, and surprised celebrants gathered around.
Participants gather in the assembly on the fourth floor as others look on from the bleachers off-frame during the February 29 opening.
The first to speak, a locked out art handler, stated: “I am from Sotheby’s. I have worked there for four years as an art handler. Sotheby’s is a major sponsor of the biennial and the poster child for anti-worker practices in the art world. Even though they made over $700 million dollars in [revenue; $171 million in profit] they are trying to destroy the lives of their art handlers and get rid of our union. We are not on strike. We have been forced out of our jobs and without paychecks for over seven months. Our families have no healthcare. This kind of oppressive greed should not be tolerated in the art world. By receiving support from Sotheby’s the Whitney is complicit in Sotheby’s war on workers. We are simply asking the Whitney museum to do the right thing: Stop doing business with Sotheby’s while the lockout is on. The Whitney takes money from the public–they have an obligation to support socially responsive practices in the art world. Whitney: Stop taking money and stop doing business with Sotheby’s until they end the lockout! Thank you.”
Then a speaker stood up to announce: “I have a statement from one of our great art writers and activists. Her name is Lucy Lippard. In an email today, she says: ‘I have been inspired by Occupy Wall Street and the Arts and Labor group just as I hope some of you have been inspired by our long past efforts in the Art Workers Coalition in the late ‘60s and Political Art Documentation Distribution in the early ‘80s and the Ad Hoc Women’s Art Committee, which set a precedent when we picketed outside and did actions inside the 1970 Whitney Annual. Santa Fe Occupy is pretty small but we’re in it together. Que Viva! –Lucy Lippard.’”
More statements of solidarity followed as a Biennial curator looked on from the stands. The final speaker declared, “as workers, as artists, as art workers . . . We love art. We love the people who make it. We love the people who come look at it. We love the museums who show it. We demand that there are fair practices. That workers are recognized no matter what they do. Thank you for coming to this exhibit. Thank you for remembering who it was who put it on the walls.”
After the end of the assembly the “Quit Sotheby’s” banner is left as a gift to the museum.
After the assembly concluded, the lovely rose-decorated “Quit Sotheby’s” banner was laid out on the floor and inscribed in the corners to read: “A gift to the Whitney Museum from Teamsters local 814, Arts & Labor, Occupy Museums / Not for sale.” It was still resting there when participants filed out at the end of the night.
For more photos of the February 28 demonstration, visit the Gothamist.
March 28, 2012
Arts and Labor meeting minutes, Wednesday, March 28, 2012
facilitator ASe, stack IE, time BR, minutes BY
******************
Reportbacks/announcements
Agenda items/proposals:
1. Tensta Konsthall (Stockholm) invitation to speak. [PROPOSAL PASSED]
2. intern working group letter campaign [PROPOSAL PASSED]
3. Alt Econ reportback, grants
4. debriefing/visions session [PROPOSAL PASSED]
5. May day arts coalition, activities
Teach-in with Gran Fury
Occupy Wall Street Arts & Labor Teach-In with Gran Fury
Friday, March 23, 7-9 PM
Einstein Auditorium, Barney Building,
34 Stuyvesant Street between Second and Third Avenues, NYU
What can the Occupy movement learn from the intersection of visual arts and direct action in groups like Gran Fury and ACT UP? To explore this question, please join Arts & Labor for a teach-in and discussion with members of Gran Fury, an art collective active from 1988 to 1995 that grew out of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power).
Some of the questions that might emerge from this discussion include: How did ACT UP and Gran Fury target not only broader cultural attitudes about AIDS, but specific laws, regulations, and government policies, and did that require tactics different from those of OWS? How were specific targets (for instance, access to healthcare and the price of prescription drugs) part of a larger economic system? How did ACT UP and Gran Fury critique these systemic problems, and how can this critique be advanced today? How did a movement that began largely through the efforts of white, gay men deal with issues of diversity? How can activist groups build alliances and coalitions? How do we navigate the relation between a smaller affinity group and a larger social movement?
Central to our discussion is the question of how artists and art workers participate in social movements and how art, activism, and direct action functioned then and now.
About Gran Fury
Gran Fury originally formed as an affinity group to organize an exhibition on the AIDS crisis at the New Museum, “Let the Record Show. . .” (1987), and went on to create numerous media interventions in the form of posters, billboards, and public service announcements aired on television. They produced such visually striking graphics as “The Government Has Blood on Its Hands,” “Read My Lips,” “Kissing Doesn’t Kill,” and “Women Don’t Get AIDS (They Just Die From It).” An exhibition of their works is currently on view through March 17 at 80WSE, New York University. An online archive of their work is available from the New York Public Library at http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult.cfm?parent_id=1060927&word=>.
For a brief summary of their history, see the interview with Douglas
Crimp here: http://www.actupny.org/indexfolder/GRAN%20FURY_on_ARTFORUM.pdf.
This event is part of an ongoing series of educational initiatives and direct actions organized by the Occupy Wall Street Arts & Labor group.
Arts & Labor participation in January actions at MoMA
On January 13th, 2012, OWS Arts & Labor stood in solidarity with locked-out Teamsters Local 814, and 16 Beaver in an action at the Museum of Modern Art, bottom-lined by Occupy Museums. Art handlers from Sotheby’s have been locked out since August 2011. Sotheby’s and MoMA share two board members, including Danny Meyer, who is also the CEO of the Union Square Hospitality group, a corporation that owns the three MoMA restaurants.
In the action, Danny Meyer’s restaurant Cafe 2 was mic-checked, and patrons were informed of the lockout of Teamsters Local 814, and Meyer’s involvement as a member of Sotheby’s board of directors.
1/27/2012. Art handlers from Teamsters Local 814, locked out from Sotheby's since August 1, 2011.
A General Assembly (GA) was held by members of all working and affinity groups in the atrium, and they invited museum patrons to participate. In the GA, the irony of MoMA staging an exhibition of the revolutionary painter Diego Rivera’s work, while being complicit in the Sotheby’s lockout of 43 Teamsters was critiqued. Patrons and employees of the museum were also informed of the history behind the so-called “Target Free Fridays,” how the admission free Friday was actually made possible through the efforts of the Art Workers’ Coalition, and their protests at MoMA in the 1970’s. Towards the end of the GA, a 30-foot banner was dropped from the 5th floor mezzanine, hanging down below the 4th, demanding that Sothbey’s end their lockout. The banner hung for a while until it was unilaterally acquired by MoMA security.
1/27/2012. The returned banner which was confiscated by MoMA security on the 1/13 action.
On January 27th, 2012, OWS Arts & Labor returned to MoMA with Occupy Museums and members of 16 Beaver to again stand in solidarity with Teamsters Local 814, some of who were present. A boisterous GA was again held in the atrium with speeches made by participants of Arts & Labor, Occupy Museums and Teamsters Local 814. A large, yellow Occupy Wall Street banner was unrolled and held horizontally across the gallery, dividing the space. The issue of the unilaterally acquired banner dropped on Jan 13th was addressed, and terms were stated as to what was required of MoMA, if they were to keep it. The terms were, that when the banner was displayed, it would be displayed with museum notes accurately describing how the work was acquired, that the Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC) be credited with “Free Fridays,” and that MoMA and Danny Meyer would come forward to demand Sotheby’s end their lockout.
Text reads: "MoMA, When Art is a Luxury - Art is a Lie. End your Lock Out." Banner courtesy Novads
The head of MoMA security, a fellow art worker, approached the GA, standing behind the unrolled banner, and politely let the GA know his job was to ensure the safety of museum guests and artworks in the museum. This was responded to with enthusiastic “twinkles” from the GA. He explained he would like to return our banner on behalf of the museum. He handed the rolled-up, confiscated banner, in a white plastic bag over the yellow banner. The terms were loud and clearly stated again; clarifying that its return meant that MoMA was turning its back on the locked-out Teamsters. The plastic bag was cut open and the banner was unrolled. The banner was spontaneously lifted at points by participating members and slowly marched out the gallery and down the museum steps, as if it were an extra long coffin. Spontaneous mic-checks erupted, and museum patrons clapped and cheered.
1/27/2012. Members of Arts & Labor and Occupy Museums leaving MoMA with the banner.
Members of OWS art coalitions and Occupy Sotheby’s continued to carry the banner through the lower lobby of MoMA and walked through the gift shop, startling and surprising browsing museum goers. The banner was eventually placed outside on the sidewalk. Casual conversations ensued and one of the artists of the banner began dripping red paint over the banner. Then, one of the members of the Novads, the art collective responsible for making the banner, asked the locked out Sotheby’s art handlers if they would like to cover their hands with red paint and “sign” the banner. The Teamsters covered their hands with paint as did members of Occupy Museums, Arts & Labor and 16 Beaver, placing their hands on top of the banner in a sign of solidarity and creativity. The action ended with a triumphant applause from OWS members and union participants; the artists of the banner finally carried it away, down 53rd street.
All photos by Leina Bocar.
May Day Arts Assembly!
Arts & Labor, a working group founded in conjunction with the New York General Assembly for #occupywallstreet, echoes the call for an Arts Assembly of artists, musicians, cultural workers, photographers, writers, dancers, filmmakers, interns, art handlers, designers, administrators, curators, assistants, and students. JOIN US!
WHEN: Sunday, March 25 at 2pm
WHERE: Occupy Town Square in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn.
We gather to discuss May Day, to build solidarity and coordination between OWS arts groups, and to plan outreach efforts to those not already involved in May Day actions.
Arts & Labor is dedicated to exposing and rectifying economic inequalities and exploitative working conditions in our fields through direct action and educational initiatives. By forging coalitions, fighting for fair labor practices, and reimagining the structures and institutions that frame our work, Arts & Labor aims to achieve parity for every member of the 99%.
Arts Assembly on Facebook
Occupy Town Square: Fort Greene Park
Occupy Town Square