Working Artists Fear No Work, Don’t They?
Discussion held by "Szum" magazine

One of the results of the 2012 Artists Strike, organized by the Contemporary Art Citizens’ Forum, was the re-evaluation of the artist’s image.

From a bluebird and social renegade s/he has become a working person, demanding his/hers rights similarly as other citizens do. However, the image of a contemporary artist’s labour the society has in mind still remains blurred. In the past artists would eagerly portray themselves at work: at a guild’s workshop, a private atelier, in the academy or outdoors. The last significant vision of the artist’s workshop is Andy Warhol’s Factory. But how does it look now, particularly when it comes to Polish artists?

This panel is supposed to determine what contemporary artists’ labour looks like and what it is. Who do they need to cooperate with and what sort of tools to use? Should labour be understood only as the process of manufacturing works of art or projects? Or maybe, in line with the neoliberal logic of production, the borderline between artists’ work and leisure time is becoming dimmer, giving way to a liquid model of labour in which a photograph uploaded to Instagram and any sort of Facebook activity are equally important as acquiring resources for the production of works of art and the creative process itself.