5 Art Job Openings That Are Definitely Not Exploitative

Qualifications include a malleable moral compass, and compensation is sometimes guaranteed.

5 Art Job Openings That Are Definitely Not Exploitative
Oh, the places you'll go ... (edit Lisa Yin Zhang/Hyperallergic)

Instagram Comment Moderator for Collector and Museum Trustee

Your role is to delete any messages related to the following subjects:

  • Nepo babies
  • Associations with Jeffrey Epstein
  • Safariland tear gas

Schedule: 20 hours/week

Qualifications: Malleable moral compass

Compensation: Minimum wage


Assistant to Famous Artist

Important and famous Artist seeking assistant.

Responsibilities:

  • Cogitate with Artist about new ideas (all ideas remain property of Artist in perpetuity)
  • Keep Artist in good graces with Artist’s wife
  • Relay birthday wishes to Artist’s children (annually, each)
  • Walk (and occasionally carry) elderly, incontinent corgi, five times per day
  • Other miscellaneous tasks as they occur to Artist, who may or may not communicate them to you

Schedule: Flexible (i.e. available at all hours)

Qualifications:

  • Naive
  • Good-looking
  • Under the age of 25

Compensation:

  • $500/month stipend

Sentence Complicator

Prominent art institution seeks sentence complicator to coordinate jargon and assist with rendering press releases, wall texts, and catalogs to be more robust and intellectually impressive. 

Responsibilities:

  • Increase syntactic complexity without contributing to meaning
  • Substitute plain language with theoretical terminology
  • Expand sentences to contain minimum of three clauses each
  • Ensure opacity across all public-facing materials
  • Strong knowledge and mastery of International Art English

Qualifications: The more advanced and esoteric the degree, the better

Compensation: $0.01/word


Artist Residency

Residents join a values-driven, community-oriented environment centered on care, reciprocity, and shared maintenance. 

Responsibilities:

  • Daily animal stewardship (pig)
  • Contribute to group dynamics (positively or negatively, both OK)
  • Engage in weekly meditative latrine-cleaning

Qualifications:

  • Require minimal privacy
  • Enjoy manual labor

Compensation: $5,000 (You pay us)


Extra in Notable Artist’s Performance Art Project

As part of a $100,000 Hugo Boss prize, a notable artist seeks participants for embodied endurance-based performance art project. Selected candidates will lie out in the sun for three days and three nights as a commentary on labor and capitalism with vaguely religious undertones. 

Responsibilities:

  • Endure
  • Persist
  • Exist

Compensation: Exposure