Art
MIAMI — In the past year, there's been a lot discussion about the Chinese workers who make Apple products. Exposés and reports have been written, all of which have presumably made us a bit more aware of the conditions under which those workers labor and live. But we still buy iPads and iPhones and M
Art
At one point, Arts & Labor member Blithe Riley, who was in the audience at the round table, made a comment about “freaking out a little.” This highlighted the disconnect between the political and social aspirations of Arts & Labor and the general role of art critics for me.
Art
Last Thursday night at Housing Works Bookstore, Occupy Wall Street affinity group Arts & Labor organized a panel of New York art writers to discuss the labor of art criticism. Village Voice and New York Times critic Martha Schwendener opened the round table with the question, “What is the labor of w
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Roughly 50 maintenance workers and cleaners at the British Museum staged a brief strike this past Monday, the AFP reports, protesting the museum's plans to privatize maintenance work starting next April. The workers are represented by the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union and Unite, and bot
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After a year of tense negotiations, a breakdown in negotiations, protests and actions and then more negotiations, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 have settled their dispute! It's a happy day for art news.
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The 200 workers who went on strike beginning in July to protest the potential fate of Italy's beloved film studios, Cinecittà, have returned to their jobs — at least temporarily.
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The art world is a notoriously secretive place. Even though it's pretty much universally agreed upon that the system and its attendant economics are royally screwed up, people are still hesitant to talk openly about the problems. In the past year, thankfully, this has been shifting a bit, due in par
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Rome's Cinecittà Studios have provided the sets for some of the most famous movies in Western cinema: William Wyler's Ben-Hur, Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather: Part III, Anthony Minghella's The English Patient, Roberto Benini's Life Is Beautiful, and Martin Sco
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Yesterday, OWS walked into North End Grill in Manhattan's Financial District to raise awareness among patrons that the establishment is owned by Sotheby's board member Danny Meyer, who is part of a company that has lockout unionized art handlers since August 2011.
Art
I left the 2012 Whitney Biennial with a feeling of leadenness that no amount of free coffee (available at Monday’s press preview, and many thanks for that) or Werner Herzog’s video ode to beauty (“Hearsay of the Soul,” 2012) could alleviate.
![OWS Arts & Labor Working Group Calls for End to Whitney Biennial By 2014 [UPDATED]](/content/images/size/w600/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/02/occupy-whitney-home.jpg)
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This week, the Whitney Biennial opens but Occupy Wall Street's Arts and Labor working group has already started to question the usefulness of the exhibition for artists and cultural workers, many of whom are unpaid to participate.
![As Whitney Biennial Approaches, Museum's Art Handlers Face Potential Labor Dispute [UPDATED]](/content/images/size/w600/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/01/labor-issues-whitney-home.jpg)
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First Sotheby's, and now the Whitney. While the Teamsters of Local 814 have been fighting with Sotheby's since August for a better contract, a new labor dispute has cropped up for the art handlers of Local 966 that work at the Whitney Museum of American Art.