Do you have a creative project you work on after your shift? We want to see it. How can we help you develop it? How can we work together to build our skills and understanding of art and aesthetic experience? How can we express our human creativity independent from the forces working to instrumentalize it against us?
WHO’S ART WORLD?
AT THE EPICENTER OF A NEW AMERICAN HOLE, New York imagines itself at the
fulcrum of global cultural exchange. Art appreciation and art literacy have been degraded
by the gutting of public education. What remains of art in civil society is midwifed into
existence by the increasingly scarce collector, donor, or foundation — namely, the capitalist
class and its floundering institutions. These art objects are not only relegated to the chattel
gallery, but in turn, validate the art world through the privilege of critique.
WE LIVE AT THE MARGINS of Art, Publishing, Music, Film, and Performance all, and
yet! We know this art world does not belong to us. The experiences reproduced at the blue
chip1 factory are not our own. The old world decays while the new world struggles to pay
its rent. Circumstances preclude the working hand from the leisure of sustained practice
and the possibility of experiencing one’s own life in art’s wake. If art is truly the
inheritance of all human history, then why can’t everyone be an artist?2
THE WAY WE SEE IT3: Year to year, the possibility of being a “working artist”
disintegrates into the indignities of American Life. What has been sold as the internet’s
democratization of art has been revealed as the mass demonetization of creative labor.
Aspiring to live solely off the fruits of their creative capacities, artists debase themselves
through pay-to-play rackets, conditioning their work so it is marketable. Those who do find
a measure of success, are compelled through competition4 to adopt the position (and
anxieties) of the middle class, not by designation of their income, but by social-relation to
their object. The working class does not sign their commodities.
THE INDEPENDENT LABOR CLUB is neither a political party, union, nor activist group.
It is a socialization project. Where the market has disintegrated social bonds, the ILC exists
to re-entangle them. THE ILC BELIEVES that art and the creative act are indispensable
within civil society. The middle class artist, the artist who has been entrusted with
miraculous powers by capital, who hopes to stand against the 21st-century catastrophe, has
played a loser’s game. Likewise, the activist artist who dons revolutionists’ garb will only
resurrect embittered GHOSTS of 20th century movements, and we are not interested in
being HAUNTED. We see that a different set of INSTITUTIONS is needed. Institutions
that allow ARTISTS to SELF-ASSOCIATE as workers and WORKERS to self-associate as
ARTISTS.
1 Globally recognized works of historical importance. One of the most stable assets in any investor’s portfolio. We highly suggest acquiring some if you can.
2 If this abolishes the artist, then abolish the artist! The author asks you to abolish them, as they cannot do it to themselves.
3 If Intermittent CAPITALIZATIONS worked for Dr. Bronner then they will work for the ILC.
4 Algorithmic necromancers have organized bootcamps for its army of dead labor. The artist is now forced to compete against their alienated selves.
In line with the charter of the ILC of NYC, the ILC Arts division seeks NEW FORMS and STRANGE ARRANGEMENTS at the pleasure of our own imperfect tastes. The artists’ workshop stands above the market, arts education above the academy. The Division presents itself to the artist in the lineage of a grand historic challenge – art for art’s own sake (OURS!) Not theirs.
Shit sucks – Join the Club.