I’m very pleased to be heading to Denmark to participate in the upcoming series Making Social Realities with Books at rum46, organized by the space in partnership with Bret Bloom and the Jutland Academy of Art.

The talk takes place on Wednesday, January 22nd at 19:00 at rum 46 in Aarhus. The workshop is the following day at rum 46 starting at 10:00.

Talk: Critical Circulation: Artists’ Books, Labor, and the Law

A dual economic and legal history of contemporary art can be traced through the histories of artists’ publishing practices, and in the attachment of legal terms to works of art. As an alternative exhibition format, publications have been employed as a crucial means of disseminating documentation and information on a wide and accessible scale, potentially in ways that are more historically stable and accessible than a traditional exhibition. Employing legal instruments such as the contract and certificate of authenticity, artists have attempted to gain control over the circulation and exhibition of their work, while critiquing a market-driven cultural economy. Each of these strategies instrumentalize circulation as a site for critique, allowing for the politics surrounding the creation, presentation, exchange, and future provenance of art to become at least as relevant as the work itself.

Conceptual art and institutional critique of the 1960s-70s stand as important historic examples in which the discourses of communications, labor, and the law are utilized to further artists’ rights and develop critical forms of production, dissemination, and reception. Beginning with Seth Siegelaub’s abandonment of a traditional gallery model to realize exhibitions as publications, and his later development of the “Artists’ Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement,” and concluding with current examples explored in the recent exhibition Canceled: Alternative Manifestations & Productive Failures, we will re-examine how these strategies have been used to create new modes of artistic agency.

Workshop: Non-Participation

Non-Participation is an ongoing collection of letters of refusal written by artists and other cultural producers to decline their participation in cultural events or exhibitions for political or ethical reasons. The issues raised by these artists’ letters include the non-payment of artists’ fees, the denial of copyright ownership, censorship, rejections of corporate funding, and many others. To quote one such letter by artist Michael Rakowitz, “sometimes what we say ‘no’ to is more important than what we agree to.”

Workshop participants will explore issues of how artistic labor is evaluated, consider ways for artists to better assert their needs or negotiate compromise, and compare the situations of artists in different national and cultural contexts. These considerations are particularly pertinent given the increasingly unstable state of arts funding internationally, and as privatization and debt become deeply politicized. We will discuss past and present examples of cultural producers advocating for improved labor conditions, such as the Art Workers Coalition, W.A.G.E., The CarrotWorkers Collective, and others. We will also explore various legal and other practical tools developed by cultural producers for asserting one’s rights and expectations as arts workers, including Helena Keeffe’s Standard Deviation, Mary Beth Edelson’s Artist Contract, and Seth Siegelaub’s The Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement. Participants will formulate scenarios for their own “non-participation,” considering when they can and should say “no.”

I’ll be in Denmark next week to give a series of presentations on my upcoming project Non-Participation, and on the notion of Critical Circulation.

My first stop is Bureau Publik in Copenhagen on January 21, followed by rum46 in Aarhus on the 22nd and 23rd.

Non-Participation

Non-Participation is an ongoing collection of letters of refusal written by artists and other cultural producers to decline their participation in cultural events or exhibitions for political or ethical reasons. The issues raised by these artists’ letters include the non-payment of artists’ fees, the denial of copyright control, censorship, corporate funding, and many others. To quote one such letter by artist Michael Rakowitz, “sometimes what we say ‘no’ to is more important than what we agree to.”

We will discuss past and present examples of cultural producers advocating for improved labor conditions, such as the Art Workers Coalition, W.A.G.E., The CarrotWorkers Collective, and others. We will also explore various legal and practical tools developed for asserting one’s rights as arts workers, including Helena Keeffe’s Standard Deviation, Mary Beth Edelson’s Artist Contract, and Seth Siegelaub’s The Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement. In a climate of increasing precarity, class stratification, and pervasive pressure upon artists to offer their labor for free, the agency in the act refusal has gained new urgency.

I’m very pleased to announce that this April I’ll be participating in the conference Valuing Labor in the Arts at the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley, organized by Art Practical and Helena Keeffe.

Valuing Labor in the Arts

Worshop and Debate
April 2014

In April 2014, ARC will partner with Art Practical and MFA candidate Helena Keeffe to present “Valuing Art Labor: Strategies, Tools, Definitions”, a series of artist-led workshops that develop exercises, prompts, or actions that allow participants to navigate the complex and nuanced landscape of art and labor. Workshops will consider questions such as: What kinds of tactics allow artists to create a sense of agency regarding the economics of creative production? What are the key questions artists should ask themselves in defining standards for valuing their labor? How might artists and cultural producers disseminate or appropriate successful models to accomplish their own projects? How do different artistic forms (visual, public, relational, choreographic, theatrical) engage and revise different types of art economies? ARC will host artists, curators, and writers from the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, to stage an intimate yet wide-ranging exploration about art and labor, about alternative economies in the arts and cultural fields, and about strategies for working in ever changing “art world” landscapes.

Please check our website for updates and more information soon.

I was thrilled and honored to take part in a panel discussion on November 22nd at the Center for Book Arts on the work of Seth Siegelaub. It proved an especially great opportunity to connect with others who had worked with him and who were influenced by his work.

For this year’s NY Art Book Fair I’ll be taking part in a discussion by Blonde Art Books, talking about recent projects and artists and publishers using alternative modes of distribution.

Saturday, September 21, 1:00-2:00 pm

NY Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1

Art Book Roadshow: Blonde Art Books 2013 Summer Tour
For six weeks this summer, Blonde Art Books traveled to eight cities throughout the Northeast and Midwest, collaborating with local artists, writers, and publishers on a series of one-day events. Blonde Art Books-founder Sonel Breslav will be joined by Maia Asshaq of DittoDitto (Detroit), Lauren van Haaften-Schick (New York), Sarah Williams of The Art Book Review (Los Angeles), andDaniel McCloskey of The Cyberpunk Apocalypse (Pittsburgh) to discuss the intentions and outcomes of the tour, as well as their individual contributions to independent publishing. The presentation will include a performance by Alan Resnick (Baltimore) from his self-published book $8.95. Presented byBlonde Art Books.

Announcing a new initiative for independent curators:

Extra-Curricular
Meetings held at Artists’ Space Books & Talks
55 Walker St., New York, NY

First meeting: Wednesday August 7th, 7-9pm.
RSVP to extracurricularnyc@gmail.com
Alex Benenson and Lauren van Haaften-Schick invite you to join us for the first session of Extra-Curricular.

Extra-Curricular seeks to create a meeting place and platform for emerging independent curators to reflect on our needs as individuals producing without the support of cultural institutions, to build our own network of resources, and to consider what might be gained if we positioned ourselves as a whole.

Our first meeting will be an open forum focused on the negotiations independent curators make when they also hold positions in institutions, and on proposing alternative models for making exhibitions independently.

Questions we will consider:
What issues are faced by independent curators in New York? How do these compare to other cities?
How does affiliation with an institution help or hurt independent curators in pursuing their own goals?
What is the purpose of defining oneself as an independent curator vis a vis institutions and artists, and what does the position imply today?
What are the limitations of current models available to us?
What points of access or entry can we invent for ourselves?
How can we create our own support structures while maintaining autonomy?
What do we want from our independence?
What would a shared platform look like?
What could we achieve as a whole?
Regular meetings will also serve as a place for curators to workshop and get feedback on current projects, following the model of an artists’ critique. As meetings progress, we plan to invite others more established in the field to discuss their trajectory and collaborate on ideas.

The first meeting will take place on Wednesday August 7th at Artists’ Space Books & Talks, from 7-9pm. If you are interested in presenting and getting feedback on a specific idea or project at this meeting, please let us know in advance so that we may tailor the agenda accordingly.

Please feel free to pass this invitation along to others who may be interested.

RSVP appreciated, but not required.

We look forward to seeing you there.
Alex Benenson
Lauren van Haaften-Schick

On Thursday June 13th I joined Blonde Art Books, SP Weather Station and others to present a few publications and give a presentation on recent projects Canceled: Alternative Manifestations & Productive Failures and Non-Participation at Furthermore in Washington, DC. It was a great event, and I met lots of new folks from the DC area. Thanks to SP Weather Station and Blonde Art Books for inviting me to take part, and to Furthermore for hosting!

From Blonde Art Books, with pictures of the event:

Our first event on the Blonde Art Books tour was a huge success last night at Furthermore in Washington, DC. Blonde Art Books led a series of presentations of various local independent publishing projects. Larissa Leclair of the Indie Photobook Library shared over 30 photobooks from the library that have been donated by local artists. Natalie Campbell introduced her collaborative project SP Weather Station  (with Heidi Neilson) as well as France-based Cahiers Intempestifs, and Lauren VHS presented her on-going project Cancelled as well as her upcoming publication Non-participation. Local book-makers participated in an informal show&tell including Ginevra Shay, Renee Regan, Ryan Syrell, Kyle Tata, among others.

This past Sunday I was happy to participate in a reading of Two Pieces by Robert Barry, from the very copy that had belonged to my late mentor Robert Seydel. It was a fantastic and friendly evening in the garden outside the new Silent Barn. A big thank you to Sonel Breslav and Nathaniel Otting for organizing it.

Event info:

As part of Blonde Art Books tour launch, the Robert Seydel Society of Eastern Switzerland (formerly the Robert Walser Society of Western Massachusetts) will present two pieces / some books.

1) Rick Myers will perform Fragments of a failed bullet – addendum to his recent presentation at MoMA Library
2) Lauren VHS and a sub-sub librarian from the Society will perform Two Pieces by Robert Barry (Robert Seydel’s copy)

A xeroxed booklet by Myers, Fragments of a failed bullet, will be printed especially for the occasion, and some books from the RSSES’s shelf at last weekend’s BABZ Fair will again be present.

Robert Seydel’s Book of Ruth is available through Siglio Press.