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Art Tue Feb 16 2010
How Bad Is It?
Last weekend was the College Art Association (CAA) conference in Chicago. The CAA's website describes the conference as "The world's largest international forum for professionals in the visual arts." It's three days packed with panel discussions, networking events, and gallery parties. In her book, Seven Days in the Art World, Sarah Thornton recounts her visit the CAA conference in New York, "Art historians...swarm the building seeking to improve their positions, recruit colleagues, and win publishing contracts. Some network on their own; others parade the corridors with entourages of grad students nipping at their heels." Some events and discussions are free and open to the public but most require paid membership.
One of the panels I attended was called Meta-Mentors: DIY. Members of Chicago art collectives like Mess Hall, Temporary Services, Industry of the Ordinary, and Bertran Projects spoke about non-competitive politically minded art production. Marc Fischer from Temporary Services finished his presentation with an inspiring speech in which he said, "A lot of people have come to CAA Chicago to compete against one another. I would like to encourage all of you...to think about what you can build with others outside of this system, to think about what kind of infrastructure we might be able to create and sustain so that we don't have to compete against each other for extremely limited resources, so that we don't have to compromise our integrity, beg for crumbs, kiss ass and slide resumes under hotel room doors. I would encourage everyone to apply the same creativity and energy, money and imagination that went into coming to Chicago and gambling on a miserable job market to instead think about ways to replace this system and take better care of each other."
The CAA also posted statistics from the art job market from 2008 to 2009 and it isn't pretty.
hacka / February 16, 2010 7:26 PM
Go Marc! Yes. No reason for all of us to be competing, when we could create a new way of doing things.