Artleaks Zine

ArtLeaks is collective platform initiated by an international group of artists, curators, art historians and intellectuals in response to the abuse of their professional integrity and the open infraction of their labor rights. In the art world, such abuses usually disappear, but some events bring them into sharp focus and therefore deserve public scrutiny. Only by drawing attention to concrete abuses can we underscore the precarious condition of cultural workers and the necessity for sustained protest against the appropriation of politically engaged art, culture and theory by institutions embedded in a tight mesh of capital and power.

Namely, we have experienced first-hand how critical thinking and dialogue can be compromised through repressive maneuvers – and turned against those workers who bring into question art institutions’ mission, politics or their engagement with corporate benefactors. By co-opting cultural activity, these sponsors obtain social credibility which they then proceed to mis-use: by refusing decent conditions for cultural workers through oppressive measures – the same workers whose labor makes their subsistence possible.

In response to blacklisting and continued abuse conjoined with unbridled exploitation, we considered it our civic and political duty to bring to light the mechanisms of corruption and inspire others to do so as well. Instead of letting singular protests succumb to anonymity, gossip or institutional hush-hush, we began working to extract from situations of inequality, general conditions that affect the social and political mission of workers and establishments for art and culture.

Implicit in this collective protest is a radical form of institutional critique – through which we emphasize the urgent need to make visible and counteract all forms of repression, abuse, mistreatment and arrogance that have been normalized through the practices of many cultural managers.

While each case of abuse may be different, the increasing amount of power vested in art institutions controlled by corporate players, calls out for a collective struggle for equal rights and fair treatment of cultural workers.

Concretely, we will expose common-currency practices of slander, intimidation and blackmail as they are. Further, through this working platform we seek to enable like-minded people to stand together against instances of mistreatment related to cultural labor, repression channeled through dishonest management or blatant censorship. We seek to create a strong network of art systems’ whistleblowers – through which we support and protect each other in critical moments as much as possible. Through the power of facts, first-hand testimonies and visual information we seek to deconstruct the politics of who, what and how is invited into the exhibition space, and most importantly the circumstances under which one is ousted and then blacklisted.

We believe in the power of sustained artleaking to turn the tables on corruption and exploitation, to force art and culture institutions to publicly account for their politics and their actions. To mafia tactics and authoritarian tendencies, we answer with openness, anger and solidarity. The tools that we continue to build together are geared towards empowering – to work with dignity and articulate our positions without obstruction and to exchange information and ideas beyond national borders.

We initiate and provide the community with online tools - http://art-leaks.org/ and the facebook page “ArtLeaks” – which are open for use by anyone ready to share this or that case. Each case will be archived, building a comprehensive index of repression. We believe retroactive artleaking is just as important as early-warning leaking in the present. Thus, we welcome cultural workers to publish reports on the situation inside of the institution in any form. Both anonymous and signed reports are welcome.

We only ask to submit each case with collective evidence, such as first-hand reports and documentation such as e-mail correspondence, internal regulations and documents, video recordings and so on. We welcome the submission of evidence in the original language and we will do our best to make it available to international audiences. Our moderator will guarantee the objectivity of each case in a wiki style of communication with each contributor. For more information on submitting your case see Artleak Your Case or Contact .

It is time to break the silence.

ArtLeaks represents the collective efforts of: Corina L. Apostol, Ph.D student, Rutgers University, NJ, USA Dmitry Vilensky and David Riff of Chto Delat?, artist collective based in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia Jean-Baptiste Naudy of Société Réaliste, artist collective based in Paris, France Postspectacle, artist collective based in Bucharest, Romania Raluca Voinea, curator and art critic based in Bucharest, Romania Stefan Tiron of Paradis Garaj, artist collective based in Bucharest, Romania The Bureau of Melodramatic Research, artist collective based in Bucharest, Romania Valentina Desideri, freelance performer and choreographer based in Italy and the Netherlands Vlad Morariu, philosopher and art critic, PhD student, Loughborough University, U.K. Vladan Jeremić, Biro Beograd, Serbia with graphics by Zampa di Leone

ArtLeaks Gazette Call for Papers

After over a year of activity, we, members of the collective ArtLeaks felt an urgent need to establish a regular on-line publication as a tool for empowerment in the face of the systemic abuse of cultural workers’ basic labor rights, repression or even blatant censorship and growing corporatization of culture that we encounter today.

Namely: radical (political) projects are co-opted under the umbrella of corporate promotion and gentrification; artistic research is performed on research hand-outs, creating only an illusion of depth while in fact adding to the reserve army of creative capital; the secondary market thrives as auction houses speculate on blue chip artists for enormous amounts of laundered money, following finance capitalism from boom to bust, meanwhile, most artists can’t even make a living and depend on miserly fees, restrictive residencies, and research handouts to survive; galleries and dealers more and more heavily copyright cultural values; approximately 5% of authors, producers and dealers control 80% of all cultural resources (and indeed, in reality, the situation may be even worse than these numbers suggest) ; certain cultural managers and institutions do not shy away from using repressive maneuvers against those who bring into question their mission, politics or dubious engagements with corporate or state benefactors; and last but not least, restrictive national(ist) laws and governments suppress cultural workers through very drastic politics, not to mention the national state functions as a factor of neoliberal expression in the field of culture.

Do you recognize yourself in the scenarios above? Do you accept them as immutable conditions of your labor? We strongly believe that this dire state of affairs can be changed. We do not have to carry on complying to politics that cultivate harsh principles of pseudo-natural selection (or social-Darwinism) – instead we should fight against them and imagine different scenarios based on collective values, fairness and dignity. We strongly believe that issues of exploitation, repression or cooptation cannot be divorced from their specific politico-economic contexts and historical conditions, and need to be raised in connection with a new concept of culture as an invaluable reservoir of the common, as well as new forms of class consciousness in the artistic field in particular, and the cultural field more generally.

Through our journal, we want to stresses the urgent need to seriously transform these workers’ relationship with institutions, networks and economies involved in the

production, reproduction and consumption of art and culture. We will pursue these goals through developing a new approach to the tradition of institutional critique and fostering new forms of artistic production, that may challenge dominant discourses of criticality and social engagement which tame creative forces. We also feel the urgency to link cultural workers’ struggles with similar ones from other fields of human activity – at the same time, we strongly believe that any such sustainable alliances could hardly be built unless we begin with the struggles in our own factories.

Announced Theme for the first issue: Breaking the Silence – Towards Justice, Solidarity

and Mobilization The main theme of the first issue of our journal is establishing a politics of truth by breaking the silence on the art world. What do we actually mean by this? We suggest that breaking the silence on the art world is similar to breaking the silence of family violence and other forms of domestic abuse. Similarly as when coming out with stories of endemic exploitation form inside the household, talking about violence and exploitation in the art world commonly brings shame, ambivalence and fear. But while each case of abuse may be different, we believe these are not singular instances but part of a larger system of repression, abuse and arrogance that have been normalized through the practices of certain cultural managers and institutions. Our task is to find voices, narratives, hybrid forms that raise consciousness about the profound effects of these forms of maltreatments: to break through the normalizing rhetoric that relegate cultural workers’ labor to an activity performed out of instinct, for the survival of culture at large, like sex or child rearing which, too are zones of intense exploitation today.

Implicit in this gesture is a radical form of protest – one that does not simply join the concert of affirmative institutional critique which confirms the system by criticizing it. Rather, breaking the silence implies bringing into question the ways in which the current art system constructs positions for its speakers, and looking for strategies in which to counteract naturalized exploitation and repression today.

At the same time, we recognize that the moment of exposure does not fully address self-organization or, what comes after breaking the silence? We suggest that it is therefore important to link this to solidarity, mobilization and an appeal for justice, as political tools. As it is the understanding of the dynamic interaction between the mobilization of resources, political opportunities in contexts and emancipatory cultural

frames that we can use to analyze and construct strategies for cultural workers movements. With summoning the urgency of “potentia agendi” (or the power to act) collectively we also call for the necessity to forge coalitions within the art world and beyond it – alliances that have the concrete ability of exerting a certain political pressure towards achieving the promise of a more just and emancipatory cultural field.

Structure of publication

The journal would be divided into 6 major sections.

A. Critique of cultural dominance apparatuses Here we will address methodological issues in analyzing the condition of cultural production and the system that allows for the facile exploitation of the cultural labor-force.

Ideally, though not necessarily, these theoretical elaborations would be related to concrete case studies of conflicts, exploitation, dissent across various regions of the world, drawing comparisons and providing local context for understanding them.

B. Forms of organization and history of struggles Cultural workers have been demanding just working conditions, struggling over agency and subjectivity in myriad ways and through various ideas about what this entails. In this section we will analyze historical case-studies of self-organization of cultural workers. Our goal is not to produce a synthetic model out of all of these struggles, rather to examine how problems have been articulated at various levels of (political) organization, with attention to the genealogy of the issues and the interaction between hegemonic discourses (of the institution, corporation, the state) and those employed by cultural workers in their respective communities.

C. The struggle of narrations In this section we will invite our contributors to develop and practice artistic forms of narration which cannot be fully articulated through direct “leaking”. It should be focused on finding new languages for narration of systemic dysfunctions . We expect these elaborations can take different form of artistic contributions, including comics, poems, films, plays, short stories, librettos etc.

D. Glossary of terms What do we mean by the concept of “cultural workers”? What does “gentrification” or “systemic abuse” mean in certain contexts? Whose “art world”? This section addresses the necessity of developing a terminology to make theoretical articulations more clear and accessible to our readers. Members of ArtLeaks as well as our contributors to our gazette will be invited to define key terms used in the material presented in the publication. These definitions should be no more that 3-4 sentences long and they should be formulated as a result of a dialogue between all the contributors.

E. Education and its discontents The conflicts and struggles in the field of creative education are at the core of determining what kind of subjectivities will shape the culture(s) of future generations. It is very important to carefully analyze what is currently at the stake in these specific fields of educational processes and how they are linked with what is happening outside academies and universities. In this section we will discuss possible emancipatory approaches to education that are possible today, which resist pressing commercial demands for flexible and “creative” subjectivities. Can we imagine an alternative system of values based of a different meaning of progress?

F. Best practices and useful resources In this section we would like to invite people to play out their fantasies of new, just forms of organization of creative life. Developing the tradition of different visionaries of the past we hope that this section will trigger many speculations which might help us collect modest proposals for the future and thus counter the shabby reality of the present. This section is also dedicated to the practices which demonstrate alternative ethical guidelines, and stimulate the creation of a common cultural sphere. This would allow cultural workers to unleash their full potential in creating values based on principles of emancipatory politics, critical reflections and affirmative inspiration of a different world where these values should form the basis of a dignified life.

On Practicalities Our open call addresses all those who feel the urgency to discuss the aforementionedissues. We look forward to collecting contributions until the 31st of December 2012.

Contributions should be delivered in English or as an exemption in any language after negotiations with the editorial council. The editorial council of Artleaks takes responsibility of communicating with all authors during the editorial process.

Please contact us with any questions, comments and submit materials to: artsleaks@gmail.com. When submitting material, please also note the section under which you would like to see it published.

The on-line gazette will be published in English under the Creative Commons attribution noncommercial-share alike and its materials will be offered for translation in any languages to any interested parts.

We will publish all contributions delivered to us in a separate section. However, our editorial council takes full responsibility in composing an issue of the journal in the way we feel it should be done.

Editorial council for the first issue will consist of: Corina L. Apostol, Vladan Jeremić, Vlad Morariu, David Riff and Dmitry Vilensky.

ArtLeaks’ First Public Assembly and Workshop, Berlin, June 3-4, 2012

ArtLeaks members organized our first working assembly followed by a workshop around the issues that are at the core of our mission, namely exposing and dealing with instances of abuse, corruption and exploitation in the artworld. In doing so we tried to bridge historical connections with existing pre-conditions of cultural workers self-organization, as well as to build on these models towards international geo-political engagement. We strongly believe that issues of censorship and abuse cannot be divorced from specific politico-economic contexts and further, that they should be raised in connection with new forms of class consciousness in the artistic and cultural fields.

Given the current problematic politics of sponsorship in contemporary art and culture, the intense exploitation of cultural labor and widespread abuse and corruption perpetuated by

certain cultural managers and institutions, we sought to engage participants in imagining possibilities for transversal alliances and collective activism. We also sought to receive critique on how to improve the way ArtLeaks is currently functioning and to announce the upcoming launch of our online journal, which will be dedicated to cultural workers’ rights and related struggles.

The events were well attended by local and international artists, theoreticians and activists, as well as members of Occupy Museums and Arts&Labor (NYC), Haben und Brauchen (Berlin), Rosa Perutz collective (Berlin), Interflugs (Berlin) etc.

We discussed how is important to recognize that cultural workers are generally afraid to question the system, to question the gallery or the museum, they are afraid to ask for contracts and this is deeply embedded in our relations with ourselves and with institutions.

Developing a glossary or a vocabulary would be helpful in adjusting terminology between the current members of ArtLeaks and potentially new members, and also relating our project to historically similar actions.

It could also include a regional context index where areas of cultural and artistic work could be framed.

The language of trade unions who fight for workers’ rights could be adapted to cultural production workers, which may help these workers to speak openly about their grievances and legitimize them, and thus organize around. This was also one of the successful outcomes of the assembly, as work on such a glossary has already started on discussion groups that were created in the aftermath of the event.

The local situation in Berlin was also addressed, especially the Berlin Biennale. Local activist considered it a very problematic as it presented itself as a sort of left-wing attack on the ways in which the art world normally functions, but under the guise of a very progressive agenda cultural workers were also being abused there and corruption was taking place. We have to recognize that cultural workers also abuse other cultural workers for their own economies or to garner attention for themselves. While the call for solidarity is welcome, we should also think about how to respond to these kind of practices, and our need to gain attention in the art system.

Marsha Bradfield of Critical Practice and Precarious Workers Brigade (PWB) drew our attention to the fact that while exposure, naming and shaming is important it is also vital to give praise to good practices, to celebrate these. Furthermore, what incentives do employers have to treat cultural workers fairly, to have good practices. Unless we answer these basic questions, platforms like ArtLeaks and PWB can become an end in itself, and not generate something useful. ArtLeaks should not be about retaliation, or simple justice, but about a broader concept of justice.

Cultural workers need to reclaim their dignity, and this starts with the professional protocol in our workplaces. Nowadays it seems like it’s a shame to be an artist or a curator or a writer – that it is more important to be a social worker, to solve conflicts, to be useful in other ways. We are demanded results and effectiveness. So we should first clean-up our art factories and then find common ground with trade unions and other factories and workers.

Another important issue is what comes out of exposing and how we can link this to mobilization. Are anonymity or identification along class lines productive ways to organize around art workers’ struggles? And how safe does one feel to expose something on ArtLeaks.

ArtLeaks proposes that one has to have courage to expose, to take this responsibility. Furthermore, in the art world it is almost impossible to be anonymous. We are in the situation of living in a close knit community, like that of a small town – unlike the exposures we read about on Wikileaks. We all know which projects go on at a given moment and who is involved in them– so it makes no little sense to hide, although we respect anonymity when cultural workers request of us.

Most cultural workers are struggling to survive and to do their projects – mobilization is very difficult therefore, but it is important to try to organize these kinds of gatherings and build coalitions in the future. There is a lot of interest in continuing these kind of projects of emancipation and solidarity, but in the end it usually happens that a very small group of people end up doing the basics, the ground work. There are many uplifting ideas around what needs to be changed and great possibilities but one has put in the effort to make them happen.

Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen of Perpetuum Mobile introduced their Arts Assembly (AA) project. Practices developed by The AA for constituting assemblies could be used as prototypes for a court-like “public chamber” for contested Artleaks cases. The cases of aggrieved cultural workers would be heard by an assembly of all willing participants and audiences, opening the conflict to public scrutiny. A jury would guide the assembly in determining the facts and circumstances; and also extract the criteria by which a case should be judged.

This would ensure transparency, and open the process of “leaking” towards a form of peer-topeer review – i.e. horizontal governmentality, rather than traditional authoritative peer-review.

This process could also help us trace systemic conflicts and grievances by comparing similar cases and their criteria. It would push the project towards formulating methods and legitimacy, through the power of public exposure.

The idea of an Arts Assembly may be useful in some cases, but ArtLeaks members feel like it is not important to focus so much on finding a reconciliation organ, but to also build outrage and indignation. An assembly may placate some of the people involved but instead of remaining trapped in too much dialogue, we should also work towards a steady rise of indignation and an intensification of struggles. We also believe that there may be circumstances in which aggrieved cultural workers may want to engage in a thoughtful dialogue, but this is not always possible. We emphasize that different context require different mechanisms or methodologies that may not work in other places.

ArtLeaks’ Second Public Assembly, Moscow, July 15th 2012

The second iteration of ArtLeaks’ working assembly was facilitated by Corina L. Apostol, David Riff and Dmitry Vilensky in collaboration with members of the May Congress for Creative Workers: Nikolay Oleynikov, Haim Sokol, Evgenia Abramova, Andrey Parshikov and Misha Lilo.

ArtLeaks’ Second assembly took as its main theme the question “What art system do we need?” Thus, our assembly sought to stress the urgent need to address the dire conditions of cultural production in Moscow in particular and in Russia generally – where cultural workers are faced with violent forms of exploitation of their labor, open cynicism, manipulation as well as severe repression and censorship.

Corina Apostol, David Riff and Dmitry Vilensky gave a brief overview of the urgencies that made ArtLeaks come into being, its goals and presented some concrete cases that were published in the year since the platform was launched. We also underlined some useful resources which we made available for free use, such as a Further Reading section which we update regularly with critical texts that relate to our struggle and the No Fee Statement (initiated by the Bureau of Melodramatic Research) through which we encourage cultural workers to use in order to make visible corporate and publicly funded institutions’ inequitable compensation of their workforce.While every context may be different from the point of view of political opportunity, economy and disposition of societal forces, ArtLeaks underlines the necessity to analyze the aforementioned problems as systemic inequalities and exploitation, to expose violations of cultural workers’ rights internationally. After our presentation we opened the floor for comments and questions from the audience.

Surprisingly some of the first reactions speculated on the scenario in which ArtLeaks would become a powerful institutions, which would need a team of lawyers to protect it and command a serious budget for supporting different initiatives (currently ArtLeaks is not funded) – in which case, the question arose of how we would organize the selection process? In our opinion our platform is still at an early stage of development so it did not really make sense to focus on these issues; however, the assembly participants correctly noted that ArtLeaks has the potential to become a serious counter-institution in the near future.

Another important criticism of the current way in which ArtLeaks is operating was that ironically, we strongly advocate for cultural workers to demand decent conditions of production but at the same time, our project demonstrates that such an ambitious initiative can in fact be based on free labor. We have agreed to respond that we must differentiate from grass-roots political activities while also keeping with the goals of our platform, even in the situation in which ArtLeaks would get proper funding – so that ArtLeaks maintains its mission but maybe also foster certain start-up activities.

Participants at the assembly were also interested in discussing the artistic dimension of the case studies which we presented on – namely that in some instances the cultural workers that used our resources decided to present their situation using dif-

ferent conceptual art strategies – intertwined with a documentary or reportage-type of narration. Our position is that ArtLeaks in-itself is not an artistic project and we do not wish it to be displayed as such (for example in an exhibition or a biennale) – rather we conceptualize it as a discursive, critical work. At the same time, it was pointed out that contemporary art is not limited to the medium in which is comes into being and further, that institutional critique is a welcome and established form of artistic production. Moreover, if ArtLeaks is promoting new forms of artistic reflection on labor conflicts, they should by all means be integrated into appropriate institutional projects, which would enable them to gain a much wider economy of attention. However, it is our position that these materials should not be presented under the name of ArtLeaks, rather our platform should play the role of a distribution hub through which any contributor could use their case in any way he or she wants.

A large part of the discussions were focused on the local situation in Moscow: it was highlighted by the participants that this context lacks a tradition of institutional critique precisely because of the ephemerality and instability of the institutional context, the absence of formal classifications in the field of culture on the one hand and the prevalence of individual entrepreneurial activities which exclude concrete goals, strategies and programs as well as a division of responsibilities and professional ethics. As a result of all this, working without a contract, wage delays or not being compensated for one’s labor are standard practices in the local context. Cultural production is therefore turned into a kind of self-enterprise based on informal relationships, and within these thick layers of informal obligations and responsibilities the power dynamic and the flow of capital are hard to discern. Thus, proper resistance, dialogue or alliances are severely hindered or close to impossible.

The issue was raised that ArtLeaks has a unique chance of undertaking a new stage of institutional critique – previous developments of this strategy were always intertwined with institutions and became incorporated into their operations. As opposed to this, it was noted that ArtLeaks presents an external agency which allows for a new position to be articulated, one that is more political as it falls outside of the borders of contracts, institutions, marketing strategies etc. At the same time, our platform is open for participation to people from different countries where classical modes of institutional critique may be quite inefficient because of the concrete political, economic opportunities on those sites.

The culmination of the discussion was on the concept of democracy as it relates to the organization of contemporary culture. Evgenia Abramova suggested that largescale projects such as the Moscow Biennale should be run by an assembly of all the participants in the production process. This idea sparked a strong opposition from many of the participants, in particular David Riff who remarked that “Art may foster democracy but it is not democratic in its form of organization.” Dmitry Vilensky also criticized the assembly-form giving as example the recent Occupy movements, and instead advocated the reconsideration and actualization of working councils as structures with much more political potential for change.

The 3rd ArtLeaks Assembly in Belgrade, August 31st 2012

Art historian and curator Corina Apostol, introduced the ArtLeaks project to the audience. Corina highlighted the urgency of constituting the project which was founded in September 2011, some of our goals and values, and presented 5 case studies of violations and abuses which were published this past year of activity. Corina also stressed that while the project currently works as a council of core members, it is open to receiving new members who wish to join our struggles. Corina also presented some ArtLeaks initiatives such as The No Fee Statement, summarized discussions in previous ArtLeaks Assemblies and Workshops and introduced the forthcoming ArtLeaks journal – a publication dedicated to cultural workers rights. and related struggles. She then invited the audience to offer comments, criticism and suggestions about how ArtLeaks could be improved.

Alina Popa from the Bureau of Melodramatic Research suggested to also include in ArtLeaks good examples and to report on the good practices as well. ArtLeaks should not be only involved in pointing at bad practices, should not fall into the trap of art-vigilantism. The relation to truth and justice should be negotiated so that the ArtLeaks ensemble doesn’t become an ArtPolice imbued with disclosure aesthetics. Alina also argued that, rather than building on pre-established models of trade unions and NGO’s, Artleaks could keep its grassroots dynamic organization to raise awareness on the artist-worker issue. It is more important to build a system of mutual trust and subvert the dominance of competition in art scenes (based on the myths of authenticity, exceptionalism and creativity – allegedly autonomous from capital). Artleaks should build a system of trust plus an embedded mistrust in all vertical forms of organization and funding.

Alina feels that Artleaks should become more a model, rather than an institution in itself with fixed members and a hierarchical organizational chart. Also, she mentioned that the vocabulary used in some ArtLeaks statements should be revised, avoiding military terms.

Especially important is the social organization of ArtLeaks, we should not forget that the primary function is that of social experiment, that of trying to create different forms of sociality between artists, curators, cultural workers, all workers involved in cognitive labour and the workers in museums, galleries, workers employed by artists themselves, artists employed by artists etc. The economic organization of ArtLeaks cannot be thought of separately from the social organization. A donation fund would be the best proposal until now. What does future promise when every imagination seems already exhausted?

How do we rethink all these stabilizing tactics of ArtLeaks in a world of total destabilization? Alina’s proposal is to overcome not only the NGO model but the trade union alike.

Other forms of organization, of sociality should be co-created, which would be based on trust alone, on immaterial minor assets.

Artist and curator Ştefan Tiron presented his own case of being blacklisted from the MNAC (National Museum for Contemporary Art) in Bucharest. He recounted how in 2004, when the museum began to function, he was appointed in the initial curatorial team and was accused of stealing a bag of invitations to the opening. After this incident he completely left the institution. Ştefan also highlighted that people may be afraid to speak out about their cases publicly on ArtLeaks, which doesn’t have a witness protection program. But, what he and others did in Bucharest was to be a step ahead of the people

that tried to blackmail and blacklist them: they started a small inquisition jury, inviting witnesses in these cases to retract what they had said publicly, thus forcing the institutions into a public retraction of all the accusation that they had made.

Vesna Milosavljević, journalist from the biggest cultural portal in South-East Europe, SEEcult.org declared that she is ready to re-publish or to support ArtLeaks content; her criticism on ArtLeaks was that the project needs a better PR strategy and to establish stronger communication with the media field. Selman Trtovac, artist and founder of the artist cooperative Third Belgrade, highlighted the need to talk about positive examples and positive alternatives cultural communities could provide, and not only focus on the negative cases which ArtLeaks exposes. He added that he thinks it is very important to include projects like ArtLeaks in artists’ strategies, to organize artists cooperatives and communities and not only to rely on NGO and official institutions.

Professor emeritus Marica Radojčić, mathematician, artist and president of the Association UMNA-Art&Science, brought up specific cases – the annual exhibition of the Expanded Media department of the ULUS-Association of the Visual Artists of Serbia – when artists are usually forced to finance the event from their own resources, while the funds for exhibitions go to the salaries of the ULUS Administration. She also expressed serious doubts that in Serbia it would be possible to develop serious criticism of the art world, as it seemed to her that the whole population, artists included, are tired and depressed from the war, poverty and struggling for everyday survival. Curator Maja Ćirić underlined problem of exoticism of the particular cases from the Balkans if they were to be included in ArtLeaks and raised problems of the global and local in art and cultural production. She also highlighted ArtLeaks as a bottom-up project that could be used as a positive model for self-organization.

Rena Rädle highlighted the potential of ArtLeaks to back up local struggles of cultural workers through its international dimension. She discussed public research as a possible methodology to unveil relations of exploitation and mutual blackmailing that are otherwise covered under an alliance of silence. She proposed to develop supportive structures of solidarity on local and international level and introduced the model of a common fond members and users of ArtLeaks would donate to, thus using money as a medium of coherence and solidarity rather than dependence (of project-oriented funding).

Photographer Nikola Radić Lucati discussed the very specific context of Serbia and the Balkans, while mapping big players such as Emir Kusturica or the Serbian Orthodox Church as the most problematic in organizing reactionary hegemony and misuse of public cultural funds. Nikola warned us about post-war situation of the Balkans and all extremely complex difficulties that such societies are facing with. Vladan Jeremić added that the specificity of the region includes the proliferation of the NGO industry and professionalization in the field of NGO and cultural industry. In his view, this constitutes a sizable obstacle for the emancipation of the cultural workers in the Balkans. Until now, it has been the case that NGOs were gathering in networks in order to gain control over funds and political power – thus, control of public and art production space is still maintained by NGOs and not by cultural and art workers unions.

Pavilion UniCredit – A Collective Protest Letter, September 2011 This protest letter begins with the particular set of circumstances which brought together an international group of art workers from different positions in the field. Through these exchanges, they decided work collectively to make visible the conditions of inequality and exploitation that they wanted to rescue from slander and gossip – or leave them unquestioned as the sole privilege of institutions.

Having witnessed and experienced first-hand the exploitations perpetrated by the management, we decided it was our collective duty to openly speak against them, as well as warn those artists, curators and workers collaborating with this center. While we recognized the importance of this space as part of a growing effort to build a much-needed sustainable network for the art scene in Romania and contemporary art in general, we considered institutional critique just as prescient. Our attempts to establish a constructive critical dialogue with the management of Pavilion was consistently met with disregard and silence, unbefitting a space with a self-declared social and political mission channeled through art and culture. Moreover, the Pavilion team has circulated letters to a closed list of supporters that slander some of the artists that dared challenge their prowess on the local and international scene.

In response, we made public a series of instances which demonstrated Pavilion’s problematic relationship with its corporate benefactor. Through these instances we also emphasized how the management privileged this relationship at the disadvantage of artists it claimed to represent, its employees and the general public. For some time, these accounts were disparately published online. Yet we wanted to bring them all together to challenge the clout of this center to control what issues affect its workers. In doing so, we wanted to provide a positive example of collective protest against the appropriation of radical art, culture and theory by institutions entrenched in Power and Capital.

The unfolding of events began in February 2009, when the St. Peterburg-based art collective Chto Delat? was invited to participate in the exhibition “Comrades of Time”, curated

by Joanna Sokolowska at Pavilion. The collective asked for a modest fee to present their video work “Angry Sandwhich People” or “In Praise of Dialectics” (2005). They argued that, since the center was financed by UniCredit, and named in honor of the same bank, then the latter should offer more solid support to the artists exhibiting on their premises – at least covering their travel and per diem expenses to view the exhibition. After being informed by the Pavilion management (via the curator) that there were no funds for artists’ compensation of any kind, they agreed to show their video work for free – but on the condition that it would be shown in conjunction with a discussion or intervention on the issue of financial support for the arts from corporate sponsors. The board of Pavilion rejected this proposal, informing Chto Delat? that they could not permit anyone to exhibit an attack on their institution or its main sponsor, even in the form of an artwork within the institution itself.

This instance is one of several in which the management of Pavilion foreclosed the opportunity of a productive discussion dealing with the conditions of artist labor, preferring to leave unchallenged the principles of corporate funding.

On the occasion of the Bucharest Biennale 4, entitled Handlung: Producing Possibilities (also run by Pavilion UniCredit) – which opened on May 20th 2010, the concern over

artists’ fees and funding arose yet again. French artist, Jean-Baptiste Naudy, part of the collective Société Réaliste, challenged the curator of the biennale, Felix Vogel to explain why some artists were not compensated for their work, even in the form of a symbolic per diem. This exchange took place during anopen forum between Vogel, Eugen Rădescu and Răzvan Ion – co-directors of the biennale- and the artists right before the opening. The curator explained that the center had negotiated budgets for each artists with his/her respective embassy or cultural institute – leaving unmentioned UniCredit’s lack of financial support for artists’ production budgets or their labor. Echoing the concerns of many artists participating in the biennale, Naudy questioned the validity of this event to critique the political economy and re-energize social consciousness, when blatant disparities between who gets paid and who doesn’t remain unresolved and unspoken. But what was more upsetting than the lack of preparedness of the organizers to address these prescient concerns, was director Răzvan Ion (who was also the co-director of the Biennale) violent dismissal of Naudy’s intervention. Ion qualified the latter’s statements as inappropriate from an artist living and working the West, killing the discussion right then and there.

How can it be, we ask, that during the most important contemporary art event in the country – according to Pavilion’s self-eulogies – concerns over the condition of artists’ labor and censorship be dismissed and reprimanded? Moreover, what is deeply disturbing and worrisome is that the repression is channeled by the leaders of the institution which is supposed to support and show solidarity with its workers with which it shares the responsibility of creating an engaged public in art and culture.

In March 2011, a young curator working as an Assistant Director at Pavilion UniCredit, Simina Neagu, had the initiative of an exhibition called “Just do it. Biopolitical Branding.” As the title clearly suggests, the project deals with the function of branding used as a re-appropriation and resistance strategy by different artist groups in order to counter the aggressive assault upon the public space perpetrated through consumerist semiotics and corporatist propaganda. There were two Romanian art collectives invited to this exhibition, Postspectacle and The Bureau of Melodramatic Research, as a result of the symbolical re-framing they manage to produce through their interventions (by using either overstatement or denunciation in their artistic practice).

First, Postspectacle was asked to estimate a production budget. They sent a text and an image for the catalogue and proposed a 1000 Euro budget that would include production costs and artist fees for the four people involved; they also expressed their intention to enact a performance at the opening of the exhibition (i.e. an action which they did not intend to record or rehearse in front of the Pavilion team). The text they sent announced the imminent “death” of their project when entering an art space which is both funded by a prominent bank and at the same time overstates its leftist political agenda through flamboyant activist statements on every possible occasion (this practice of the Pavilion management led to a new term which is currently in use in the Romanian context: anarcho-corporatist schizophrenia). Following their proposal the artists were irrevocably excluded from the exhibition under the pretext that they could not be paid the amount they estimated. Although they didn’t present this sum as a final and insurmountable condition, they were being got rid of in an alleged natural and innocent way. Despite asserting in the first place that the sum is flexible according to each proposal, Pavilion consequently imposed a nonnegotiable amount of 200 Euro for both fees and production cost in the case

of the Romanian collectives. Postspectacle insisted on participating in spite of the low-cost conditions, so the final kick-out came through an unexpected email from the Director of Pavilion UniCredit, Răzvan Ion – who clearly had the last word in all respects and who, in the course of the events, acted as a spontaneous spokesperson for the curator. This kind of patronizing attitude was even more flagrant because the curator was now, willingly or unwillingly, cast in the role of the woman-subaltern who cannot speak.

The second case of mistreatment operated by Pavilion UniCredit was against the Bureau of Melodramatic Research (BMR). The aforementioned artists’ proposal to deconstruct and denounce the concept of sustainability as mere corporate branding (brand-washing), animated with the help of artists like the ones involved in this particular exhibition “We Are The Soul of Sustainability”, was met with a great deal of skepticism by the Director of the institution. After some discussions, the concept was nevertheless approved. The installation was ready in due time (i. e. a whole office with furniture from UniCredit Tiriac Bank, decorated with paintings according to the bank’s buy-preferences etc) except for the emergency evacuation plan which was supposed to function as a legend of this patch-office stressing the interconnected banking and art worlds. This plan was brought to the space in the morning of the opening and was mounted on the wall together with the curator. Although he got the digital version one day before, the Director Răzvan Ion verbally attacked the artists at the sight of the A3 evacuation plan which disclosed the amount of 200 Euro promised to BMR for fee and production, as well as the 2400 Euro scholarship the authors of the paintings on the wall had in turn received from UniCredit as part of the same sustainability strategy (scholarships awarded to MA students of the National University of Arts Bucharest, mainly traditional departments such as painting or graphics).

The display of the BMR fee was violently censored although the artists hadn’t signed any contract or confidentiality agreement. At the same time, the Director announced the firing of the curator which officially happened a few days after the opening. He threatened he would immediately cancel the exhibition if the collective wouldn’t change the 200 into 1400 euro – the amount he himself calculated based upon numbers he wouldn’t show or explain, stating that all current costs must be added (including the salaries, the energy bills etc). The change was made, the artists did not show up at the opening and the curator was fired, as promised. Subsequently, due to the already mentioned lack of contracting between the two parties (and possibly the public debates around the exposure of the events), the controversial remuneration was never paid.

Despite the public protest on the part of both artist groups, no official answer was published – the only reaction being a private letter full of lies and speculations, denigrating all the artists involved in the conflict, which was sent by Pavilion to a selected list of contacts.

This case is surely bound with the problematic practices associated with the management of a singular Contemporary Art Center in Bucharest. But the issues we want to raise affect more than just this particular space run by certain individuals – they are intertwined with the politics of who controls the exhibition space and the system of abuse that allows for the legal exploitation of the art workforce on every-which occasion . It is our deeply held belief that these concerns should not be silenced in the backrooms of banks or art institutions – but become the core of a collective protest among art workers against the appropriation of knowledge, art and culture.

Artist Sara Wookey reports on Marina Abramović and the LA MOCA Annual Gala (November 2011) I participated in an audition on November 7th for performance artist Marina Abramović’s production for the annual gala of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. I auditioned because I wanted to participate in the project of an artist whose work I have followed with interest for many years and because it was affiliated with MOCA, an institution that I have a connection with as a Los Angeles-based artist. Out of approximately eight hundred applicants, I was one of two hundred selected to audition. Ultimately, I was offered the role of one of six nude females to re-enact Abramović’s signature work, Nude with Skeleton (2002), at the center of tables with seats priced at up to $100,000 each. For reasons I detail here—reasons which I strongly believe need to be made public—I turned it down.

I am writing to address three main points: One, to add my voice to the discourse around this event as an artist who was critical of the experience and decided to walk away, a voice which I feel has been absent thus far in the LA Times and New York Times coverage; Two, to clarify my identity as the informant about the conditions being asked of artists and make clear why I chose, up till now, to be anonymous in regards to my email to Yvonne Rainer; And three, to prompt a shift of thinking of cultural workers to consider, when either accepting or rejecting work of any kind, the short- and long-term impact of our personal choices on the entire field. Each point is to support my overriding interest in organizing and forming a union that secures labor standards and fair wages for fine and performing artists in Los Angeles and beyond.

I refused to participate as a performer because what I anticipated would be a few hours of creative labor, a meal, and the chance to network with like-minded colleagues turned out to be an unfairly remunerated job. I was expected to lie naked and speechless on a slowly rotating table, starting from before guests arrived and lasting until after they left (a total of nearly four hours. I was expected to ignore (by staying in what Abramović refers to as “performance mode”) any potential physical or verbal harassment while performing. I was expected to commit to fifteen hours of rehearsal time, and sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement stating that if I spoke to anyone about what happened in the audition I was liable for being sued by Bounce Events, Marketing, Inc., the event’s producer, for a sum of $1 million dollars plus attorney fees.

I was to be paid $150. During the audition, there was no mention of safeguards, signs, or signals for performers in distress, and when I asked about what protection would be provided I was told it could not be guaranteed. What I experienced as an auditionee for this work was extremely problematic, exploitative, and potentially abusive.

I am a professional dancer and choreographer with 16 years of experience working in the United States, Canada and Europe, and I hold a Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance from the University of California, Los Angeles. As a professional artist working towards earning a middle class living in Los Angeles, I am outraged that there are no official or even unofficial standard practice measures for working conditions, compensation, and benefits for artists and performers, or for relations between creator, performer, presenting venue and production company in regard to such highly respected and professionalized individuals and institutions such as Abramović and MOCA. In Europe I produced over a dozen performance works involving casts up to 15 to 20 artists. When I hired dancers, I was obliged to follow a national union pay scale agreement based on each artist’s number of years of experience. In Canada, where I recently performed a

work by another artist, I was paid $350 for one performance that lasted 15 minutes, not including rehearsal time that was supported by another fee for up to 35 hours, in accordance with the standards set by CARFAC (Canadian Artists Representation/Le Front Des Artistes Canadiens) established in 1968.

If my call for labor standards for artists seems out of bounds, think of the Screen Actors Guild(SAG, established 1933), the American Federation of Musicians (AFM, founded 1896), or the umbrella organization the Associated Actors and Artistes of America (the 4A’s, founded in 1919), which hold the film, theater and music industries to regulatory and best practice standards for commercial working artists and entertainers. If there is any group of cultural workers that deserves basic standards of labor, it is us performers working in museums, whose medium is our own bodies and deserve humane treatment and respect. Artists of all disciplines deserve fair and equal treatment and can organize if we care enough to put the effort into it. I would rather be the face of the outspoken artist then the silenced, slowly rotating head (or, worse, “centerpiece”) at the table. I want a voice, loud and clear.

Abramović’s call for artists was, as the LA Times quoted, for “strong, silent types.”I am certainly strong but I am not comfortable with silence in this situation. I refuse to be a silent artist regarding issues that affect my livelihood and the culture of my practice.

There are issues too important to be silenced and I just happen to be the one to speak out, to break that silence. I spoke out in response to ethics, not artistic material or content, and I know that I am not the only one who feels the way I do.

I rejected the offer to work with Abramović and MOCA—to participate in perpetuating unethical, exploitative and discriminatory labor practices—with my community in mind.

It has moved me to work towards the establishment of ethical standards, labor rights and equal pay for artists, especially dancers, who tend to be some of the lowest paid artists.

The time has come for artists in Los Angeles and elsewhere to unite, organize, and work toward changing the degenerate discrepancies between the wealthy and powerful funders of art and the artists, mainly poor, who are at its service and are expected to provide so-called avant-garde, prescient content or “entertainment,” as is increasingly the case— what is nonetheless merchandise in the service of money. We must do this not because of what happened at MOCA but in response to a greater need (painfully demonstrated by the events at MOCA) for equity and justice for cultural workers.

I am not judging my colleagues who accepted their roles in this work and I, too, am vulnerable to the cult of charisma surrounding celebrity artists. I am judging, rather, the current social, cultural, and economic conditions that have rendered the exploitation of cultural workers commonplace, natural, and even horrifically banal, whether its perpetrated by entities such as MOCA and Abramović or self-imposed by the artists themselves.

I want to suggest another mode of thinking: When we, as artists, accept or reject work, when we participate in the making of a work, even (or perhaps especially) when it is not our own, we contribute to the establishment of standards and precedents for our cohort and all who will come after us.

To conclude, I am grateful to Rainer for utilizing her position (without a request from me) of cultural authority and respect to make these issues public for the sake of launching a debate that has been overlooked for too long. Jeffrey Deitch, Director of MOCA, was quoted in the LA Times as saying, in response to receiving my anonymous email and Rainer’s letter, “Art is about dialogue.” While I agree, Deitch’s idea of dialogue here is only a palliative.

It obscures a situation of injustice in which both artist and institution have proven irresponsible in their unwillingness to recognize that art is not immune to ethical standards. Let’s have a new discourse that begins on this thought.

Lacoste: No Room For Palestinian Artist, December 2011 French fashion brand Lacoste demands the removal of Bethlehem artist Larissa Sansour from major photographic prize.

The prestigious €25,000 Lacoste Elysée Prize is awarded yearly by the Swiss Musée de l’Elysée with sponsorship from Lacoste.

Larissa Sansour was among the eight artists shortlisted for the 2011 prize. In December 2011, Lacoste demanded that her nomination be revoked. Lacoste stated their refusal to support Sansour’s work, labeling it ‘too pro-Palestinian’. A special jury will convene in January 2012 to select the winner.

As a nominee, Sansour was awarded a bursary of €4,000 and given carte blanche to produce a portfolio of images for the final judging. In November 2011, three photos for Sansour’s Nation Estate project were accepted, and she was congratulated by the prize administrators on her work and professionalism. Sansour’s name was included on all the literature relating to the prize and on the website as an official nominee.

Her name has since been removed, just as her project has been withdrawn from an upcoming issue of contemporary art magazine ArtReview introducing the nominated artists.

In an attempt to mask the reasons for her dismissal, Sansour was asked to approve a statement saying that she withdrew from her nomination ‘in order to pursue other opportunities’. Sansour has refused.

Sansour says: “I am very sad and shocked by this development. This year Palestine was officially admitted to UNESCO, yet we are still being silenced. As a politically involved artist I am no stranger to opposition, but never before have I been censored by the very same people who nominated me in the first place. Lacoste’s prejudice and censorship puts a major dent in the idea of corporate involvement in the arts. It is deeply worrying.”

Sansour’s shortlisted work, Nation Estate, is conceived in the wake of the Palestinian bid for UN membership. Nation Estate depicts a science fiction-style Palestinian state in the form of a single skyscraper housing the entire Palestinian population. Inside this new Nation Estate, the residents have recreated their lost cities on separate floors: Jerusalem on 3, Ramallah on 4, Sansour’s own hometown of Bethlehem on 5, etc.

The artist explains: “Last week the director of the museum calls me and says that unfortunately a high ranking someone at Lacoste (nobody knows his name) demanded that I be taken off the list of nominees. The strange thing is that Lacoste was in on the selection process from the very beginning, so they were fully aware of my work when they nominated me. What seems to have struck them is the content of this new work which is inspired by the Palestinian bid for official status at the United Nations. That appears to have been too controversial for Lacoste.”

Regretting Lacoste’s decision to censor Sansour’s work, Musée de l’Elysée has offered to exhibit the Nation Estate project outside of the confines of the Lacoste sponsorship. Musée de l’Elysée is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Lacoste Elysée Prize 2011 is the award’s second edition.

Søren Lind, Sansour’s assistant, declared Tuesday (20th Decemeber) that Lacoste had yet to give any public response on the matter. Spokespersons for the Musée de

l’Elysée were contacted, but no statement was forthcoming.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign has also denounced the decision by the Lacoste Elysée Prize to exclude Larissa Sansour from the final shortlist on grounds that her work is too ‘pro-Palestinian’in a public statement.

Wednesday 21st December, after the news spread to many international newspapers Lacoste reacted by cancelling their sponsorship of the entire Lacoste Elysée Prize 2011. You can read their statement here and the statement by Sam Stourdzé, Director of the Musée de l’Elysée here.

The Musée de l’Elysée has also decided to suspend the organisation of the Lacoste Elysée Prize 2011 and made the artist an official offer for an exhibition: “We reaffirm our support to Larissa Sansour for the artistic quality of her work and her dedication. The Musée de l’Elysée has already proposed to her to present at the museum the series of photographs “Nation Estate”, which she submitted in the framework of the contest.” – Sam Stourdzé, Director of the Musée de l’Elysée

ROMA_INDUSTRIE? “The link will remain on it.

File a lawsuit or help us!”, November 2012 from the daily life of a Roma woman …

On February 7, I was contacted via email byWolfgang Gumpelmaier, who asked for my support of the film MANUSHA – The Little Gypsy Witch/ Die kleine Romahexe.

I told Gumpelmaier that I think the film is problematic, particularly the title “GYPSY WITCH,” as well as the many clichés in the film.

Shortly thereafter, I was contacted by producer Knut Ogris, with a renewed request for my opinion. I told him that I find the film questionable for children. This morning, I found a link to my film “ROMA MEMENTO. Uncertain future?” on the official site of his film, serving to raise funds and also market the film. After my request to remove my link from their site, Knut Ogris responded: ”The link will remain on it. File a lawsuit or help us!” see e-mail correspondences: On 02/07/2012 at 11:57 Manusha wrote: Dear Marika Schmiedt, I support the film producer Knut Ogris in terms of online communication for his children’s film MANUSHA - THE LITTLE GYPSY WITCH. Currently, the film is in post-production and requires the support of the fans. Therefore, we have launched a crowdfunding campaign. Since you have already written several times about ROMA issues, we would be delighted if you could post about our children’s film (blog, website, newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Here the link to the trailer, the press release and Crowdfunding page.

Crowd Funding: http://www.mysherpas.com/de/projekt/Manusha-die-kleine-Romahexe-moechte-ins-Kino/ Trailer: www.manusha-derfilm.at/film/trailer/ Press: www.manusha-derfilm.at/presse/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/romahexe

Thank you, Wolfgang Gumpelmaier On 02/07/2012 at 11:53 Marika Schmiedt wrote: dear mr. gumpelmaier, I think the film is questionable! with best greetings marika schmiedt On 02/07/2012 Manusha wrote: In what way?

Wolfgang On 02/07/2012 Marika Schmiedt wrote: a lot of stereotypes .. even the title “GYPSY WITCH” On 02/07/2012 Knut Ogris wrote: Dear Mrs. Schmiedt, I have just received your comments on Manusha – die kleine RomaHexe – the engl. title: Manusha – the little Gypsy Witch! Can you explain, I do not understand you! Do you know the movie? If so where from? In what form?

What’s wrong with clichés – if there are not bad clichés!

We are not doing a documentary but a product made for children, which deals with FOREIGNERS in SCHOOLS, trying to keep children from bullying and ask them to deal with strangers!

AND: we want the film to be successful in movie theatres and also to offer solutions.

Please explain! See the links in yellow below for you to use if you like!

Thanks in advance!

On 02/07/2012 Marika Schmiedt wrote: I have seen extracts from the film a while ago on tv, orf- heimat fremde heimat.

As to the social and political situation of Roma in Europe, have you dealt with it in a serious way? and what do you mean by good clichés?

As a Roma woman, I find such a product for children more than questionable. best regards marika schmiedt On 02/07/2012 Knut Ogris wrote: Well, I am glad that you are sooo expressive – but what is it that bothers you in particular?

Which part?

Did you know that Heli Maimann plotted against me once, because as a non-Jew I mixed a Jewish film? www.defamation-thefilm.com also a hornet’s nest – but it all went well, although some of it was unpleasant!

Well then help us, if they know the movie so well.

And tell us what you want?

We are in the final production and would also welcome and adopt your comments and sug-

gestions for improvement, even consider them!

But please do not use platitudes but concrete suggestions because: Yes, WE HAVE DEALT WITH THE CONDITIONS OF ROMA – ESPECIALLY IN THE BALKANS – AND SINCE MACEDONIA IS THE ONLY COUNTRY WHICH RECOGNIZES ROMA minorities, the film developed the way it did!

Mlg Knut On 02/10/2012 Marika Schmiedt wrote: mr. ogris, on your website you have posted a link to my film Roma Memento under the rubric Roma in the arts and culture. why did you this? please remove it from your website.

I do not want to be brought in connection with this film. best regards marika schmiedt On 02/10/2012 Knut Ogris wrote: Dear Mrs. Schmiedt, despite my polite offers for you to help with the improvement, nothing concrete comes from you – the link will remain on it. File a lawsuit or help us!

Thanks Mlg Knut ogris On 02/10/2012 Marika Schmiedt wrote: alright, if you think so, I will publish our email correspondences about the film on my blog and make my rejection public! besides, your attitude clearly shows how disrespectful, extortionate and dishonorable your actions in connection to this film are, especially towards a Roma woman who expresses her opinion. please remove the link.

Censorship of the exhibition “The Ukrainian Body” at the Visual Culture Research Center, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, March 2012 On February 10, 2012, the president of NaUKMA (National University of KyivMohyla Academy) Serhiy Kvit banned “ The Ukrainian Body,” an exhibition that explores the problematics of corporality in Ukrainian society, only three days after its opening. The entrance to the gallery [of the Visual Culture Research Center] is now locked. Serhiy Kvit explained his action with the following reasoning: “It’s not an exhibition, it’s shit.”

The consequence of such an action, which we consider to be an unacceptable act of censorship against a public space for dialogue, neglects important social and political problems and suppresses critical reflection. The exhibition, which was slated to close on February 28, presents works by Ukrainian artists Anatoly Belov, Eugenia Belorusets, Oksana Bryukhovetsky, Alexander Volodarsky, Nikita Kadan, Volodymyr Kuznetsov, Liubov Malikov, Lada Nakonechna, Mykola Ridnii, and many others.

We can only hope that such a thoughtless act on the part of the university’s administration was the result of a misunderstanding that can be resolved. We are now petitioning to collect signatures to protest against artistic censorship within the walls of NaUKMA. Please, spread this message.

On Monday, the 12th of March, the president of NaUKMA, Serhiy Kvit made a resolution on the prohibition of all events and exhibitions in the Old Academic building, referring to its «condition conducive to accident», where the Visual Culture Research Center has been working since 2008. Despite its «accident rate» the galleries of Old Academic building are shortly to be used as the library archives. Hence the president of NaUKMA closed the VCRC’s exhibition Ukrainian Body at first, then the Center itself, and eventually the premises where the VCRC is conducting events, announcing their «condition conducive to accident».

On the same day the social philosopher and culture theorist known worldwide, president of Institute of Sociology Slavoj Žižek presented a letter of support for the Visual Culture Research Center at NaUKMA. Žižek belongs to the top-25 of the world’s major public intellectuals today, according to Prospect Magazine (Great Britain), and Foreign Policy (USA).

In his letter to Serhiy Kvit, the philosopher mentioned about the importance of the Center’s activity being a milieu that provides critical thought and alternative knowledge, and asked the president of NaUKMA to resume the Center’s work in full scope. Eventually, Slavoj Žižek informed about his plans of the first visit to Kyiv in December 2012, intending to give a lecture at VCRC. The present sanctions are blocking the Center’s activities. Not only the famous philosopher’s December visit is at risk, but also a number of international exhibitions and events with participants from abroad.

Reminding the previous events, on February 23rd the Academic Council of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy passed a resolution to bar the activities of Visual Culture Research Center of NaUKMA after the exhibition «Ukrainian Body», dedicated to the study of corporeality in the Ukrainian society, which was closed by the president of NaUKMA Serhiy Kvit.

Director Penland School of Crafts: REPAY THE ARTISTS!, August 2012 I worked at Penland for about 4 ½ years and during my time as the Studios Coordinator, I was asked to conduct an illegal overtime policy that had been in effect from 2000 – 2007. This was against workers who made $10 -$12.00 an hour and were barely able to pay their bills. I declined and became a Whistle Blower against Penland School who refused to stop the policy. After, quitting in

protest and informing them of my discussions with the Wage and Labor board, they finally admitted that they conducted 7 years of an illegal overtime policy, ceased implementing it and agreed to pay back wages to employees. I agreed to allow them to handle it “in house” provide they complied and stopped the practice. This was my mistake because I trusted that Penland would live up to their word. They did not!

Several months ago I was informed by a former employee that he never received payment and so I went to Penland and asked why that was? They assured me everyone was paid going back three years. Since that discussion, I found 3 others that were within three year window and hadn’t been reimbursed for illegal over time either. All they say now is that the matter has been resolved and they refuse to reopen it, in spite of multiple discussions with board members.

My thinking is that if you honestly made an error and mistakenly structured your overtime rules to deny coordinators the pay that they deserved, then you would surely want to reimburse them all. The coordinators did the work and Penland got the benefit so they should be paid.

The coordinators were all artists who were working very hard at Penland and simultaneously being asked for art donations to be sold at the auction, while being denied their legal overtime. To me it is just disgusting that they make around $500,000 every year at the Penland Auction and somehow can’t find any money to pay back what these coordinators/artists legally earned.

And while this is going on, they manage to build million dollar buildings every year. They are not poor, they just choose not to pay their artists.

So I am coming to you to ask for help to get these artists the justice that they deserve. It is not about the money but the idea that arrogant not-for-profit arts organization like Penland can so egregiously abuse workers with no consequences simply because they will black list anyone who crosses them. If they are allowed to trample on the rights of the very people they are purporting to serve, artists and craftspeople, then workers there are never safe.

Please help me convince the administration that paying all of these artists, from 2000 – 2007 for work they did is the right thing to do. If you want to help to send email to rob@pulleynstudio.com , jeanmclaughlin@penland.org , and please cc: me at occupypenland@gmail.com This is because the letters I have sent to them never see the light of day but this needs to be out in the open!

So please post on your Facebook page and blogs.

If you don’t know what to write, just write: “REPAY THE PENLAND ARTISTS!” It is that simple.

If you could share this letter on Facebook and with as many artists and friends as you could, I would really appreciate it. I am trying to get 5,000 emails as soon as possible! I also ask that you stop donating to Penland’s until they REPAY THE ARTISTS! The artists that work at Penland are the ones who make the Penland magic possible. If artists don’t stand up for other artists then there will never be justice.

Thanks for trying to make a difference!

John Britt

The Boyar’s Life is a Miracle

The handover of power after the 2012 Serbian elections meant a shift in the country’s geopolitical alignment as well as its system of government. The effect on the cultural economy is beginning to show the paths its future development might take. This case-study examines ethno-centric cultural real estate projects as symptoms of a possible regression to feudal relations.

The rise of the “ethno-city” in Serbia and Serbian-held parts of Bosnia between 2003- 2012 represents a new stage in the retroactive “improvement” of national history, especially of the ethnic-cleansed areas. The “ethno-city”, is a form of sprawling tourist resort in which visitors gain education – that is the acceptable interpretation of the national narrative. Unlike most ordinary “ethno-villages”, which just try to turn profit and survive, the larger, “ethno-cities” are typically built in areas where the population has been cleansed by war or economy. These “ethno-cities” are sanctified and protected by their “ethno” status, which also means they are in a way, state & church-run enterprises under private ownership. If the ethnified villages are the kitchy continuation of their own existence and the regular village tourism, the “cities” seem more like descendants of earlier machines for improving a sense of history, philosophy and spirituality – the baroque “folly”, and the theme park. The latter day Serbian follies have been known to grow into modest hamlets of wooden mountain houses, castles, cinemas, swimming pools, multiple restaurants of national cuisine, clubs, gyms, libraries, kindergarden, saunas, skiing resorts, hotels, and the obligatory Russian-esque wooden village church. The cities, just as the castles of yesteryear with their follies, are built to cater to all the needs of their owners and their guests. Sometimes, they include minor, yet stylish distractions as well – a national hero or a celebrity statue, a monastery, a vintage car or horse buggy, afilm or classical music festival, a business school, organic juice factory, and so on…

The local park rangers are at hand to police the grounds, guarding the tranquility of the “estate.”

The description above fits both Nemanja (Emir) Kusturica’s sprawling realestate and cultural fiefdom, as well as the quaintly massive ethno-village “Stanišići” near Bijeljina. As Kusturica’s first such venture “Drvengrad” is branching out, growing into a fully developed resort, the old story of “a couple of houses with chickens running in the yard” is expediently being forgotten.

As if it could have fooled anyone. The project started two years ago, when the director spotted a “beautifully lit” mountaintop across from his film-set. Soon, the designation of the area as a “state national park” was postponed, giving Kusturica time to build, while effecting a ban on construction for the local villagers, over whose pastures the complex now sprawls. That gave way to the next stage, a “minor” expansion in the form of a fully equipped resort. The economy of the expansion is what is of public interest here. Not only were public lands usurped and villagers’ lives and economy damaged, but the expansion has been necessary to justify investment in further regional ambitions: “Andrićgrad”, nearing completion next to Mehmed Pasha’s bridge in Serb-ruled and ethnically cleansed Višegrad, in Bosnia, and just festively announced, “Kraljevograd” next to the Maglič medieval fortress, a heritage site in the Ibar river valley, between Studenica and Žiča monasteries, inside Serbia proper.

The crimes of the local Serbs and the genocide in Višegrad (and Bijeljina) were the subject of several trials in the International tribunal for war crimes, Milan Lukić’s trial being one of the most highly profiled. The “Andrićgrad” project represents a key final stage in successive waves of cultural normalization. As soon as the peace accords rewarded the aggression, Serb director Srdjan Dragojević began filming his fiction over the locations of the recent genocide. With the arrival of Kusturica’s project aiming for the cultural solidification of national gains, an indelible imprint on the political landscape of the region is being made: by literally re-reading the history narrated by architectural occupation. The method of altering reality through retroactive “improvements of medieval infrastructure”1 is carefully shaped so as to be seen as desirable and to be well-received by the Serbian public. There are no negative associations with the nostalgic world of medieval knights; and the lost Serbian kingdom is a bedrock not only of nationalist system of values, but is being branded as the base for a national consensus that has persistently promoted the value of land over life.

The product of all this is, as always, both political and economic. Political, as segregation of desirable culture into gated, commercial theme parks, the historic and architectural mask over the missing middle and new age in Serbian culture, the “ethno-cities” serve as militant cultural bases for the projection of the reconstructed Serbian sovereign continuity spanning the period from feudalism to newer models of social organization. The attraction of medieval period is also grounded in the economic reasoning for the creation of new, openly rightist cultural paradigm, based on the cultural erasure of the consequences of war and genocide from the land itself. I tend to see this stage as a political and cultural necessity, without which the ethnic cleansing would make no sense at all. This is the stage that affirms the continuity of the Serbian nationalist project and traces the agenda for the war crimes right back to the original (recent) group who fought to “improve history” – Serbian security apparatus, politicians and academia of the 1987 vintage, seeking to escape impending democratization by dividing the Yugoslav state into feudal, personal fiefdoms.

The feudal model of running things is actually, an efficient one in centralized environments where the ruler creates the economic model based usually on a single dominant industry that can be run efficiently in a centralized way, just as oil, gas and mining are used in post-democratic Russia. The disregard for the values of law, ecology, human rights and fiscal impunity are added to the levers of economic control by the ruler. This economic model spawns the new boyar, the director/tycoon whose loyalty is awarded large swaths of land, people and history to manage and exploit in name of the church and state. Unlike the capitalist who thrives on competition, or the intermediary stage of the “oligarch”, boyar’s economic standing is primarily the consequence of an entitlement based on professed and proven political loyalty. Serbia’s signs of return to the feudal rule are based on distributed sovereignty, riding on the coattails of increased dominance of oligarchs during the 12 years of democrats rule. This shift is obvious in the diplomatic, political and cultural moves announced by the SNS (The Serbian Progressive Party) during its first 50 days in office.

Obtaining a credit line from Russia on favorable terms, as well as attempting to

do the same with China, shows a fiscally bankrupt state opening to front their interests in the Balkans, and willing to accept dependency in favor of fiscal and political responsibility required by the EU. This loan, earmarked for budgetary spending is approved as the political stabilization of the new SNS-SPS (Socialist Party of Seribia) government is about to be finalized; though the announced arms purchases and pending gas bills will ensure Serbia’s long-term dependence on constant handouts. The economic and political price will be fully realized much later, at a stage when robust civil society will have to re-emerge. But for now, the intensity of diplomatic activity, distribution of positions, lands and funds to Putinist loyalists in Serbia is showing the willingness of the SNS to try not only to redistribute, but outsource at least some Serbian sovereignty. After all, in an empire this large, with an emperor so far away, a boyar ready to project constant readiness to serve will be awarded a long and stable rule.

The second, economic aspect differentiating “ethno-cities” from the “ethnovillages” is the neo-feudal model of extendable “concession”, paid for mainly in public property as well as money, diverting it into private construction projects.

This type of conversion is frequent in cases of corruption, as awarding contracts and construction projects is far more lucrative than running actual cultural programs, even nationalist ones. In such model, the profit is the state’s participation in the venture, which sole purpose is to get approved and paid. Any actual building (if and at all), serves to justify the follow-on investment, just as making the “ethno-city” seem like a profitably run business. This explains why remoteness of a location or actual profit generation are immaterial to the “success” of the venture.

The ascending scale of publicly admitted costs places Drvengrad at a few million euro, mainly donated privately, (before hotel and ski resort phase), Andrićgrad is advancing through it’s teens, adding publicly admitted infusions from Republika Srpska’s budget amounting to 6.5 mil. marks to the original projection of 10-12 mil. marks2, plus the undervalued land (30000sqm for 50000 conv. marks).

Kraljevgrad was just announced by the new SNS government, weighing in at either 103 or 50 mil/eur3 over 5 years, depending on the source. That excludes the value of land, as well as cost-overruns, additional infrastructure, (extended narrow-track railway, roads, parking lots, water, sewage, power, etc…), environmental impact, damage to the private and public property and economy. All that, before Kusturica decides to make another film, or present any of his lavish, 100.000 Euro “Andrić literary awards” (for slavic literature, taking the name of the original Andrić prize). The conservative estimates are placing the cumulative cost of “raising Kusturica” at anywhere between 30 – 70 mil/eur during the first full SNS mandate in Serbia.

His brand being so closely tied-in to the that of Serbian nationalism, it is less compatible with the usual brand-managed career of an internationally successful director. Kusturica has always shown remarkable loyalty to the state, and it’s budget, returning to graze regularly, rather than depending on the western competitive model of studio production4. However, with the re-evaluation of previous government’s contracts through the emerging nickel prospecting scandal, Kusturica was propelled to rightfully and pre-emptively defend the ecological purity

of his geographic domain, between Mokra Gora and Višegrad; unveiling his true status over the lands straddling the pre-war border between Serbia and Bosnia.

All of this opens the question of Kusturica’s real status and role in not only this, but nearly all recent Serbian governments. A friend of Nikita Mihalkov and with access to Putin himself, there is little room left for doubt over his place in the boyar hierarchy. In my opinion, Kusturica is, and has been for some time now the real minister of culture of a unified Serbian state. And yet, his role hasn’t been without heroic, willing sacrifice. A man capable of grand gestures, by acquiring and revitalizing part of Višegrad, he has symbolically accepted the role of managing the imposed and unwanted national guilt, relieving the bourgeois citizens of the Serbian feudal state of any need for responsibility or remembrance. It all belongs to him now – past, present and future.

Text by Nikola Radić Lucati

1The earlier, greener model of the Serbian “katun” mountain dwellings is abandoned in Andrićgrad for the conscious mimicry of the new, into faux Ottoman and Austrian city square. His cladding of buildings in scavenged stone has been well documented, and the civil unrest it sparked in Trebinje and elsewhere serves as the reminder not to take the supporting public lightly. http://www.blic.rs/Kultura/Vesti/328526/Kusturica-rusi-tvrdjavu-u-Trebinju-kakobi-kamen-iskoristio-za-Andricgrad 2http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/content/vlada-rs-pomaze-andricgrad-prekodzepova-gradjana/24632822.html http://www.blic.rs/Kultura/Vesti/261366/Grad-inspirisan—Ivom-Andricem “izgradnja Kamengrada koštaće između 10 i 12 miliona evra. Grad će se prostirati na 2,5 hektara, a izgradiće se 17.500 kvadrata. Gradnja počinje 28. juna, a za četiri godine trebalo bi da bude potpuno završen. Radiće se fazno, iz tri dela od po 6.000 kvadrata.”

3 http://www.kraljevo.org/Vesti-Pregled_lat 4To be fair, various scales of fiscal and political impunity are the only economic model nearly all our film directors have ever worked in successfully, most of their movies being paid for by the people. They are evenly distributed across the vestiges of the party system: (Dragojević – SPS, Paskaljević – URS, G17+, Kusturica – currently above partisan political level).

The ArtLeaks Zine #1 was assembled by Corina L. Apostol, Vladan Jeremić & Rena Rädle, September 2012 Graphics by Zampa di Leone The ArtLeaks Zine #1 is distributed under the Creative Commons attribution noncommercial-share alike 3.0 More about ArtLeaks: http://art-leaks.org/ Contact: artsleaks@gmail.com

The ArtLeaks Zine #1 was produced with the occasion of “Truth is Concrete,” a 24/7 marathon camp on artistic strategies in politics and political strategies in art. 21/09 – 28/09/2012 in Graz, a project organized by Steirischer Herbst. More about Truth is Concrete: http://truthisconcrete.org/ On this occasion, ArtLeaks was represented by Corina L. Apostol,Valentina Desideri, Vladan Jeremić, Vlad Morariu, Dmitry Vilensky and Raluca Voinea.