Below is an excerpt from Evgenia Abramova’s research project “On Art
Workers’ Labor Conditions” (Moscow) originally published in Russian on Polit.ru (September
2012)
1. The structure of the project
1.1. Purpose and Objectives
The main purpose of this project is to investigate the
working conditions of art workers in Moscow. In Russia, this aspect of
contemporary art has largely been ignored, as debates in the field usually
focused on either aesthetic considerations or market analysis. This began to
change only in 2009-2010, thanks to the efforts of several groups (the
so-called “Voronezh group” – Maria Chehonadskih, Arseny Zhilyaev, Elizabeta
Bobryashova, Mikhail Lylov, the platform Chto Delat?/ What is to be done?, the
“Forward” Socialist Movement and others). These groups were among the first who
began to seriously discuss problems related to artistic labor. They organized
the First and Second May Congress for Art Workers together with other activist
and artistic groups in Moscow between 2010 and 2012. During these public
events, participants argued at length about problems related to precarious
employment in the art world. In line with these initiatives, the project “On
Art Workers’ Labor Conditions,” implemented with the support of the website
Polit.Ru, was launched in 2009.
The objectives of this project were to collect, publish and
analyze evidence related to the working conditions of art workers in
contemporary art. Such information has rarely been publicized in the media and
was never consolidated in a single resource. (1) At the same time, art workers’
problems and urgencies are still intensely discussed in private. The first
systematic attempt to bring these voices together was initiated by the May
Congress in 2010 in Moscow (in the section “Personal testimonies of art
workers”).
The theoretical framework of this project was informed by
recent studies and debates on the economic, social and political changes during
late capitalism, as influenced by globalization and new information and
communication technologies. Under these conditions, labor became understood as
“immaterial,” “affective,” “creative,” and most importantly “unstable.” The
concept of the “precarity” emerged, together with attempts to describe and
explain how the stable conditions of employment of the Fordist era changed towards
low paid work and unstable employment in the post-Fordist period. “Precarity”
marked the emergence of a new labor model based on the exploitation of
intellectual, communicative and affective abilities of workers.
At the same time, “precarity” as a concept marked the
emergence of a new political subject, “the precariat,” which incorporated
various social groups united by “precarious conditions” but these communities
also had the potentiality to constitute a new political force (or class) and to
generate events that would transform the existing economic and social
relations, as well as change the prevailing mode of production.
1.2 Methodology
The methodology of the project was based on qualitative
sociological research, namely gathering “oral histories.” This strategy had the
advantage of selecting case studies instead of using a general model;
illustrating labor conditions with biographical details; and varying the
questions instead of just repeating those included in a rigid questionnaire.
Furthermore, the gathered testimonies could be published. (2)
The criteria for selecting the interviewees were the
following:
the place of residence at the time of the interview was
Moscow (the urban space, which those living and working in the city had in
common)
interviewees were under 35 years old (the standard age-limit
denoting a “young art worker” – in this project, the age limit was not intended
to define the “view and lifestyle of a generation”)
having a professional interest in contemporary art (as
stated by the interviewees themselves or those who classify their artistic
activities within the framework of contemporary art) (3)
participation in the programs of various institutions
related to contemporary art
Additionally, the interviewees’ places of employment had to
be different (one interviewee per institution), in order to gather as much
information as possible from diverse institutions. This condition was broken
only twice: the artist Rostan Tavasiev and the director Ilya Volf, who both
collaborated/worked with/in “Aidan Gallery.”
Interviewees were selected through personal contacts and the
Internet. During the period between May 2010 and May 2011, 15 interviews were
conducted, each lasting from 2.5 hours to 4 hours (with breaks). (4) The
interviews took place in Moscow in coffee shops or at the interviewees’ place
of employment, and posed questions about living and working in Moscow, level of
education, social benefits, participation in collectives and
academic/professional organizations, as well as the role of traditional and new
media in artistic practice.
[…]
