File spoon-archives/avant-garde.archive/avant-garde_1996/avant-garde_Jan.96, message 5


Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 10:01:10 -0500 (EST)
From: malgosia askanas <ma-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: appropriation/free art


I wrote, and then Dick wrote:

>> I have a question: why this concern with "appropriation"?  What does it 
>> matter whether corporations appropriate something?

> CORPORATIONS CAN AND DO APPROPRIATE THINGS-GOVERNMENT GRAZING RIGHTS,
> INVENTIONS OF LONE INVENTORS, ETC.

I just want to clarify: I understand that corporations _do_ appropriate things,
but what I understand less is why this is supposed to be some kind of central
worry to people who choose to make art outside of the corporate structure.
Saul's remarks suggest that when "avant-garde" work gets appropriated, this 
should be regarded as a sign of some kind of failure on the part of the artist. 
But I am not sure why.  It seems to me a sign of neither failure nor success, 
and in fact of hardly any interest. 

>> The issue of working for free has more resonance for me.  If one works for
>> free, then (assuming one isn't rich) one has to make a living doing something
>> else, which means that one may not have enough mental breathing space
>> to do the kind of art one wants.   [and so on...] 
>
> WELL IT BEATS BEING HOMELESS. AS ONE WHO IS UNEMPLOYED AND MORE OR LESS
> UNEMPLOYABLE I AM THREATENED BY THIS AND CAN TELL YOU RIGHT OUT THAT WORRY
> MAKES IT HARD TO DO MY WORK. IT UNDERMINES MY CONFIDENCE AND IS AS MUCH A
> THREAT TO MY PRODUCTIVITY AS LOST TIME WOULD BE WHICH WAS GIVEN TO SOME
> SUPPORTIVE EMPLOYMENT.

Ah, with this I couldn't agree more.  So it seems to me that perhaps the most
avant-garde project in the whole world is the project of inventing/creating 
options that propel us out of the employment/grants/homelessness trichotomy.  


-malgosia


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