Art and Capitalism, one more time...

Hoping for a discussion group sometime in the not too distant future at A-Space for artists who want to explore ideas on alternative means of support-- outside gatekeeper-gallery-to-investor servitude. If you're interested in this, let me know--and I'll keep you updated on when this might happen.

True, making stuff from your own materials and exchanging it for money isn't yet capitalism. The problem is with what happens after, and the way the gallery-to-investor system works, using art as an exchange commodity to create surplus value for the investor/collectors--which also screws the artist-worker. Think of artists, with very few exceptions, as low wage workers. Any artist activist would do well to give this a shit-load of thought. It means rescuing art from being subverted and co-opted by the establishment, which is an absolutely essential step in turning our creative powers to serve the revolution.

We will never make a new world by centralized resistance. We have to turn every aspect of our lives to creating new forms of relationships, with one another, and to the work we do in making a humanly habitable world with all our fellow creatures on this planet. Making art isn't a side dish we wait to serve up after the 'real' work is done--it's how we open the faucet to ALL our creative energies. Why the elite are so committed to owning and using what we do to image forth a world that looks like the one they want us live in, the one where they own us and the labor of all.

See also Imagination Shall Make Us Free