Art Work: A national conversion about art, labor, and economics

The Finale...

2010-04-02T13:40:00.001-07:00

The beginning of the end...

2010-04-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

ART 474
Art and Art History Dept
2535 McCarthy Mall, Room 101
TH 12:00-1:15
University of Hawaii, Manoa
Honolulu, HI 96822

ART 474,

I gleefully but regretfully inform you that I am playfully and theoretically resigning from my position as director/queen bee of ART WORK. I've had a lot of fun putting this show together and we've been amazingly successful at getting the word out. If you haven't seen it, I'm including a link to the Star Bulletin article in Today's paper on our show. It's aswesome!!!

I feel very proud that I've helped create a possible collective world. But now I leave it up to you all to create the communication and organizational tools to make it a true collaboration. Our ART WORK world has the potential, depending on how you all decide to pitch in, of either succeeding admirably or failing miserably. I leave it up to you.

The show is up and running but needs time coordinators, maintenance, workplace safety managers, and much much more. So here is the deal. I've made a time sheet for all of you that I will be passing out on Tuesday. Basically, you need to identify ways to contribute, talk to each other somehow about how to coordinate your contributions (I've opened the discussion board for this purpose), put in 5 productive hours on the show, and justify those hours. I've filled out my own time sheet on my contribution thus far. 58 hours and 11 minutes (please see attached PDF). Bronson, Andrea, Brianna, Robert, Stephanie, and Theresa, Yonghao and probably a few others have also contributed their time and admirable efforts in getting the space of the gallery open. They've been responsable leaders, but I think I can safely speak for them all in saying that they would also like to step aside so that new leaders can emerge. I'd love to see a few other people step up to the plate and perhaps help manage the space. Please identity yourselves to us all.

Just to start you off with a concrete problem that needs to be solved immediately. The gallery is open Monday - Thursday from 10- 4. We need volunteers to sit this week, we need a coordinator for the volunteers, we need..... to be as productive and creative as possible in participating.

I include an email from the gallery management regarding coverage........

Hi Jaimey,

I went over the gallery attendants schedule. I would like to have 2 attendants in the main gallery and the third in the Commons. The following are times when there are 2 attendants or fewer, and could use help from your students.

Tues 3/30 10:30-12:00; 1:00-1:30
Wed 03/31 12:00-12:30
Thur 04/01 10:30-12:30

If your students want to sit in the Commons for additional times, that would be fine with me. I can have 3 attendants in the Korean show. If you can give me a schedule of when your students will be coming, I'll let the attendants know who to expect and when.

Thank you,........

SOOOOO

Will someone please create and post a signup sheet for gallery hours in the gallery? And whatever else you all think needs to be done to make art work work.... etc.

I hereby reliquish manegerial control of the Commons space to the common collective of ART 474. I will, of course, be available for volunteer consultation, time permiting, but I have every faith that you all will do your best to make art work work.

See you on Tueday, when I will lecture on Conceptual art.

Sincerely,

Professor Jaimey Hamilton

It's bEEgun...

2010-03-31T00:49:00.001-07:00

"ART WORK" article in the Honolulu Star Bulletin

2010-03-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

Jaimey Hamilton's contemporary art history students grappled with real issues facing today's artists as they researched, conceptualized and designed the interactive installation "Art Work: A National Conversation About Art, Labor and Economics."

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM

For the exhibit "Art Work: A National Conversation About Art, Labor and Economics," University of Hawaii-Manoa students delve into art's place in the economy. The exhibit at the campus' art building calls upon students to make a statement by creating an art piece inside a hexagon and pinning it up on the wall. Above, art history professor Jaimey Hamilton works as student Daniel Harano examines the pieces.

View more photos >>

The University of Hawaii-Manoa exhibit explores the perennial challenges artists face in America's capitalistic society, exacerbated by the economic downturn.

"The value of artists and artists' labor are mismatched," says Theresa Worden, a UH senior who attends Hamilton's class. "Because artistic labor is creative and (consequently) unseen, it's valued less. Our current economic and societal structures do not appreciate or recognize it.

"This exhibit calls attention to the labor we all do as artists -- the work it takes to conceptualize and then put together art -- and (illustrates) that it's all labor and it's all valuable."

'ART WORK: A NATIONAL CONVERSATION ABOUT ART, LABOR AND ECONOMICS'

On exhibit: Noon to 4 p.m. today and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. tomorrow through Friday

Place: University of Hawaii Commons Gallery, UH-Manoa art building

Call: 956-5253

"Art Work" is a collaborative project between the UH class and Temporary Services, a Chicago-based art initiative. Temporary Services organized and printed a 40-page newspaper, "Art Work," that is filled with first-person accounts of the harsh realities of creating art amid America's economic challenges, as well as perspectives on creating new economies. The publication served as a platform for the UH exhibit.

"My first reaction is that this is a good thing," says established Hawaii artist May Izumi upon hearing about the show. "There are a lot of people who don't seem to think art is work. They think it's fun or it's a hobby."

Izumi says that when times are tough, social issues take precedence over the arts in the minds of the public. But she says the arts contribute to the greater good.

"It seems as though the arts aren't producing anything useful to the community when people are going hungry or face homelessness," she says. "Yet people in the arts community do give back to those issues. We create art events on behalf of those issues. We're part of the community, too."

The "Art Work" installation converts the University of Hawaii Commons Gallery into an assembly-line artistic work space, complete with a time clock and printing press. The concept of the beehive, selected by Hamilton's students to carry the "work" theme home, bears a multifaceted presence.

"The hive is a living, breathing entity, and we wanted to mimic that action," Worden says.

Students designed a show logo around the image, and the hexagonal shape of a hive cell serves as a canvas for artwork produced at the show. That includes pieces students have already created, as well as the contributions of gallery visitors.

Participants employ scissors, glue and sheets of the "Art Work" newspaper to fill blank hexagons, then find a home for their work on gallery walls marked with hive matrixes.

Meanwhile, students will be operating the press to print more hives.

"We're reducing the artists' work into what's familiar," says Worden. "Visitors will say, 'Oh yeah, this is work,' though the way artists really do work is different than what most people understand."

Hamilton says she's proud of the work of her students, who "stepped up to the challenge of putting together a show with nothing but 100 newspapers."

"No budget, no time, no 'art,' even, to hang up on the walls," she says. "They've been amazingly resourceful at creating a whole economy with just paper, scissors and glue."

Marilyn Cristofori, chief executive officer of Hawaii Arts Alliance, says the UH class is on the right track. One of her own recommendations for promoting the arts is collaboration with community.

"The argument that the arts are valuable -- the next generation isn't interested in that anymore. What they do value is creativity," she says.

But it's not enough to just talk about creative effort.

"The arts must figure out how to give creative experience to the community," Cristofori says. "Once someone experiences creativity with all its challenges, they find out it's fun -- and they will always learn something. You can learn a bit by being passive, but you can learn a lot more by being active.

"It's no longer about just putting up an exhibit or giving a free concert. We must require people to participate. It makes the arts more accessible."

UH senior Bronson Shimabukuro says the show is meant to engage audiences on various levels.

"There are people who will view it and do the art activity. Some people just like to view. But just in that action, they're doing something -- just by showing up," he says. "There are a lot of valuable lessons to be learned, lots of things to take away from it.

"We don't define it too much. It's not just a social, political or artistic endeavor. It's there as a piece of art. It's there on multiple levels, to encourage participation and awareness. And most art is about creating awareness."

Monetary produce

2010-03-25T06:15:00.000-07:00

These are some of the images that will appear on stickers to help our project create an active economy within the exhibit.

A peek at the Hive (courtesy of Jaimey and Andrea)

2010-03-23T02:05:00.001-07:00

Related material

2010-03-20T04:22:00.000-07:00

http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2010/03/01/smallb1.html

check this article!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl8G8JVXoag

Flight of the Bumble Bee - Yo Yo Ma & Bobby McFerrin

Planning for the hive

2010-03-20T03:41:00.000-07:00

Art can be done and shared by everyone

2010-03-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

By Theresa Worden

UHM Art History Student

published in the Ka Leo 3/18/10 issue

The economy is more than a system of production, distribution and consumption – it is a living, breathing entity. It blossoms, it withers; it gets sick. The recent collective American experience suggests it is more than a little depressed.

The economy needs therapy.

In response to the current economic gloom, UH-Mānoa’s Commons Gallery will offer a small, symbolic art economy in “Art Work: a National Conversation about Art, Labor and Economics,” March 22 through April 2.

This interactive exhibition will harness the creative energies of students and visitors to propel the show. Art created by visitors in the gallery will be synthesized into a growing and evolving display.

“Visitors (will) learn that art isn't always exclusive, that it can be done and shared by everyone,” said student-organizer Calvin Bagaoisan.

“Art Work” is a cooperative effort between UH-M studio art and art history students, and the art collective with Chicago-based art organization, Temporary Services.

Temporary Services organized the printing and nationwide distribution of a 40-page newspaper written by and for artists about art’s part in the current economic picture. This newspaper, also called “Art Work,” features personal accounts, artful anecdotes and calls to action. The full version is available free at temporaryservices.org.

Excerpts from the Temporary Services’ newspaper are the basis for the exhibition and are central to the creative pieces that will be made during the show. According to student organizers, the gallery will become both the working assembly line of art production and the organic, cooperative system of a beehive.

“The point is that the work, the actual labor of art-making, becomes visible,” said Bronson Shimabukuro, graphic design student and member of the exhibition team.

“I’m so impressed with the way the students have come up with a playful interpretation of the restrictive nature of our economy,” said Jaimey Hamilton, assistant professor working with the students planning the project. “It’s emphasis on efficient production and passive consumption. What they offer is the opportunity to be creative and collaborative, build an image together, even with the most limited materials or means.

“What they’ve created is an ‘art’ economy, which grifts a capitalist one and offers some pleasurable ‘nonproductive’ time in the gallery to simply communicate with each other. Hopefully about art, time, labor, and the economy.”

Like all economies, however, the venture is both elegant in simplicity and fraught with complications.

Due to the difficulties of the economic recession, campus-closures during Spring Break will halt the miniature economy for first week the exhibition is “open.”

“Art Work” will pick up production again on March 29 to April 2, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Look for performances and a special event on Thursday, April 1, from 12 to 1:15 p.m., when the gallery’s 100 copies of Temporary Services’ newspaper will be distributed.

In case you don't want to wait, here are some excerpts from the newspaper “Art Work.”

Excerpt from “THIS IS OUR REAL JOB” by Temporary Services

We can see how the collapse of the economy is affecting everyone. Something must be done. Let’s talk. No, it can’t wait. Things are bad. We have to work things out. We can only do it together. What do we know? What have others tried? What is possible? How do we talk about it? What are the wildest possibilities? What are the pragmatic steps? What can you do? What can we do?

We know that larger numbers of people find themselves increasingly shut out of the American “promise” of wealth and security. The majority of committed and practicing artists have long given up these expectations in favor of having the freedom to pursue their work. We’ve all made sacrifices for our time, our work, and our own dreams. Let’s face it – being an artist in the United States is difficult. Hell, just keeping your head above water is harder for an increasing number of Americans, artists or not.

The official number hovers around 10%. We’re being told to get used to it, but we would rather explore ideas for reworking the economy to benefit everyone. Where is the discussion about how to sustain our entire country and not just our banks, corporations, and those who are privileged enough to be in the top 10% of our “earners”? (More on page 3, Art Work, available for download at temporaryservices.org)

Excerpt from “PERSONAL ECONOMY” by Tim Kerr

If you are doing any sort of self-expression solely to make money, I think you will be disappointed. Don’t get me wrong. I am not going to turn down money, but that is not why I do what I do. I, for one, do not want to have money be a factor in why or why not I choose to do something. Yes, I have been paid for music and art but it has never paid my bills... (More on page 23, Art Work)

Excerpt from “MICRO GRANTING FROM THE BOTTOM UP” by InCUBATE

InCUBATE stands for the Institute for Community Understanding Between Art and the Everyday. We’re dedicated to exploring and documenting experimental approaches to arts administration and arts funding. InCUBATE is an open platform where we can openly question how the art world actually works and what possible directions it could conceivably take. Our main focus has been to address the lack of resources for artists operating outside the boundaries of institutional and market support and experiment with possible solutions. We are a research group. We produce exhibitions... (More on page 21, Art Work)

Fruits of Our Labor

2010-03-18T17:34:00.001-07:00

Worker Bees

2010-03-18T17:18:00.000-07:00