The first known reference to an Art Strike is in an Alain Jouffroy essay: "What's To Be Done About Art?" (included in "Art and Confrontation," New York Graphic Society 1968).
Contents
- Art Workers Coalition 1969 70
- Years without Art 1977 1980
- The Art Strike 1990 93
- Art Strike Biennial2009 2012
- Other contemporary groups
- References
"It is essential that the minority advocate the necessity of going on an 'active art strike' using the machines of the culture industry to set it in total contradiction to itself. The intention is not to end the rule of production, but to change the most adventurous part of 'artistic' production into the production of revolutionary ideas, forms and techniques."
Art Workers Coalition (1969-70)
The Art Workers Coalition (AWC) was a collection of artists, dealers, museum workers, and other workers in the art industry; including Carl Andre and Lucy Lippard.
On October 15, 1969, the AWC organized a successful "Moratorium of Art to End the War in Vietnam." The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Jewish Museum, and a large number of commercial art galleries closed for the day. The Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim Museum did not comply. Under pressure from the AWC, the Metropolitan postponed the opening of its American painting and sculpture show scheduled for that day, and the Guggenheim was picketed.
The group also called upon all museums in New York to close on May 22, 1970, as part of the protests against the Vietnam War. While many did, the Metropolitan Museum of Art failed to do so. This led to picketing by an offshoot, led by Robert Morris and Poppy Johnson, under the name Art Strike Against Racism, War and Oppression.
The group extended its antiwar protests and protests against the killing of student protesters by the Police at Jackson, Augusta and Kent by calling for a boycott of the American Pavilion at the 1970 Venice Biennale. The group organized a counter-biennial in New York. This was then criticized by the Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation (WSABAL) led by Faith Ringgold and joined by Michele Wallace, which led to it opening up to women and people of color. The WSABAL group also influenced the Ad Hoc Women Artists, led by Lucy Lippard. These two groups both had a demand of 50 percent women artist representation. Their protests led to the includion of black women artists Barbara Chase Riboud and Bettye Saar in the next Whitney Biennial.
Years without Art 1977-1980
In 1974, Gustav Metzger issued a call for artists to withdraw their labor for a minimum of three years.
The call criticizes doctrines such as "artists engagement with political struggle" and "the use of art for social change" as well as "art in the service of revolution" as reactionary. Instead, it states that "artists have attacked the prevailing methods of production, distribution and consumption of art" and that "the refusal of labor is the chief weapon of workers fighting the system." Three years is cited as the "minimum period required to cripple the system."
Although the call does not use the words "Art Strike," Metzger has come to be associated with the concept (See for example,).
The Art Strike 1990-93
The Art Strike was a campaign launched in 1986 by Stewart Home which called upon all artists to cease their artistic work between January 1, 1990, and January 1, 1993. Home, who was a Neoist artist at the time, used the same language as Metzger's 1974 call, only replacing the dates 1977-80 with 1990-93.
In the lead-up to the strike, various groups formed to propagate and co-ordinate the action, such as the Art Strike Action Committee in California and the Art Strike Action Committee in the United Kingdom.
Art Strike Biennial(2009 - 2012)
In 2008, an Art Strike conference was held in Alytus with an international group of artists attending. After this conference, Redas Diržys, under the name the Second Temporary Art Strike Action Committee–Alytus Chapter (STASAC-Alytus), decided to retitle the annual Festival of Experimental Art as the Art Strike Biennial. This was done in response to Vilnius becoming the European Capital of Culture for 2009. Stewart Home also took part in this event, calling himself the Transient Art Strike Biennial Supreme Council of One (London)
This led to a series of art strikes including:
In 2011, the biennial began to organise as the Data Miners Travailleurs Psychique. Redas and others formally refused the identification of artists and put forward the idea of psychic workers instead, calling for a General strike in 2012.
Other contemporary groups
Around the same time as the Alytus Art Strike and DAMTP there had been examples of artists unions continuing many of the same organizing principals in both the US and England. Most prominent are Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) and the Artists' Union England.
Comparisons have especially been made between the psychic workers art strike and the idea of the "Human Strike". The Human Strike was put forward by Communisation theorists Tiqqun, The Invisible Committee and Claire Fontaine.