Performing ‘Professionality’ - The politics of getting paid (AKA BBHMM)
Performing ‘Professionality’ - The politics of getting paid (AKA BBHMM) 15th April 4pm Venue TBA Collective Creativity is setting out a session to discuss the various methods QTIPOC artists manoeuvre their work in and out of Institutions and DIY spaces in order to negotiate surviving as artists and critiquing the meanings of success and marginality.
In performing ‘proffessionality’ we ask what does it mean to be a ‘Professional’ artist, how do we overcome the obstacles of getting paid, tackling classism and wider struggles in asking for renumeration for QTIPOC artistic capital and labours? How is our art compromised in gaining recognition as a professional, yet our work placed and celebrated for being on the margins? Who gets to be ‘unprofessional’ and how do we challenge the ways many artists are expected to work for free yet sustain a practice in London?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Professionality
15th April 4pm Venue TBA We’ll be discussing the two articles below:
http://momus.ca/how-to-be-an-unprofessional-artist/
"Unprofessional most literally means “below or contrary to the standards of a paid occupation.” Who makes the standards? Is everyone paid? Fairly? Is being an artist a job or something else? Who sets these standards? Do you wish to be standardized? Art and success. So easy to cocktail those two words together into “professionalism.” Pull up a famous artist’s CV and work from the beginning. Does success look like a sculpture plunked outside the Palace at Versaille? Is it a biennial, a prize, a blue-chip dealer? Is it the cover of a magazine, a thick, chunky retrospective catalogue? Even more evasive things just glanced, the luxury sedan like a bullet, shiny and hard, that the aging photographer bought after he dumped his smallish gallery and long-term partner, for a bigger dealer and a younger girlfriend, shiny and hard as his car; or perhaps, the off-hand mention of a domestic servant, a personal chef, the third nanny, the smallest chink in the opacity of wealth, so very far from the roaches scurrying in your kitchen sink and the fact that you’ve eaten nothing but mushed pumpkin and cigarettes for a month." https://yalinidream.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/this-step-on-the-path-an-artist-asks/" "Yet, I know too many generous accomplished independent working artists contributing to justice movements who have been performing, painting, filming, writing, composing, creating over decades, who struggle to make even $15,000 a year. I also know too many artists who remain tied to day jobs that mute their light because there is no way they could take care of their child or mother or self on what they would make from their art. These artists have had films screened at the Angelika, edited anthologies, presented at numerous Ivy League universities, been on HBO, been on the cover of magazines, performed at Lincoln Center, exhibited at high end galleries, have thousands of youTube hits, shared stages with legends, and rejected invitations to the White House. Despite achieving high cultural capital, many artists find themselves not receiving due financial compensation for their labor. In New York City one bedroom apartments rent for $2666 a month on average and two bedroom apartment rents average $3331. It remains one of the most competitive cities for the arts. Many acclaimed independent artists struggle to keep rooftops over their heads and food on the table. All the while maintaining the bravado, divadom and allure of success necessary to score the next decently paid gig."
