Art & the Public Sphere - The Struggle Before Us, Nov 2022

This article looks at the crisis of the classical workers movement from the mid-1970s, and workers’ contribution to the emergence of new radical political and cultural theory from the 1980s in the ongoing struggle of workers against value relations. I deal with four intersecting areas: the neo-liberal attack on the cost of labour power in the Global North; the social, cultural and technical re-composition of the working class globally; the expansion of the participation of a diverse working class in higher education; and the changing function of real subsumption as workers and non-workers are incorporated into value relations through an ideology of economic self-reliance and the new entrepreneurial ethos. From this re-composition emerges the fundamental moving contradiction of our times: the increase in expectation of autonomy with the development of new technical skills across the working class and access to higher education, and the social and cognitive realities of the new economy and new digital culture: a precarious world of automative ‘non-work’, underemployment, passive consumption and deskilling. This conflict between the expectation of autonomy and realities of value production, has, I argue, been one of the driving forces of workers’ contribution to the new radical culture and theory since the 1980s.

The rise of neo-McCarthyism has strengthened the power of the state through the repressive use of public institutions. Those who challenge capitalism and authoritarianism are singled out for reprisal. Arts-based social movements can resist state-sponsored neo-McCarthyite sanctions against democracy. Social movement activists can provide counter-narratives to the emerging forms of anti-leftism in autocratic states. As a model of resistance, travelling art and theatre groups could operate on a collaborative, crowdfunded basis, moving from place to place and providing innovative alternatives to the status quo. They would present comedy sketches, monologues, oratory, parodies, poetry, satires and songs that have a social and political message. They would at the same time disseminate information to help people make effective use of available resources and connect with solidarity networks. Performances could be live-streamed or recorded, then uploaded onto various social media platforms, helping to promote social movement objectives. Due to the collaborative nature of the work, public support would grow for these arts troupes that would eventually become self-funded. As social movement projects move online, artists encounter new forms of neo-McCarthyite repression.

This article explores curatorial projects that give voice to working-class communities that have been disfranchised by the ideology of neo-liberalism. Defining contemporary art galleries as public spheres, curatorial projects that are based in dialogue and dialogics reveal the conflicting and contradictory aspects of dominant cultural narratives. Through collaborative and participatory methods, progressive artists co-create artworks with working-class communities, creating alternatives to the traditional gallery system in which artists, artworks, audiences and institutions are abstracted from the world around them. With a focus on the work of artists Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge, and their collaborations with individuals representing various communities – labour organizations, activist groups, cultural groups and the art world – insurgent curating is defined in terms of dialogue-based activism. Dialogue-based projects are championed as ways to catalyse emancipatory insights and the critique of neo-liberal capitalism.

According to Yates McKee, socially engaged art reached its Situationist moment of sublation when the participants at the 2011 Creative Time Summit joined the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters in Zuccotti Park. However, like the ‘Bernie Bro’ left and the Corbynistas, OWS was criticized for its ‘class reductionist’ focus on economic inequality. Through various affinity groups like Decolonize This Place (DTP) and actions like Strike MoMA, post-Occupy artists have increased their commitment to intersectional demands and the effort to decolonize museums. Making use of the Barbara and John Ehrenreich concept of the professional-managerial class (PMC), this article extends the PMC critique from the social democratic left to the realm of activist art, where the question of political representation is both assumed and avoided in calls for Black reparations and Indigenous restitution.