Creative Work

Over the last week, we have focused on Creative Work in the art industry. We worked on three piece: "Mainfesto for Maintenance," "Creativity and the Problem with Free Labor," and "Body of the Artisan." I thought each piece was interesting and important to understand why creative work was important to society. However, in this blog be focusing in on the first two piece which impacted me the most and forced me to think outside the box.

 

While reading “Manifesto for Maintenance,” I was constantly thinking of other artists who like Ukeles went against what was the norm and created her own art. One of the main comparisons that kept on popping into my mind was the suggestive artist Jeff Koons. Koons, similarly to Ukeles did something different in terms of what he perceived art to be. Additionally, Ukeles and Koons both produced work that turned many off by being considered pornographic and not appropriate for the public eye. Also, Koons produced artwork that consisted of balloons just like Ukeles! 

Balloon Dog by Jeff Koons

Although these are similarities in there artwork, the real reason I kept coming back to Koons while thinking about Ukeles and her work with maintenance art was that they both have not been afraid to express themselves and put out artwork that had a message behind it. Koons produces work that brings attention to the differences between high and low art, or at least what the general public see as such. Koons makes something that is seen as low art, just a vacuums (going back to maintenance work) and produces something of incredibly high value, both in terms of monetary and culture value. You can find more about Jeff Koons here, here, here, and here (the last of which is a very interesting interview with Koons).

New Shelton Wet/Dry Doubledecker by Jeff Koons

New Hover Convertibles by Jeff Koons

Ukeles wanted to bring attention to the tedious work women have been known to do, such as cleaning or taking care of children, by using photography in a new way. With her work, the world was able to see that maintenance work, especially by women, is critical in the way we live our lives and it goes unnoticed most of them. Before seeing some of her work in class, I never would have thought of something like Maintenance Work being art. However, not only was I able to see maintenance as a form of art but it also allowed for me to see the hard and tiring work that many have to do so that we can all live our lives happily. Just imagine if no one did this type of work? What would the world look like? Maintenance work is something that we, all across the world, take advantage of. It isn’t until we take away this work that we notice the importance of maintenance. 

We talked quite extensively about Andrew Ross’s “Creativity and the Problem of Free Labor” in class during the week but I thought it was important to bring up the couple of aspects of this piece that I found the most relevant. Firstly, the portion about internships I found the most interesting (probably because I was semi looking into them). I was in a bit of shock when I read that people are bidding on internships. To me at least, an internship is something that a company gifts to someone who in return gifts the company their strengths. By doing this, the company is receiving the skills of the individual while the individual is gaining skills from the company through the internship. This gift concept goes back to Hyde’s piece about a gift economy. However, making an individual pay for an opportunity such as an internship is taking the gift economy concept and throwing it out of a 50 story building and watching it crash and break into a million tiny pieces. Honestly, I think it is ridiculous on both sides: companies placing a monetary value to an internship and an individual actually paying for one! I just do not get it. If I was up for an internship and saw that it had a monetary aspect (meaning I needed to pay for it) I would say forget it! Especially if it was only a one week stint at Vogue which is going to have absolutely nothing to come from it. 

*On a side note, Ross mentions the University of Dreams in his piece and I thought it might be useful to at least one person if I put in the link so that you could check it out! It has a ton of opportunities in many different fields all around the world in the biggest cities, ie. New York, Paris, Hong Kong. So check it out if you were thinking about an internship!

Secondly, Ross speaks of social media sites and how it receives free labor. We, the users, are doing all the work for the companies. It is not the company that gains information but it is the millions and millions of users that gain knowledge and information about the world and everything that encompasses it. Without the users sites like FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram would have nothing. We are able to fork over our time and effort, without even realizing it for a billion dollar company- obviously they can afford to hire paid employees but why should they when suckers like you and me do all the work for them?!

I was searching around the web for an article about free labor and came across one that I thought was very interesting by a fellow blogger. You can find the blog here. It speaks more about how FaceBook uses free labor to their advantage and how many are not aware of it. However, the author then concludes with information about the decline of FaceBook and how it is tied together with their privacy terms. Additionally, the author mentions Marx which I felt was a great tie in with our discussions over the past week.

The whole idea of free labor made me think of all the times I have been somewhat of a source of free labor in an actually work setting. Over the past summer, I worked at a bank where I was a teller. My only responsibility was to answer questions and obviously wait on customers. However, I was constantly asking everyone if anyone needed help doing anything or if there was something more I could do. Obviously, people took kindly to this and would always give me something to do.  I would organize fellow employee’s work, get anyone coffee if they wanted it, and even clean up the lobby (which was someone else’s job). I never thought anything of it until reading this article. Although I did not mind doing extra work, I was not getting paid extra for this work. Hence, this is a form of free labor. People do this all the time at jobs, they go above and beyond to get ahead at a company. By doing this they are giving out free labor to their perspective companies and allowing them to become the suckers that we are when we use FaceBook or Twitter. It is actually kind of weird comparing going above and beyond to free labor since from day one we as humans are taught to do that. But when you break it down, it is the same thing. Why should we do something that is considered free labor to a company? Maybe it makes us feel good inside? Maybe we want to appeal to everyone else? Or maybe we just do it because it’s the only way we can move up in the work world. I wonder, what would happen if everyone just stopped? Stopped going above and beyond? Would we all be kick out of the work world? Would companies hire more people? Would free labor disappear? 

I think this idea of what would happen if we could stop the concept of free labor and just did what we were asked to do is very challenging and forces us to think about why we do what we do. If you have anything to contribute to this question, please do! I would love to see what others think about it!

Photo Sources (in order):

http://www.forbes.com/sites/celiashatzman/2014/07/15/jeff-koons-is-curating-an-exhibit-at-hms-newest-store/

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=81090

http://whitney.org/Collection/JeffKoons/8930av