Commodification and Appropriation of Artistic Labor

Current discussions concerning art and labor by theorists, activists, artists, and researchers are mainly conceiving the relation between art and capitalist production from the perspectives that emphasize the artist’s work model, her working conditions, her exceptional position in society and economy, and her incorporation into capitalist production processes. I situate artistic activity and its economy relationally in the diverse economic landscape. I do so through empirical fieldwork research that focuses on one of the works of Oliver Ressler titled “Everything’s coming together while everything’s falling apart” (2016-2018) and the economic relations surrounding it in order to elucidate the relationship between art, labor and the economy more precisely. I elaborate on questions such as: 1) What characterizes the economies in which artistic activity emerges? 2) how can one conceive an interrelation of heterogeneous economies in the art field? 3) To what extent and in what ways can artistic practices be seen as part of the capitalist production process? 4) Under what circumstances can the production process of art be taken as an alternative economic activity? These questions are all framed by the larger question of 5) the way in which artistic labor appears as a commodity and is appropriated in the production process in particular situations and moments.