Considering Art's 'Building Site' for Production Studies:The Case of Art Fabrication

This chapter reads Sérgio Ferro's approach to the building site of architecture alongside his account of art history’s development to critically understand the labour of the artist and contracted artworker (craftsperson, fabricator, assistant) within (and external to) contemporary art making. In doing so, it proposes an alternative reading to dominant art historical narratives that prioritise the singular figure of the artist in understanding art's production. Ferro’s writings on architecture – which highlights the historical separation of the architect (as 'designer') from those labouring on the building site – are used here to understand the division of labour in creative work associated with art. Within the chapter Ferro's divergent perspectives on the labour of architecture and the labour of art are further understood and critiqued through a Marxist economics lens – the former understood as productive labour, the latter as unproductive labour. Ultimately, the chapter argues that Ferro's importance for the study of artistic production lies not in his call for a (re)turn to art as 'free labour' but in extending his call to view architecture from below as a method for approaching the study of contemporary art and creative labour.