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MY WORKING WILL BE THE WORK. on self/care, labour and solidarity

exhibition series 2020 – 2022

26 Dec–10 Dec 20

Believing in the revolution.
Hammering nails.
Scrubbing the floor.
Being really pissed off.
Acting in solidarity.
Having no time left for protest.
Working on memory.
Looking for the shredder.
Finding barriers.
Crying.
Eating together.
Bathing blue stones.
Talking, talking, talking.
Filming an artist at work.
Making poles for protest banners.
Glueing fallen plastic plates back in place.
Lighting a fire.

 

In her Maintenance Art Manifesto, Mierle Laderman Ukeles states: “MY WORKING WILL BE THE WORK”. In doing so, she declares her role and reproductive work as a mother an artwork. In 1969, the US-American conceptual artist and pioneer of feminist institutional critique formulated the notion of maintenance – the work of up-keeping, preserving and caring. This project, which counters capitalist and male-dominated narratives of growth and innovation, still powerfully resonates today. Ukeles’ actions demonstrated that first and foremost precarised people carry out the bulk of maintenance work. Fundamentally, little has changed since. Social constructs like gender, class, and race are still central for the distribution of work, its recognition as labour, and its exploitation.

This exhibition series addresses the extent to which today’s capitalist societies attribute importance to the work of caring and maintaining. Which practices – taking into account the ruinous social, political, ecological and pandemic situation – should be taken care of, and which should be cast off? While many people struggle to secure well-being and justice, prevailing pretensions to power are still protected and structurally maintained. Is it not high time to turn away from capitalist habits and, instead, to perform radical change in current power relations?

Achieving equality and socio-economic advancement within a system based on structural misery is a component of the neoliberal illusions. The imperative to build an entrepreneurial, ‘healthy’, and ‘successful’ life continues to reign, even as a global pandemic creates extreme human vulnerability, with ongoing casualties. The struggle for work remains a struggle for survival and indeed for life.

In the two-year programme MY WORKING WILL BE THE WORK. on self/care, labour and solidarity in Galerie im Turm, art work is understood as a praxis of solidarity, of taking part in collectively building a different future. In six exhibitions, positions are shown that question established notions of work, and that unmaintain patriarchal, colonial, and capitalist principles.
F3_kollektiv mediates the series through workshops held in basic German [Einfache Sprache]. The working processes carried out in Galerie im Turm is accompanied by the documentary filmmaker Alexandra Weltz-Rombach. Reading circles, workshops, artist talks, performances, and discussion events illuminate the relations between work, art, and the praxis of solidarity in present times.

 

EXHIBITIONS

Dec 10, 20 – March 28, 21
Hands Full of Air
Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju

April 12 – June 27, 21
The End of the Fucking Work
Varvara Stepanova, Kathrin Lemcke, Natasha A. Kelly, Wayne Hodge, Harun Farocki, Anna Borgman and Candy Lenk

July 08 – Sep 12, 21
Liebe und Erschöpfung
Anike Joyce Sadiq and Konstanze Schmitt

Sep 23 – Nov 14, 21
Revolting Spines and Shivering Chains
Romily Alice Walden, Bini Adamczak, Rüzgâr Buşki, Jesse Darling, Julia Lübbecke and Laura Fong Prosper

Nov 26, 21 – Jan 23, 22
Slow Motion
Lola Arias

Feb 3 – April 17, 22
MAROPENG
Lerato Shadi