A wave of art strikes, boycotts, and occupations

has engulfed global artistic circulation. These

protests have directly or indirectly targeted
artistic infrastructures like museums, biennials,
and art fairs. Organizing an art strike, partaking
in a boycott, or occupying art infrastructure are

01/13
best understood as acts of productive
withdrawal. These instances of social and
political creativity reinvigorate ways of practicing
and thinking about art by revamping existing
infrastructures and giving shape to new
institutional assemblages. These new
assemblages sustain art as a practice of
freedom.1
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊProductive withdrawals are messy affairs.
Kuba Szreder Actions called Òart strikesÓ frequently resemble
protests or pickets and do not necessarily involve
Productive any direct refusal of labor by the artists involved,
a traditional precondition for calling something a
Òstrike.Ó The Polish Day Without Art, organized by
Withdrawals: a group of art-activists in 2012,2 identified itself
as an art strike, though technically it was more
Art Strikes, Art like a lockout. A few dozen art institutions across
Poland closed their doors for a day in solidarity
with artists protesting against appalling working
Worlds, and Art conditions. A press conference was held at
Productive Withdrawals: Art Strikes, Art Worlds, and Art as a Practice of Freedom

Zachęta, a key art institution based in Warsaw,

as a Practice of but otherwise the day was fairly unassuming,
even though it had many repercussions.3 One
Freedom was the emergence of a union of art workers,
which later initiated a new cycle of struggles by
organizing around the slogan ÒWe, precariat.Ó4
These tactical shifts between occupation,
protest, and strike repeat across a spectrum of
other strikes, boycotts, and occupations. J20, an
art strike that took place in the US on January 20,
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Kuba Szreder

2017 to protest the inauguration of President

Donald Trump, also involved a closure of
institutions, a media campaign, protests, and
direct actions, forming a hybrid protest situation
that could hardly be categorized as a withdrawal
of labor, narrowly understood. Instead, it had
more in common with the occupations of 2011.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊArt boycotts, such as the 2014 boycotts of
Manifesta in St. Petersburg, the S‹o Paulo
Biennial, and the Biennale of Sydney, also depart
from what is traditionally understood by the term
Òboycott.Ó Instead of being organized by groups
of art consumers, they are typically organized by
art producers, who refuse to take part in the
event being boycotted. Despite being identified
as boycotts, they more closely resemble
traditional strikes, due to the central role played
by the refusal of production. All the
aforementioned 2014 boycotts targeted art
infrastructures, which were denounced by the
protesting producers as complicit in the
unacceptable political or corporate agendas of
their sponsors.5
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊUnlike art strikes and art boycotts, art

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST

 A series of actions took place atÊIsola Art Centre after it was evicted from its premises in a former industrial building in Milan. Courtesy of Isola
Art Center.

Occupation of the Guggenheim Museum's premises during the opening of the Biennale by GULF Labor Artist Coallition. Photo:
Gulf Labor

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST

occupations do not radically depart from the their current shape, comparable to how ÒregularÓ
received understanding of occupation actions.6 workers are engaged in constant resistance
Occupying existing art spaces or creating new against the institutions of the Fordist factory and
spaces in association with occupations testifies the assembly line, reformatting them in a
to the possibility of better institutions, even as it political process. Striking art workers refuse the
loudly proclaims that the current infrastructure personalized trajectories offered by the

03/13
is hopelessly insufficient, compromised, or structures criticized. They target contested
simply in ruins. When artists occupied the not- aspects of their industry that cannot be resolved
for-profit Artists Space in 2011,7 the premises of by individual advancement, but only by collective
the Berlin Biennale (2011),8 the Guggenheim struggle. DŽtourning Foucault, when art workers
Museum during the opening of the Venice strike, they definitely do not want to be
Biennale (2015), the Teatro Valle in Rome (2011), Ògoverned like that, by that, in the name of those
S.a.L.E. Docks in Venice (2007), and the Embros principles, with such and such an objective in
Theater in Athens (2011), they were drawing mind and by means of such procedures, not like
attention to the gap between artists organizing that, not for that, not by them.Ó12
public protests and artists organizing where they ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAgents of artistic circulation mistake the
work or will work. When activists occupied Gezi decision to withdraw oneÕs labor or participation
Park in Istanbul in 2013, it led to a curatorial for idle disengagement. The illusion of political
implosion at the Istanbul Biennial. Institutional agency granted by global artistic circulation
experimentation emerged later, as noted by Vasif underpins this ideology. In contrast to these
Kortun, a director of SALT Istanbul: false accusations, striking art workers engage in
artistic self-organization, the highest form of
I consider myself a good institutional social creativity, which produces new social
person. I know how institutions work and assemblages that sustain artistic creativity
can push them into the next century, beyond its ossified forms. When strikes,
probably, but what really woke me up was boycotts, and occupations reclaim or reshape
Productive Withdrawals: Art Strikes, Art Worlds, and Art as a Practice of Freedom

the intelligence of the outside and the artistic infrastructures, institutions of the
intelligence at Gezi Ð left to their own commons emerge and provide ground for art as a
devices they were re-making the world. In practice of freedom. Far from destroying
light of these developments, our role as circulation, the refusal of art workers in
producers had to be completely rethought. moments of productive withdrawal might even
SALT opened in 2011 and I was hoping that accelerate social flows, while emancipating
by 2016 or 2017 we would be in a position them, allowing for their redirection under better
where we could find new effective tools to terms. Without moments of collective refusal,
transform the institution into a commons: a there would be nothing to circulate under the
new kind of commons that would take on name of art but luxurious objects, markers of
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Kuba Szreder

the running of the institution in a different oligarchic distinction emptied of sense and any
way.9 value other than exchange value.

If art strikes arenÕt exactly strikes, and art The Agents of Circulation
boycotts arenÕt exactly boycotts, but art The decision to boycott a large event or occupy
occupations are definitely occupations, what artistic infrastructures seems futile,
connects them? All are examples of what I call unproductive, and silly to many of the artists or
Òproductive withdrawals,Ó and this notion is what curators who have struggled so hard to gain
links them on a theoretical level. Productive access to the events and institutions contested.
withdrawal is a way of practicing and instituting The ideological foundations of global artistic
the commons and is often organized by people circulation are sustained by charms of
who identify as art workers. In boycotts, this networked life, driven by promises of individual
identification is frequently left implicit, while in freedom and circulated agency. From this
art strikes it is frequently explicit.10 According to vantage point, an international art event
Julia Bryan-Wilson, Òart workerÓ is both a represents the peak of productivity and an
theoretical concept and a political identification; opportunity not to be missed. For people who
it critically riffs on the division of labor continuously circulate, circulation is an end in
embedded in classical bourgeoisie societies, itself. They are not wrong insofar as international
which imagined artists as free spirits rather than artistic circulation secures global visibility,
working individuals (for good reasons, one might resources, and audiences, and provides access
say, but that is a different story).11 The concept to powers otherwise unattainable by individuals.
of art worker emphasizes a dialectical ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊViewed from the center of circulation, art
relationship between artists and art institutions, strikes and boycotts can be seen as mere
in which artists are embedded while contesting disengagement. Joanna Warsza, reflecting upon

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST

 The Polish Day Without ArtÊ(2012),ÊanÊart strike.

A Gulf Labor action projects slogans onto the Guggenheim Museum, New York.ÊÊ

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST

her personal experiences as a curator of public of-the-workplace socialization marked by
programs at Manifesta in St. Petersburg in 2013, unexpected turns, perceptible shocks,
which was boycotted by many in relation to the permanent innovation, chronic instability.
war in Ukraine, argues that everyone is faced Opportunists are those who confront a flow
with a dilemma between Òengagement and of ever-interchangeable possibilities,
disengagement.Ó Her own decision to stay inside making themselves available to the greater

05/13
contested structures is presented as a form of number of these, yielding to the nearest
Òengagement,Ó while people who decided to one, and then quickly swerving from one to
boycott Manifesta, like the Russian collective another.17
Chto Delat?, were presented as disengaging from
this responsibility. WarszaÕs position is Virno insists that such opportunism should not
symptomatic insofar as striking (art) workers are be morally condemned, but rather understood in
reiteratively presented as idle, lazy, or Ð in this materialist terms, as a dialectic relationship
instance Ð disengaged. Such ÒidlingÓ art workers between a networked (art) worker and the means
are contrasted with those sectors of the artistic of production. Confronting a flow of
workforce who ÒengageÓ, in the most progressive interchangeable opportunities is both an
scenario by attempting to revamp institutional alienated mode of transforming reality, an
routines from the ÒinsideÓ. The problem is that apparatus of exploitation, and a way of surviving.
such transformations are prompted by collective Securing access to opportunities does not differ
pressure rather than good intentions or so much from the situation of an industrial
curatorial concepts, easily nullified by the very worker, who secures his survival by selling
mechanisms contested. his/her labor. But in the context of artistic
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊPartaking in artistic circulation offers a circulation this exploitation does not need to be
semblance of agency and encourages a political mediated by contractual employment; in fact, it
illusion. One can do projects, create a stir, make rarely is. Instead, artistic circulation is sustained
things happen. However, as Luc Boltanski and by throngs of networkers feverishly competing
Productive Withdrawals: Art Strikes, Art Worlds, and Art as a Practice of Freedom

Eve Chiapello stress, the world constituted by for opportunities, who agree to circulate at any
networks and flows Òcan win over forces hostile cost. One Polish artist, responding to a survey by
to capitalism by proposing a grammar that the Free/Slow University of Warsaw, a research
transcends it.Ó In this ÒconnexionistÓ world, cluster specializing in the political economy of
Òanything can attain the status of a project, artistic labor, said: ÒArtists circulate in order to
including ventures hostile to capitalism,Ó stay in circulation.Ó18 Such opportunism results
creating a situation in which Òcapitalism and from cynicism, individualism unrestrained by any
anti-capitalist critique alike are masked.Ó13 A normative systems, and fear for oneÕs own
biennial can offer a platform for uttering critical survival.
slogans, precisely because the organizational ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊRecognizing atomization, opportunism,
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Kuba Szreder

grammar of global circulation neutralizes their cynicism, and fear should not encourage us to
meaning. Paraphrasing Walter Benjamin, one can underestimate the collective agency of art
say that these organizational apparatuses can be workers, the vast majority of whom will never
fed anything, because it is the circulation that become well-networked, global art celebrities.
matters and not the contents that are For the masses of art workers, safe and
circulated.14 The critical tendency of sufficient work will remain just a dream, or
functionaries who work within these rather a pre-failed ambition, the function of
apparatuses is a mark of their baroque elitism, which is to justify present precarity. For Gregory
not their political activity. Sociologist Pascal Sholette, this Òdark matterÓ of global art
Gielen criticizes Òcatalogue activists,Ó curators circulation will never get connected enough to
whose politically correct views do not suffice, enjoy life in the limelight.19 Instead, they will
despite all their good intentions, to recompose merely circle around it like moths around a
the apparatuses at play.15 One needs another, flame. In this Òbare art world,Ó peddling
transversal means of doing this, like joining aspiration is business as usual, a good selling
striking multitudes, which collectively amplify point for art degrees, which secures a steady
political messages, validating claims for supply of surplus art workers, whose social
criticality and recomposing the basic tenets of energy maintains the very economy that exploits
global artistic circulation.16 them.20
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊArtistic circulation turns people who ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAnd yet, this reserve army from time to time
circulate into structural opportunists. Italian goes on strike, boycotts, and occupies, unmaking
post-Marxist philosopher Paulo Virno writes, in A the fixations of their own desires. The
Grammar of the Multitude: aspirational machines stutter, and it becomes
clear that circulating for circulationÕs sake is not
The roots of opportunism lie in an outside- a particularly sustainable mode of living.

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST

Actually, it is rather unpleasantly precarious to reappropriation of time, a molding of the
make one (unpaid/underpaid) project after excesses of collective energy to shape new social
another (unpaid/underpaid) project in order to universes.22 Yates McKee discusses how the
make yet another (unpaid/underpaid) project, term Òart strikeÓ signifies both withdrawing and
just to keep making (unpaid/underpaid) projects striking against the current art system, liberating
Ð without time to rest, think, create, do anything artistic creativity from institutionally induced

06/13
sensible, or even ask what the sense of it all is. alienation. He discusses parallel processes of
When the promises fail to pan out, people might negation and affirmation, unmaking and
either drop out or go on strike Ð withdraw as reinvention:
individuals, with a sense of failure, or withdraw
collectively, with a bang. this renaissance [of occupations] involves
the unmaking of art as it exists within the
Industrious Withdrawals discourses, economies, and institutions of
Art strikes should be seen not as the contemporary art system Ð including its
disengagements but as eruptions of social progressive sectors nominally concerned
energy. ÒProductive withdrawalÓ names precisely with public participation and civic dialogue.
this double movement, and it will be familiar to At the same time, it involves the reinvention
anyone who has ever organized a strike, an of art as direct action, collective affect, and
occupation, or a boycott.21 Every organizer political subjectivization embedded in
knows that such actions are not idle affairs. They radical movements working to reconstruct
are deeply engaging. When activists from G.U.L.F. the commons in the face of both localized
(Global Ultra Luxury Faction) temporarily injustices and systemic crises that
occupied the Guggenheim in New York to protest characterize the contemporary capitalist
against the appalling labor conditions of workers order.23
constructing the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, the
museum responded by closing the premises to Social energy is released in the process of
Productive Withdrawals: Art Strikes, Art Worlds, and Art as a Practice of Freedom

visitors and emptying the exhibition halls, while unmaking old social patterns, such as market-
the activists engaged in fervent discussions and dominated forms of global artistic circulation.
ad-hoc assemblies. When Chto Delat? decided to These patterns are reinvented and molded into
boycott Manifesta in St. Petersburg, they new forms, such as international networks of
organized parallel political and educational art-activists assembled around ecological
events, published statements, and engaged in movements or ephemeral alliances of art
conversations. During the Day Without Art, Polish workers.
art workers not only convinced sympathetic ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊProductive withdrawals realign institutional
institutions to close their doors to protest and personalized trajectories alike. In 2011,
against artistic precarity, but also published during Occupy in New York, a studio artist could
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Kuba Szreder

newspapers, distributed flyers, and organized a decide to bring their work to an ongoing
professional media campaign, prompting a occupation, organize assemblies, discuss issues
vigorous discussion that has reverberated since. of art and labor, or start new inquiries into
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn light of such practices, it is clear that artistsÕ debt. Artists made use of artistic and
deviations from institutional routines should not organizational competences alike. When a
be mistaken for a lack of productivity. The similar path is taken by others, a new social
emptied space means time freed. And time freed assemblage emerges; it is at first ephemeral, but
is quickly filled with activity of a different sort: if it is compelling and persistent enough, it
political actions, discussions, and media becomes a new center of social gravity, twisting
campaigns that aim to ensure that business as social trajectories and forging new patterns of
usual will not continue. Furthermore, art strikes, social flows. Art systems are unmade and
boycotts, occupations, and protests are reinvented together with their inherent
moments of collective creativity, influencing the aesthetical concepts, modes of justification, and
ways in which art is practiced, produced, and institutional infrastructures.
theorized. If artistic circulation is in itself an
interruption of the steady flow of time that is Instituting Exodus
characteristic of the Fordist assembly line, Art strikes, boycotts, and occupations are
striking art workers interrupt the interruption examples of what Virno theorizes as exodus.24 In
with festivals of orgiastic, self-directed contrast to idle escapism, exodus is a productive
creativity. The interruption of the interruption act of contestation that unmakes structural
creates conditions for an industrious filling of ossifications in order to emancipate social
interrupted time. This industriousness harks energy. Exodus is an expression of constituent
back to the genealogical core of the word power, a form of collective potency fundamental
Òindustria,Ó understood as an inventive for establishing new institutional forms.25 New

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST

The performance Non • mica la luna (2012),ÊbyÊMacao Milan, during the occupation of Torre Galfa,Êa skyscraper in Milan.

ÒThe standing manÓ: Erdem GŸndŸz on Taksim Square in Istanbul during occupations of 2013.

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST

institutions of the commons emerge beyond the
tired opposition of the public sphere and the
private sphere (a division based on the
bourgeoisie concept of individual ownership). As
a form of exodus, productive withdrawal aims to
build such new common institutions. In the
08/13
context of rising fascism, reinstituting the
commons constitutes an institutional bulwark
against micro-fascism and articulates new left
politics.26
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe concept of productive withdrawal
intervenes directly in debates about artistic self-
organization. Discussing constituent power, the
European Institute for Progressive Cultural
Policies (EIPCP) has proposed the term
Òinstitutions of exodus,Ó underlining the radical
productivity that emerges along lines of flights
transversal to corrupted institutional territories.
Universidad Nomada in Spain has talked about
Òmonster institutionsÓ Ð hybrid formations that
are a cross between an institution and a
movement.27 Gregory Sholette points to a
plethora of mock institutions that are native to
artistic dark matter Ð research institutes,
informal universities, collectives of urban
gardeners, tribes of survivalists, temporary
service points Ð each of which tends to operate
in an institutional landscape ravaged by hostile
"The Polish Day Without Art, organized by a group of art-activists in 2012, identified itself as an art strike, though technically it was more like a
lockout." Courtesy of Citizens Forum for Contemporary Art.
12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST
forces of late capitalism, filling the vacuum left
after crises of public institutions, and which
Òsuperimpose two different states of being in the
world Ð one deeply suspicious of institutional
authority É and therefore informally organized,
and one mimicking É the actual function of
institutions.Ó28
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe Free/Slow University of Warsaw
proposed the term Òpatainstitutionalism,Ó a
neologism patterned after pataphysics,29 the
fictional discipline outlined in the nineteenth
century by French proto-surrealist writer Alfred
Jarry. According to Jarry, pataphysics is a way of
thinking and acting motivated by the belief that
Òthe virtual or imaginary nature of things as
glimpsed by the heightened vision of poetry or
science or love can be seized and lived as real.Ó It
is much the same with patainstitutionalism,
whose organizational potential is a product of
the imagination. A similar concept was coined by
Goldex Poldex, an anarcho-artistic cooperative
functioning since the late 2000s in Krak—w and
Warsaw, who have talked about a mode of
instituting called ÒSector Pi,Ó which would exist
in a transversal relation to policed conventions of
the bourgeoisie public sphere. Using the
irrational immeasurability of pi, whose digits
stretch out infinitely (3.14159265358979É), to
signify a surplus sociality has allowed Sector Pi the art system Ð however defined Ð but nor are
to distinguish itself from the so-called Third they subsumed by an inherently corrupted
Sector composed of nongovernmental mainstream. When analyzing such situations,
organizations, which, according to Janek Sowa, a one has to maneuver between a Scylla of
social theoretician and member of Goldex totalized critique and a Charybdis of a
Poldex, are frequently subdued by market logic romanticized vision of an institutional outside, a

09/13
or governmental agendas.30 pristine territory of unspoiled righteousness and
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe recent wave of art strikes, occupations, human spontaneity. Strikes, occupations, and
and boycotts shifts the focus away from a boycotts are organized from inside contested
singular institution to the larger landscape of territory, frequently making use of resources,
their interlocking configuration. There is always institutions, and agents specific to it, slightly yet
more than one patainstitution, and monster significantly transforming the orderings of these
institutions come in swarms, networks, assemblages.
assemblies. ThatÕs what makes them monstrous. ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe Polish Day Without Art would not have
During strikes, boycotts, and occupations, happened if organizers were unsuccessful in
artistic dark matter glows. Its molecular motion their attempts to harness the support of both
accelerates until the moment of fusion, when a rank-and-file of art workers and more celebrated
creative surplus ruptures art circulation, and an artists and public institutions. The significant
immeasurable element of social energy is recomposition of the local art scene that
released that begins the work of constituting followed in the wake of the art strike would not
new institutional configurations and revamping have been possible without this engagement.
existing institutions in the spirit of the commons. Politicized art workers reinvigorated institutional
If one were to trace back far enough the history infrastructures, sustaining politicized modes of
of progressive public institutions, associations, practicing art and thinking about art, such as
and institutes, one would eventually locate their art-workers trade unions and other art-activist
origins in a similar set of events. Social groups.31 Since the art strike, they have partaken
Productive Withdrawals: Art Strikes, Art Worlds, and Art as a Practice of Freedom

movements, striking collectives, and political in many political actions, making use of their
groupings are always the catalyst behind the artistic competences beyond the narrow
progressive revamping of institutions, spurring confines of the gallery-exhibition nexus. It was a
the birth of new formats. It is not the charity of significant outcome, especially if one compares
the upper classes but rather sustained pressure it to the means involved, as the strike was
from below that democratized universities, organized on a shoestring, the only investment
museums, and hospitals. being the energy and enthusiasm of the
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn the context of the art world, exodus organizers.
represents less an escape from institutionality ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn any case, forging such new assemblages
than suspension of its politically compromised is a messy affair, as it is not an easy task to
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Kuba Szreder

forms: a performative attempt at rehearsing the rupture existing connections and sustain new
constitution of new institutional frameworks, ones. Art workers are ravaged by the forces of
alternative to the ones linking corporate capitalism, which make their lives harder,
museums, large artistic events, and international resources scarce, and time precarious. The elites
art fairs. Such emergent assemblages might of the art sector are able to maintain their
include both informal collectives and public domination precisely because they ride on the
institutions, who transform themselves in a same global flows of speculative capital that
process of transversal exchange and friction, threaten the existence of everybody else. After
creating new ways of practicing, thinking about, movements subside, occupations dissipate, and
and sustaining art. An alliance of collectives, boycotts runs their course, there is a tendency to
NGOs, progressive institutions, media outlets, return to business as usual. But from time to
and channels of formal and informal time the new social habitats prove quite
communication created the conditions of resilient, surviving beyond the dispersal of the
possibility for Occupy Wall Street in New York, occupying multitudes. Strikes, boycotts,
and these networks reflected the ripples left occupations can be quite potent in reverse
after Occupy was done. Movements like Occupy engineering connections, even the ones
have their well-documented legacies, constitutive of the dominant system, weakening
institutional structures, value systems, and or even unpicking the internal ties between their
aesthetic conventions, which are transversal to core elements.
the dominant order Ð neither totally external
(unwaveringly oppositional) nor subsumed The Pataphysical Cosmology of the Art
(pathetically peripheral). Collectives and World: From Productive Withdrawals to
institutions like Not an Alternative, 16 Beaver, Art-Sustaining Environments
and Creative Time are not located totally outside This social recomposition sustains art in multiple

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST

different shapes and tastes, operating according platform for communication between
to varied economic principles Ð market logic Russian and Ukrainian artists, and it was
being just one system among many Ð and our priority. We did a big-scale performance
aesthetic idioms. Art thus produced rarely with our school in public space, without any
resembles what is called and peddled as art in authorization, and all this stuff was quite
the blue-chip gallery nexus. Since it does not visible.36

10/13
need to be an authored object of aesthetical
contemplation, such art actually might be put to It is important to underline that Chto Delat? is
collective use. Steven Wright describes this explicitly against boycotts, as they are
process as one that creates Òart-sustaining committed to liberating the means of production
environments.Ó32 For a radical pragmatist, these for the sake of art workers and their radical
social worlds are cooperative networks that link politics. Neither can they be dismissed as
together art-related people, enabling them to get marginal outsiders. They are well-reputed
their art done.33 internationally, and connected to various global
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSome of these art-sustaining environments networks (art-activist movements, academic
are small, others large, some ephemeral, others networks, biennial circulation). Their decision to
stable, some informal, others quite boycott was informed by the statements of
institutionalized, some operating on a local Kasper Kšnig, chief curator of Manifesta, after
scale, others spanning the globe. Some of them he expressed his admiration for artistic
emerge as a result of long, evolutionary autonomy and a reluctance to sustain a more
processes, and dissolve as silently as they were politicized platform Ð a statement that was
born, without making too much fuss. Others especially striking in the context of RussiaÕs
resurface under a protest banner, during an art annexation of Crimea and its war in Ukraine. Chto
strike, occupation, or boycott. In this sense, Delat? quite sensibly took the situation for what
Occupy Wall Street was an art-sustaining it actually was, and deemed the links between
environment, a transversal recomposition of Manifesta, the Russian government, and global
Productive Withdrawals: Art Strikes, Art Worlds, and Art as a Practice of Freedom

existing art systems, a new artistic habitat, art circulation too firmly knotted to engage with
sustaining collective ways of practicing and in the terms dictated by the event itself. But they
thinking about art that ventured beyond the did not withdraw idly. Instead, they organized
market-gallery vortex. alternative programs and events for both local
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTo sketch a cartography of cooperative and international audiences. They were able to
networks currently emerging worldwide, the do this precisely because their access was not
Philadelphia-based collective Basecamp created dependent on Manifesta; they had their own
an atlas of Plausible Art Worlds, a collection distributed means of gathering resources,
depicting a plethora of art collectives shifting the mobilizing fellow art workers, and broadcasting
rules of art from below.34 Together with their message in a way that would not distort its
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Kuba Szreder

Sebastian Cichocki, a curator at the Museum of meaning beyond recognition.

Modern Art in Warsaw, I contributed to this
pataphysical cosmology through a curatorial Striking Art as a Practice of Freedom
research project and an exhibition entitled An emphasis on sustainable social forms does
ÒMaking Use: Life in Postartistic TimesÓ (2016), not preempt the question of art and aesthetics Ð
which examined the organizational ecologies of on the contrary. As members of the radical New
over a hundred practices from all over the world, YorkÐbased collective MTL suggest, artistic
locating them firmly in their respective practices are connected to materialist
institutional habitats.35 The research concluded perspective on daily reproduction Ð people
by confirming a thesis outlined above: artistic Òstrike art as a training in the practice of
dark matter is indeed getting brighter, as new freedom.Ó37 The art strike unmakes the art
forms of artistic practice are sustained by new system in order to liberate art from institutional
social formations and actually existing artistic ossification. The art of the strike recalls the
habitats. words of Antonio Negri in Art and Multitude, his
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊPrecisely due to the existence of alternative collection of letters:
support structures, the decision of Chto Delat?
to boycott Manifesta was not a mere withdrawal, To conclude, let us return to the
but an eruption of social creativity. As Dmitry ÒrepublicanÓ definition of the beautiful,
Vilensky, a member of the group, stated: which I oppose to its ÒangelicÓ definition.
By republican I mean the tradition which
We made our work as local artists who have sees the collective as the basis of the free
the resources to continue and make a production of being. And by Òthe beautifulÓ I
public program completely outside of the understand an excedence, an innovation. A
Manifesta framework. We realized a mobile freedom which is liberated, a liberty which

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST

 is ever-increasingly free, ever-increasingly productive withdrawal as discussed here should
potent. Whereas the angel is the symbol of not be mistaken for an individualized artistic
a deficit, of a relationship which will never gesture (as conceptually enticing as this would
be resolved. An unexpected illustration of be); rather, they should be associated with
the confusion of being, which is opposed to Walter BenjaminÕs notions of repurposing the
the construction of being and to its apparatuses of cultural production. In this sense,

11/13
collective clarification. What a bad taste productive withdrawal is more aligned with
the angel has in his mouth. What impotence figures like Gustave Courbet, Bertolt Brecht, the
he expresses. At bottom, the angel remains Russian constructivists, and the Situationist
the demonstration of a power which is International, which all refused to sustain art
disillusioned and malign.38 systems, revamping them in the process. In fact,
art regains its capacity for republican potency
Currently, this angelic being of art, with its and creative excess only in the context of what
pretense to autonomy, circulates restlessly, Benjamin described, following Brecht, as
chasing interchangeable opportunities, losing Òfunctional transformationÓ (Umfunktionierung),
even its capacity to think beauty. It runs in i.e., the liberation of the forms and instruments
circles, chasing its own angelic tail. The of production by a progressive intelligentsia, who
dominant market-biennial nexus Ð based on the instead of simply Òtransmitting the apparatus of
financial subsumption of aura and an production, change it to the maximum extent
accelerated peddling of content Ð erases the possible in the direction of socialism.Ó42
artistic qualities of the idioms thus circulated. As ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn 1972, Jerzy Ludwiński, a Polish
Neil Cummings has put it, markets mark the theoretician of conceptual art and herald of a
things that circulate through them.39 The forms postartistic age, described the process of the
of stabilizing values inherent to the market- dissolution of art into general social praxis:
biennial nexus depend on the circulation of ÒPerhaps, even today, we do not deal with art. We
emptied commodities (the faster they move, might have overlooked the moment when it
Productive Withdrawals: Art Strikes, Art Worlds, and Art as a Practice of Freedom

more valuable they become). transformed itself into something else,

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊStrikes, boycotts, and occupations identify something which we cannot yet name. It is
these self-referential operations for what they certain, however, that what we deal with offers
are: empty usurpations. When art-sustaining greater possibilities.Ó43
environments emerge, dark matter gets brighter, ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIt is interesting that this idea of art
and new institutions of the commons sustain not venturing beyond its current systemic
only artistic practices, but also artistic values. ossifications Ð an idea similarly expressed by
They form what John Roberts calls the many of LudwińskiÕs contemporaries, like Lucy
Òsecondary economyÓ of art Ð an institutional Lippard, Allan Kaprow, George Maciunas, and
habitat where art regains its function as a Rasheed Araeen, just to name a few Ð is so often
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Kuba Szreder

collective practice of freedom and exercises its associated with productive withdrawals. As the
powers of negation, infinite ideation, and strikes, boycotts, and occupations described
existential playfulness.40 Hito Steyerl, looking for above demonstrate, restoring artÕs capacity to be
a refuge from endless circulation and a practice of freedom keeps art workers too busy
subsumption, envisions such an economy as an to be bothered with the trappings of artistic
alternative system of artistic currency Ð a circulation.
current of social and artistic energies redirected ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ×
from propelling exploitative circulation and
towards the welfare of art workers and their
cooperative networks and gift economies.41
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊArt workers working on boycotts, strikes,
and occupations, are actually able to make more
interesting, conceptually charged, and
imaginative art Ð qualities that are erased in the
circulatory pace of the blue-chip gallery vortex.
This statement only seems grandiose. It is an
article of faith shared by art theory and avant-
garde practice that artistic qualities are
stupefied by the institutional systems tasked
with their sustenance. In this context, one
usually refers to Marcel Duchamp and his ironic
forms of dematerialization, to the self-
destructive art of Gustav Metzger, or to the
artistic laziness of Mladen Stilinović. However,

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1
I would like to thank Gregory
Sholette for close-reading and
commenting on previous
versions of this text, which
helped to improve it
tremendously.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2
ÒWhen Protest Becomes Art: The Semiotext(e), 2004), 86. (London: MayFly Books, 2009).
Contradictory Transformations
of the Occupy Movement at ÊÊÊÊÊÊ18 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ26
Documenta 13 and Berlin Michal Kozlowski, Jan Sowa, and See Ewa Majewska and Kuba
Biennale 7,Ó Field 1 (Spring Kuba Szreder, The Art Factory Szreder, ÒSo Far, So Good:
2015): 185Ð203 http://field- (Warszawa: Bęc Zmiana, 2015). Contemporary Fascism, Weak
journal.com/iss ue-1/loewe. A Resistance, and Postartistic
polemical reply by Noah Fisher ÊÊÊÊÊÊ19 Practices in TodayÕs Poland,Ó e-
to this article from was Gregory Sholette, Dark Matter : flux journal 76 (October 2016)

The art strike was organized by
the CitizensÕ Forum for
Contemporary Art and was
coordinated by artist Katarzyna
G—rna and the art critic Karol
Sienkiewicz.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ3
A detailed account of the Polish
Day Without Art can be found in
Joanna Figiel, ÒOn the Citizen
Forum for Contemporary Arts,Ó
ArtLeaks Gazette, September
2014, 27Ð32
https://artsleaks.files.word
press.com/2012/09/joanna_fig
iel_artleaks_gazette_2.pdf.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ4
The ÒWe, precariatÓ struggle was
initiated by a media campaign
and a demonstration
coordinated by the Art Workers
Committee of the Independent
Union WorkersÕ Initiative in
Poland, the CitizensÕ Forum for
Contemporary Art, and the
online magazine Political
Critique.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ5
An account of major art
12/13
published in the subsequent Art and Politics in the Age of http://www.e-flux.com/journa
issue of Field; see N. Fischer, Enterprise Culture (London: l/76/71467/so-far-so-good-co
ÒAgency in a Zoo: The Occupy Pluto Press, 2011). ntemporary-fascism-weak-resi
MovementÕs Strategic Expansion stance-and-postartistic-prac
to Art Institutions,Ó Field 2 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ20 tices-in-today-s-poland.
(Winter 2015): 15Ð40 Gregory Sholette, Delirium and
http://field-journal.com/iss ue- Resistance: Activist Art and the ÊÊÊÊÊÊ27
2/fischer. Crisis of Capitalism (London: Universidad Nomada, ÒMental
Pluto Press, 2017). Prototypes and Monster
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ9 Institutions: Some Notes by Way
Vasif Kortun, ÒIN TURKISH THE ÊÊÊÊÊÊ21 of an Introduction,Ó in Art and
WORD ÔPUBLICÕ DOESNÕT EXIST: Many prominent autonomous Contemporary Critical Practice,
Vasif Kortun in Conversation and Marxist thinkers Ð some of 237Ð47.
with the Editors,Ó in I CanÕt Work whom will be referenced below Ð
like This, 138. have discussed the theoretical ÊÊÊÊÊÊ28
implications of the withdrawal of Sholette, Dark Matter, 13.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ10 artistic labor. See Marina
A genealogy of art workersÕ Vishmidt, ÒNotes on Speculation ÊÊÊÊÊÊ29
protest is featured in Corina as a Mode of Production in Art The concept of patainstitutions
Apostol, ÒArt Workers Between and Capital,Ó in Joy Forever, will be explored in the upcoming
Precarity and Resistance: A 47Ð65; John Roberts, The issue of the Journal for Research
Genealogy,Ó ArtLeaks Gazette, Intangibilities of Form: Skill and Cultures
August 2015, 7Ð21 Deskilling in Art After the https://researchcultures.com
https://artsleaks.files.word Readymade (London: Verso, /issues/2/.
press.com/2012/09/corina_apo 2008); Bojana Kunst, Artist at
stol_artleaks_gazette_3.pdf. Work: Proximity of Art and ÊÊÊÊÊÊ30
Capitalism (Winchester, UK: Zero Jan Sowa, ÒGoldex Poldex
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ11 Books, 2015); Maurizio Madafaka, or a Report from the
Julia Bryan-Wilson, ÒArt versus Lazzarato, Marcel Duchamp and (Besieged) Pi Sector,Ó in
Work,Ó in Art Work: A National the Refusal of Work (Los Europejskie Polityki Kulturalne
Conversation About Art, Labor, Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2014); 2015. Raport o Przyszłości
and Economics, ed. Temporary Gerald Raunig, Factories of Publicznego Finansowania
Productive Withdrawals: Art Strikes, Art Worlds, and Art as a Practice of Freedom

boycotts, including time lines
and source documents, can be
found in the excellent reader I
CanÕt Work Like This: A Reader on
Recent Boycotts and
Contemporary Art (Berlin:
Sternberg Press, 2017), edited
by Joanna Warsza and the
participants in the Salzburg
International Summer Academy
of Fine Arts.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ6
Services (Chicago: Temporary Knowledge, Industries of
Services, 2010), 4Ð5. Creativity (Los Angeles:
Semiotext(e), 2013); Angela
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ12 Dimitrakaki, Gender, Artwork,
Michel Foucault, The Politics of and the Global Imperative: A
Truth (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), Materialist Feminist Critique
1997), 28. (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2013); Ewa
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ13 Majewska, ÒThe Non-Heroic
Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, Resistance: Singing Mouse,
The New Spirit of Capitalism Housewife and Artists in Revolt
(London: Verso, 2005), 111. Ð Notes from the ÔFormer East,ÕÓ
in Former West: Art and the
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Kuba Szreder
Sztuki Wsp—łczesnej w Europie,
eds. Maria Lind and Raimund
Minichbauer (Warszawa: Bec
Zmiana, 2009).
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ31
The Polish institutional art world
changed, as major art
institutions signed agreements
to pay exhibition fees for artists.
But this was only the most
visible aspect of even more
profound changes in the

Some of these struggles are
transversal to the field of art,
engulfing entire cities or
societies, including artists,
many of whom are the first and
most active among occupiers, to
the extent that Martha Rosler
has written of an Òartistic mode
of revolutionÓ that is inherent to
occupations and that contrasts
with the artistic mode of
gentrification. See her ÒThe
Artistic Mode of Revolution:
From Gentrification to
Occupation,Ó in Joy Forever: The
Political Economy of Social
Creativity, eds. Michal Kozlowski
et al. (London: MayFly Books;
Warsaw: Bęc Zmiana, 2014),
177Ð99. The repercussions of
occupations for art scenes have
been tremendous, as
exemplified by Yates McKeeÕs
discussion of Occupy and the
New York art scene in his book
Strike Art: Contemporary Art and
the Post-Occupy Condition
(Brooklyn: Verso, 2016).
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ7
The action at Artists Space was
initiated by Georgia Sagri.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ8
The controversies surrounding
this staged occupation were
recounted in Sebastian Loewe,
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ14 Contemporary After 1989, eds. composition of the artistic
As Benjamin suggested in his Simon Sheikh and Maria universe. The strike prompted
seminal essay ÒThe Author as Hlavajova (Cambridge, MA: MIT media discussion about
Producer,Ó New Left Review, Press, 2017). conditions of artistic work and
August 1970 more generally about precarious
http://www.newleftreview.org ÊÊÊÊÊÊ22 labor. The Commission of Art
/?view=135. This language, and the theory Workers was established, and
behind it, originated in now functions within the
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ15 theoretical debates framework of the independent
Pascal Gielen, ÒCurating with spearheaded by the Vienna- trade union WorkersÕ Initiative.
Love, or a Plea for Inflexibility,Ó based European Institute for From the communities
Manifesta Journal 10 (2010): Progressive Cultural Policies politicized during the art strike,
14Ð26. (EIPCP), the traces of which are many other initiatives emerged,
scattered across the pages of resulting in the participation of
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ16 many of the books already artists in feminist and
A similar notion Ð that mentioned, such as Gerald democratic protests in 2016 and
institutions are able to revamp RaunigÕs Factories of Knowledge, 2017, and the creation of many
themselves only as a result of Industries of Creativity. new art groups, such as
political pressure from outside Ð Żubrzyce (Bison-Girls) and the
was discussed recently by Jesœs ÊÊÊÊÊÊ23 Consortium for Postartistic
Carrillio in his account of McKee, Strike Art, 6. Practice.
institutional experiments in
Spain; see J. Carrillo, ÊÊÊÊÊÊ24 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ32
ÒConspiratorial Institutions? Virno, A Grammar of the Stephen Wright, Toward a
Museums and Social Multitude. Lexicon of Usership (Eindhoven:
Transformation in the Post- Van Abbemuseum, 2013).
Crisis Period,Ó Wrong Wrong ÊÊÊÊÊÊ25
Magazine, June 26, 2017 This concept also emerged ÊÊÊÊÊÊ33
http://wrongwrong.net/articl among the group of thinkers The concept of Òart worldsÓ in
e/conspiratorial-institution s- assembled around EIPCP, who in plural was introduced and
museums-and-social-transfo this case referenced Antonio developed by pragmatist
rmation-in-the-post-crisis-p NegriÕs concept of constituent sociologist Howard Becker in his
eriod. power, discussed at length in the treatise Art Worlds (Berkeley:
reader Art and Contemporary University of California Press,
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ17 Critical Practice: Reinventing 1984).
Paolo Virno, A Grammar of the Institutional Critique, eds.
Multitude (Los Angeles: Gerald Raunig and Gene Ray ÊÊÊÊÊÊ34

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST

Basecamp Group & Friends,
Plausible Artworlds
(Philadelphia: Lulu.com, 2013).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ35
The results of this survey are
collected on the web page of the
project
http://www.makinguse.artmuse

13/13
um.pl/.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ36
Dmitry Vilensky, ÒWithdrawal as
Institutional Critique: Chto Delat
and Manifesta 10,Ó in I CanÕt
Work like This.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ37
Quoted in McKee, Strike Art, 35.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ38
Antonio Negri, Art and Multitude
(Cambridge: Polity, 2011), 52.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ39
Neil Cummings, ÒA Joy Forever,Ó
Joy Forever.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ40
John Roberts, Revolutionary
Time and the Avant-Garde
(London: Verso, 2015).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ41
Hito Steyerl, ÒIf You DonÕt Have
Bread, Eat Art!: Contemporary
Art and Derivative Fascisms,Ó e-
flux journal 76 (October 2016)
http://www.e-flux.com/journa
l/76/69732/if-you-don-t-have -
bread-eat-art-contemporary-
Productive Withdrawals: Art Strikes, Art Worlds, and Art as a Practice of Freedom

art-and-derivative-fascisms/ .

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ42
Benjamin, ÒThe Author as
Producer,Ó 3.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ43
Jerzy Ludwiński, Notes from the
Future of Art: Selected Writings
of Jerzy Ludwiński (Eindhoven:
Van Abbemuseum; Rotterdam:
Veenman Publishers, 2007), 26.
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Kuba Szreder

12.17.17 / 13:23:25 EST