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CULTURAL CAPITAL/CULTURAL LABOR - CONFERENCE ON CULTURAL WORK NEW YORK UNIVERSITY/NEW SCHOOL UNIVERSITY - DECEMBER 1 & 2, 2000 SWAYDUCK AUDITORIUM, NEW SCHOOL - 65 FIFTH AVENUE Free. For more information, call 212/998-3725.

CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION
This conference will focus on the labor conditions in the arts and culture sphere. These include the means by which institutions in this sphere determine how artists are valued, enable artistic career paths or offer other means for artists to practice their art or other kinds of work in museums, galleries, streets, stages, public, private and non-profit arts organizations, educational institutions, etc. Conference participants will discuss organization among artists, recognizing that in some disciplines (e.g., the visual arts) the very act of organizing has often led to an erosion of prestige, while it is accepted in other professional venues like orchestras, television and filmmaking. Panelists will consider how artists and cultural workers more generally do not receive full compensation for the value that they provide to the above mentioned institutions. As communities have become a point of reference in the way artistic value is created, panelists will discuss what this means for the compensation that artists may receive while local participants in "community-based" projects most often get little more than "enrichment." If "communities" engage in cultural activity (e.g., street or neighborhood musicians), as per the anthropological understanding of many foundations, then why are they not accorded the same terms of remuneration as the artists whose work is indebted to those communities? Other issues to be discussed include the entrepreneurialism that new initiatives (e.g., Creative Capital) promote among the artists to whom they give grants, as well as the self-subsidy that artists often provide by taking "day jobs," whether in arts-related fields or not.

The conference will generate discussion across the whole spectrum of the arts sector-artists, curators, museum and gallery personnel, public and private institutions such as arts councils and foundations, distribution enterprises, community spokespersons, and academics-in order to help understand how systems of support and valuation are structured. We are both interested in how these systems of support operate for recognized visual artists, performing artists, writers, and professionals in the cultural industries (film, tv, video) and concerned about the criteria by which these systems certify artists and not others (e.g., amateurs and "vernacular" cultural workers, often belonging to minority communities, such as healers or street musicians). Although culture and creativity are not the province only of sanctioned artists, they are overwhelmingly recognized as the only "cultural workers" who merit compensation, as inadequate as that may be.

The panels will include artists and cultural workers who can speak to the following models of labor: (1) the entrepreneurial; (2) the academic; (3) nonmarket venues, such as those provided by nonprofits, community-based work, and service work for nonartistic institutions (banks, sanitation departments, etc.); (4) unions and other labor oriented associations; (5) self-subsidized. Additionally, the panels will include curators; funders from foundations, arts councils, corporations, artist spaces, etc., as well as scholars who have researched artists' career paths and other cultural labor issues.

FRIDAY DECEMBER 1, 2000 10:30 - 11:00
WELCOMING REMARKS
A. Dan McIntyre, Associate Dean, Graduate Faculty, New School University
Mary Schmidt Campbell, Dean, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
George Yúdice, American Studies Program, NYU &
Vera Zolberg, New School University, Co-Directors, Privatization of Culture Project

I: WORLD AIDS DAY - A DAY WITHOUT ART 11:00am - 12:30pm
Moderator: Lorie Novak, Artist and Chair of Photography and Imaging, TSOA, NYU
Panelists Holly Block, Art in General
Gregg Bordowitz, artist
Carol Stakenas, Associate Director, Creative Time
Jerry Tartaglia, Filmmaker, Professor of Film & Video, Adelphi University

I: NEW DIVISION OF CULTURAL LABOR 2:30pm - 3:30pm -
KEYNOTE SPEECH Toby Miller, New York University

3:30pm-5:15pm: PANEL DISCUSSION
This speech will be followed by a panel of six people who elaborate on the various sectors that have undergone this turn to entrepreneurialism: the museum and gallery system; the not-for-profit world (foundations, state arts councils, arts organizations, etc.); arts education and other cultural social service organizations; self-help and self-financed groups; organizational efforts.
Moderator: Vera Zolberg, Professor, Sociology of Art, New School
Panelists Sondra Farganis, Director, Vera List Center for Art & Politics, New School
Andrea Fraser, Artist Mary Jane Jacob, Independent Curator
Ruby Lerner, Director, Creative Capital
Martha Rosler, Artist
Don Palmer, Director, Individual Artists Program, NYSCA

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2000
II: DISTRIBUTION OF VALUE ADDED AND DISCOUNTED LABOR:
how arts and culture institutions derive value added from the discounted labor of artists and others who staff them.

9:00am - 10:45am COMMUNITY COLLABORATIONS
Moderator: Randy Martin, Associate Dean of Faculty and Interdisciplinary Programs, TSOA, NYU
Panelists Stefano Basilico, Curator, New School
Jan Cohen-Cruz, Faculty Advisor/Co-creator, TSOA Office of Community Connections & Coordinator of the Minor in Applied Theatre, Drama Dept., NYU
David Dorfman, choreographer, community artist
Zoya Kocur, Arts Education, Community-based arts projects, NYU
Maria-Rosario Jackson, Principal Investigator, Arts & Culture Indicators Project, Urban Institute

11:00am - 1:00pm ARTISTS' LABOR
Moderator: Micki McGee, Artist, Activist, Educational Consultant
Panelists Alberta Arthurs, MEM Associates, Former Director, Arts & Humanities, Rockefeller Foundation
Joni Cherbo, Senior Research Scholar, Ohio State University
Ann Galligan, Senior Associate Scholar at the Center for Arts and Culture, Washington, DC
Joan Jeffri, Director, Research Center for Arts and Culture, Columbia University
Greg Sholette, Artist, Chair Arts Administration Program, School of Art Institute of Chicago and member REPOhistory
David Trend, Director, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts
Fred Wilson, Artist

1:00pm - 2:00pm LUNCH III: ORGANIZATION:
History of prior arts and culture organizational efforts (Art Front, Art Workers Coalition, PADD, Artists Meeting for Cultural Change, etc.); Assessment of current challenges for cultural organization in the present (including initiatives like Creative Capital); Discussion among current organizational efforts and insights provided by artists unions from Canada and Australia.

2:00pm - 3:45pm COLLABORATIONS WITH UNIONS AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS
Moderator: Brian Wallis, American Studies, New York University
Panelists Roberto Bedoya, NAAO
Andrew Boyd, Artist, United for a Fair Economy
Suzanne Lacy, Artist & Director, Center for Art and Public Life, California College of Arts and Crafts
Fred Lonidier, Artist & Professor, UCSD
Maida Rosenstein, President, Local 2110, UAW

4:00pm - 5:45pm NEW MEDIA AND CULTURE INDUSTRIES:
Panelists will discuss the challenges posed by new kinds of work for artists in digital workplaces
Moderator: Andrew Ross
Panelists Steve Baldwin, Co-author of Net Slaves: True Tales of Working on the Web
Marisa Bowe, Editor of Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs; founder of Word.com
Philip Kaplan, founder of fuckedcompany.com
Vivian Selbo, web artist, and CEO of Cavil.com
Mark Tribe, Founder & Executive Director of Rhizome.org, a nonprofit online community for the new media art world.

5:45pm - 6:00pm CLOSING COMMENTS