The name of the new exhibit at ArtSpace New Haven, “a new job to unwork at,” is taken from Valerie Solanas’ 1967 “SCUM Manifesto,” a radical feminist rallying cry to systematically dismantle the nation’s male-dominated labor force. The nine artists (or artist collectives) represented in the show each take on the subject of labor. Some of their messages are respectful, some are angry, some are sad, and others are more conceptual musings on the notion of work itself.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ work is touching, an homage to the dignity of the working man. In 1979, Ukeles became an artist in residence in New York City’s department of sanitation. Ukeles wrote a letter to the sanitation workers praising the work they do — necessary work that is disdained by many others — and interviewed them on camera about their jobs, their work ethic and the treatment they receive in the community. The video of those interviews, and the letter Ukeles wrote, alongside an art manifesto, can be seen in the gallery.
Joao Enxuto and Erica Love’s “Waiting for the Internet” comments on how a neglectful society makes work difficult. The artistic team took photos and videos in the Atlanta Central Public Library, where the city’s primarily poor population gathers to access the internet to get something productive done. But getting a connection takes 40 minutes, so the residents wait idly for long stretches of time when they could be working.
Nearby, an installation by Jesse Darling is thought-provoking and sad. Darling set up preschool-age classroom chairs in sometimes tidy, sometimes untidy, rows. “A person’s path in the workplace is pre-determined at a young age,” said Sarah Fritchey, gallery director at ArtSpace. “People are labeled by their peers or professors as one type of thinker or worker, one kind of learner, left or right brain, athlete or nerd.”
A video by Carolyn Lazard poetically makes the argument that merely keeping the body functioning properly is a kind of work, which also can be stymied by institutional indifference. Lazard, who lives with autoimmune disease, intercut audio from her phone calls to health industry representatives, arranging the particulars of her medical treatment, with video of her using medical devices, preparing food and walking through a green meadow.
The work by Park McArthur, a disabled artist, has a similar theme to Lazard’s, but flipped around, to acknowledge not her own work to keep herself going but others’ work to keep her safe and well. McArthur compiled a list of every person who has ever held her or helped her bodily, as a child and adult. She has left the bottom of the list blank, to acknowledge that many more will help her in the future.
The exhibit, curated by Andrew Kachel and Clara López Menéndez, also includes a series of works in clay by Kristine Anthis, which visitors to the gallery can rearrange to suit themselves; repurposed memory-foam mattresses by Constantina Zavitsanos, to comment on sleep, which is seemingly an unproductive time but which is needed to have energy to work; a work-in-progress clay table by YES! Association; and a live-performance booth by Monique Atherton. During the run of the exhibit, Atherton will be present to do performance art during which she talks, on any subject, to anyone who pays her $1 a minute. The piece is meant to comment on the power dynamic between artist and viewer and on the hours of labor an artist must put in to create her work.
A NEW JOB TO UNWORK AT will be at ArtSpace, 50 Orange St. in New Haven, until March 5. Gallery hours are Wednesday and Thursday noon to 6 p.m., Friday and Saturday noon to 8 p.m. Monique Atherton will appear on Feb. 3 and March 3 from 6 to 8 p.m.; and on Jan. 20 and Feb. 17 from 6 to 7 p.m. artspacenh.org.
