Dan Fox invited eight artists and artist groups to reflect on their relationships to curators and curatorial discourse for Frieze Magazine. Contributions by Daniel Buren, Ed Atkins, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Nick Mauss, Tom Nicholson, Paulina Olowska, Slavs and Tatars, and W.A.G.E.

Also check out AWC FFM's interview with Anarcho-Syndicalist trade union Freie Arbeiterinnen und Arbeiter-Union (FAU, Free Workers Union) Frankfurt/M about the crisis, the so-called 'German model', working conditions and organizing in the cultural sector, and about the mobilization for the European day of action M31 on March 31, 2012. And the Free Class Ffm1 | Art Workers Council, Call for Demonstration against Wage Labor

An open forum at The Carpenter Center, Harvard University, facilitated by W.A.G.E. (Working Artists and the Greater Economy); playwright and journalist Alexis Clements; and Jesal Kapadia, artist and professor at MIT's Program in Art, Culture and Technology.

On March 1, 2013, along with Franco Bifo Berardi, Liliane Weissberg, Claire Pentecost, and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, W.A.G.E. delivered a speech at a dinner organized by Andrea Büttner as part of her exhibition at the MMK Zollamt, Frankfurt am Main. The speeches about money and poetry, conceptions of poverty in Judaism and Christianity, the remuneration of artistic work and food distribution conflicts will subsequently be incorporated into the exhibition as a sound installation. The dinner was part of a series of events carried out in cooperation with the Frankfurt Jüdisches Museum in conjunction with its show "Juden. Geld. Eine Vorstellung". The exhibition, including the speeches delivered on March 1, is on view until April 21, 2013.

W.A.G.E. Certification is still in development but it now has a shape, an infrastructure, an outline - a policy. Core principles and requirements are laid out here.

On September 18th 2012, W.A.G.E. presented on its work and took part in an open meeting with the Scottish Artists Union, the community, the organizers of the event, artists Charlotte Prodger and Corin Sworn, and the amazing Transmission Gallery. The meeting focused on the (non) payment of artist fees, and how to regulate the problem in the context of Creative Scotland, the primary funder of artists and non-profit arts organizations.

Some background: about a decade ago, when the Scottish Government determined that the existing national arts development organization, the Scottish Arts Council, was no longer serving the needs of the country—particularly in light of the emergence of the creative industries as a major economic driver—they initiated a Cultural Commission in 2005 that resulted in the establishment of Creative Scotland in early 2011.

This new body is focused on using the arts to generate economic growth and has made the demonstration of its impact a contingency of funding. The content of funded projects is increasingly regulated while the economic stability of cultural producers is left to the discretion of exhibitors who themselves have fallen victim to reduced funding.

In response, the Union has launched a campaign to assert the importance of supporting the grassroots and putting in place some basics that will make a difference to all cultural producers, including making contracts, rates of pay and exhibition fees mandatory conditions of grants.

A proposal was made by the SAU executive committee to approach Creative Scotland with a set of demands laid out in a petition. Neoliberalism isn't just a European condition: sign this.

The seventeenth pamphlet in Printed Matter's Artists & Activists series is available for download here. A limited number of printed copies are available at Printed Matter and at Artists Space : Books & Talks.

Now you can learn about the economics of cultural producers working with non-profit institutions and museums between 2005 - 2010. Read the report and download the poster, print it out, fold it up and carry around the results: if there is any question about whether or not you will get an artist fee, show the W.A.G.E. Survey results to your local non-profit institution - negotiate before you participate.

W.A.G.E. would like to thank all who have donated their time and immaterial labor, especially:

Aaron Gemmill, Web Development
Pati Hertling, Legal Services
William Powida, Survey Illustration
Jon Santos and Common Space, Survey Poster Graphics
Sara Soskolne, Website and Logo Design

W.A.G.E. is now a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.