W.A.G.E. participated in 'Systems and Infrastructure to Support a Healthy Career in Teaching Artistry, Part 1,' a panel discussion with Dona Benkert, Victoria Calabro, and Belinda Sáenz, and moderated by Heleya de Barros. 

Co-presented by the Artists' Association of Finland, a-n The Artists Information Company (UK), and the IAA Europe, speakers offered examples of different exhibition payment models in Europe and North America, and examined ways to change policy and legal frameworks both at local and European level. Opening speech by the Minister of Science and Culture of Finland, Antti Kurvinen. Presentations by Rune Peitersen, Platform BK; Teemu Mäki, The Artists’ Association of Finland; artists Jane & Louise Wilson as well a curator and member of W.A.G.E. board, Richard Birkett. 

The ART AND CULTURAL WORKERS CONGRESS was a three-day event that brought together international organizations, from initiatives and professional associations to trade unions active in the fight for better working conditions in the cultural field.

With berufsverband bildender künstler*innen berlin (Germany); IG Kultur Österreich (Austria); "ZA K.R.U.H."/For BREAD (Croatia); The Association of Fine Artists of Serbia (Serbia); Art Workers Italia (Italy); United Voices of the World - Designers + Cultural Workers Sector (United Kingdom); Σ.Ε.ΧΩ.ΧΟ - Greek Union of Dance Workers (Greece); W.A.G.E. (USA)

The proverbial prestige of artists and cultural workers skilfully conceals the nature of work in this field, dominated by unrecognized and unpaid work. Where, until recently, there were stable jobs, atypical forms of work prevail today, and with them a growing reserve army of cheap labor. A neoliberal invention, 'project culture' - quite contrary to the discourse in which it proclaims 'democratization' and 'decentralization' - has profoundly transformed the role of art and culture in society. The field, which was for decades partly ‘exempted’ from capitalist relations of production, is now completely subsumed in them. After a short period of the socialist cultural policies and welfare state, artists and cultural workers are now exposed to insecurity, the risk of poverty and growing exploitation. Therefore, today they urgently require mechanisms of self-regulation that will collectively enable a fairer distribution in the field, both for them, the institutions and the public.

As part of the The 2021 Pop-Up Institute: Beyond the Future of Work, leading advocates for workers in a variety of formal and informal sectors – from care work and construction to digital platforms and the arts – compare the challenges they see to the future of work and organizing in their respective fields and global contexts.

The 2021 Pop-Up Institute studies the past, present, and future of work in a global frame. It focuses on the lived experiences in both the global South and North of those rendered most precarious by work and its imagined futures. The institute brings together a wide range of disciplines and forms of expression to reconsider extant framings and accounts of the future of work in a time of pandemic.

The panel included Richard Dobson, Co-Founder and Project Leader, Asiye eTafuleni; Katie Joaquin, Deputy Director, Jobs to Move America; Lenny Sanchez, Co-Founder, Independent Drivers Guild of Illinois (IDG); Lise Soskolne, Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.); and Emily Timm, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, Workers Defense Project. Moderated by Nicole Burrowes, Assistant Professor of History, Rutgers University.

Long before the pandemic, systemic labour issues in the creative sectors were pushing artists and activists to collectively and collaboratively organize. Installers, artists, curators, arts administrators, and other cultural workers face work precarity in the form of underpaid, unpaid, unprotected, and insecure work. 

This is doubly true for Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, racialized and/or low-income workers seeking job security, safety and access. As these very issues are now being compounded by the pandemic, recognizing ‘artists-as-workers’ and ‘workers-as-artists’ is as important as ever. From advocacy to community building, this panel brought together cultural workers from Toronto, Vancouver and New York City experienced in collective organizing. The panelists shared challenges brought on by the pandemic, issues relevant to their members, and reflections on the future of labour justice. Learning from each other, panelists exchanged strategies on how to shift the balance of power in the arts.

This closed virtual convening was the first time organizations committed to W.A.G.E. Certification had met together. With representatives from across the country in attendance, it was an opportunity to discuss the challenges faced by organizations and to share perspectives on the payment and support of artists and art workers. 

Looking to build on the solidarity and shared values evident among certified organizations, W.A.G.E.'s motivation for organizing this convening was to collectivize our thinking about ongoing inequities and how the non-profit art sector addresses them. Discussions were also intended to help W.A.G.E. understand where the certification program is working well, and where it could be altered to improve its impact. 

Jea Alford and Ariana Jacob’s Precarious People’s Party (PPP) connects members of the contingent economy – those who are without secure full-time work – to envision and advocate for economic and political futures where we can all live and love powerfully. As part of a virtual roundtable, participants were invited to collectively re-imagine possible futures for our global and local economies—moving through discussions of inequitable and exploitative conditions and towards ones that build a foundation for an empowered personhood and solidarity across sectors of the contingent workforce. 

Invited participants included Susan Cuffaro (Gig Workers Collective), Sean Cumming (Unemployed Workers’ Council Portland), Brian Dolber (Rideshare Drivers United), Hannah Gioia (Food Service Organizer), Anna Gray (Artist, Adjunct Union Organizer), Patricia Vasquez Gomez (Artist, Adjunct, Organizer), Cat Hollis (Adult Entertainment Organizer, founder, HAYMARKET POLES), Anna Neighbor (Artist, Adjunct Union Organizer), Larissa Petrucci (Graduate Employee Organizer), Emmett Schlenz (Burgerville Workers Union), and Lise Soskolne (W.A.G.E.). 

Alongside speakers Zita Holbourne (Artists Union England), Arnaud Hubert (SMartEU), and Jonny Sopotiuk (Vancouver Artists Labour Union Cooperative, VALU CO-OP), W.A.G.E. presented on WAGENCY at CARFAC's 2019 National Gathering. This panel discussion, moderated by Renuka Bauri, brought together international perspectives on collective organizing in the visual arts sector, with a focus on labour unions and cooperatives.

Core organizer Lise Soskolne was at Franklin Street Works for a free public talk and participatory discussion about W.A.G.E. and its work over the past decade to regulate artist compensation in the nonprofit sector. Looking at how digital platforms can be used to organize creative workers, and how class stratification and competition factor into building solidarities between us, Soskolne presented WAGENCY – an initiative recently launched by W.A.G.E. to organize artists and institutions, and later buyers and sellers of art, around a shared politics of labor.

What does it mean for artists and art workers to intervene in the cultural and legal codes governing how their labor is compensated? Is it possible to use algorithmic and financial tools to decide the way art work circulates in the world—who can own, modify or even view an image file? In this panel, professor of media studies at Pratt Jonathan Beller, Lise Soskolne of W.A.G.E., and art historian Joan Kee discussed artists' contracts, smart contracts like blockchain and grassroots solidarity networks in the art field. Moderated by Brian Kuan Wood. Presented by MA Curatorial Practice.

Following a series of autonomous actions by Decolonize This Place calling for the removal of Warren B. Kanders from Whitney Museum of American Art's the board of directors, as well as W.A.G.E.'s Invitation to Artists Participating in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, circulated on January 23rd, this town hall assembly was organized by Decolonize This Place and co-hosted by W.A.G.E. and Chinatown Art Brigade.

From Decolonize This Place: "We call upon all individuals and communities who feel a stake in the current crisis of the Whitney to assemble on January 26th at 1 PM. The event will be a forum not only for the expression of grievances, but also for practical planning in terms of how to best achieve the goal of removing Safariland CEO Warren Kanders from the board of the Whitney, while at the same time forming new relationships and solidarities for a diversity of actions in 2019 surrounding the Whitney Biennial and beyond that the city at large.

The current crisis of the Whitney is an opportunity to build power together. We are confident that by joining forces we can successfully pressure the museum to reverse its current stance on Kanders. This could be a first step to reclaiming the museum, and making it an institution truly accountable to its staff and to the communities it claims to serve."

Developed through discussions between W.A.G.E. and UK arts organizations Cubitt, not/nowhere, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and Transmission Gallery, this workshop focuses on models of cooperativity in relation to wider concerns around resource distribution in the art field.

Taking the institutional models of its organizers as a starting point, discussions look at how artist-led and cooperative models can challenge hierarchies embedded within payment systems and produce new approaches to remunerating the labor of artists, cultural workers, and organizers in support of collective political struggle.

Launched last month in New York, WAGENCY is a transactional platform that facilitates the fair remuneration of artists' labor in the U.S. nonprofit sector – but artists don’t have to live in the U.S. to use it. If you have been contracted by an art institution in the United States to provide content, you can become a WAGENT and use WAGENCY. Join us for drinks, transnational recruitment, and a live demo of WAGENCY in London at Cubitt.

This event emerged from an invitation by Cubitt for W.A.G.E. to help in determining payment standards for artists and other workers as part of the 2018/19 programme. A workshop organised in discussion with Not.Nowhere, Transmission Gallery and the Institute of Contemporary Arts will take place at the ICA on Saturday 10th November, to think through resource distribution in arts organisations, particularly looking at how artist-led cooperative models can develop new approaches and support artists working in collective political struggle.

Join us for drinks, performances, and dance to celebrate 10 years of W.A.G.E RAGE and the official launch of WAGENCY! WAGENCY is a transactional platform and certification program that facilitates the fair remuneration of artists' labor in the nonprofit sector. Supplying artists with digital tools and the necessary collective agency to negotiate W.A.G.E. fees or withhold content when not paid them, WAGENCY is how we propose to organize an unpaid workforce in an unregulated field.

A conversation between Kathi Weeks, Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at Duke University and author of The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics and Postwork Imaginaries, and Lise Soskolne, artist and core organizer of W.A.G.E. This event was one of a series of public programs curated by Andrew Kachel and Clara López Menéndez as part of their exhibition, A NEW JOB TO UNWORK AT, at Participant Inc.

As part of CITIZEN PARTICIPATION, an exhibition organized by ABC No Rio (in exile), Occupy Museums organized a discussion between ABC No Rio, the Guerrilla Girls, Decolonize This Place and W.A.G.E. to discuss models of sustainable art activist practice and building a sustainable web of mutual support.

Continuing the focus on economic realities from Occupy Museum's Debtfair campaign — where artist’s works are presented alongside information about their debts, jobs, and daily financial struggles — OM turns to the economic realities of arts activist groups and the issue of the institutional capture of our work along with strategies for long-term sustainability. As social capital seems to rise for protest art in the Trump era, actual resources needed to do our work remain scarce while many channels of potential financial support are considered vulgar in relation to the purity of our practice. This is the razor-thin line that activists walk within a hyper-market city and globe. So we ask, how do you make your decisions from both an ethical and practical standpoint in order to sustain? As our practices are more urgent and harder than ever, we propose this question as a pathway to deepen our analysis of the picture of power in which we are included. 

Seeing Solidarity was a day-long program of film screenings organized by Ana Torok, featuring documentaries made in the 1960s and 1970s which explore labor organizing efforts from the point of view of workers, while addressing the struggles of different groups, including women and people of color, within the labor movement itself. Speakers with direct experience in labor unions and relevant campaigns introduced each film in relation to the contemporary set of challenges, questioning the potential of filmic representation in the promotion of worker solidarity both then and now. W.A.G.E. introduced Nightcleaners by the Berwick Street Film Collective.

At the invitation of Judith Kakon and the HKB (Bern University of the Arts), A.L. Steiner and Lise Soskolne (with special guest Federica Martini) co-taught 'What We Share, How We Organize'. This 3-day seminar used the forthcoming launch of WAGENCY to open a conversation around the nature of contemporary creative work relative to the global normalization of precarious and contingent labor more broadly. Core themes included: what "working class" means (or could mean) in the context of contemporary creative labor; how digital platforms can be used to organize creative workers; and how class stratification and competition factor into building solidarities between us. A public talk at the HKB took place on March 14.

The NYAA Professional Practice Lecture Series, organized by Senior Critic Sharon Louden, consists of casual conversations designed to provide students with professional advice from experts in the art world and beyond who share information on many different topics. These one-and-a-half hour long conversations are recorded, free, and open to all who wish to attend, providing tools that inspire and help NYAA graduate students, alumni, and the interested public to prosper in the art world and other related areas.

The Arts & Entertainment Worker Resource Center, created to support and empower early career cultural workers, along with The Worker Institute at Cornell and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, presented a three-seminar series, Thriving in Arts & Entertainment in NYC.

W.A.G.E. participated in the third, alongside Actors Equity Association, Gibney Dance, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television & Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), American Federation of Musicians (AFM), Local 802, American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), League of Independent Theaters (LITNY), Directors Guild of America (DGA), International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), National Writers Union (NWU), Stage Directors and Choreographers (SDC), and Writers Guild of America East (WGAE).

W.A.G.E. contributed as a 'balcony caller' and workshop co-leader at Humans of the Institution, a two-day symposium at Veem House of Performance in Amsterdam. Convened by Curatorial Practice, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen (UiB) and Frontier Imaginaries, Humans of the Institution was designed as a nuanced debate important to freelancers and institutions alike. Focused on the curator, discussions focused on the shifting contours of the global and the local, and how this shift is influencing the working conditions and methodologies of freelancers today. 

How can the use of financial tools lead to emancipation from public subsidies and private donations for small-scale organizations and networks? How can new forms of transparency and redistribution be obtained through the use of financial design?

Invited by KADIST, State of Concept in turn invites Future Climates to present its second chapter entitled Graduating to Numbers (or How Grass-Root Organizations Intervene in Financial Affairs), a day of presentations and discussions with Antonia Alampi, Galit Eilat, iLiana Fokianaki, Victoria Ivanova, Giulia Palomba, Vermeir & Heiremans and W.A.G.E.

The issue of low wages, exploitation of immaterial labour and self-exploitation, the use of symbolic value as currency and its translations in terms of exclusion in institutions of visual arts is a recurrent debate with little effect on a structural level, in a field that seems to have transformed only slightly in how it operates and reproduces itself.

As part of W.A.G.E.'s participation in The Recalibrated Institution, ArtCenter’s fall Fellowship Program in collaboration with the Bureau for Cultural Strategies (BUX), core organizer delivered a public talk that introduced the organization's past work with art institutions, and zeroed in on a series of paradoxes that characterize W.A.G.E.'s current efforts to organize the labor of artists.

For nearly a decade W.A.G.E. has maintained a myopic focus on regulating the payment of artist fees in the nonprofit sector in order to define the relation between artists and institutions as being one of labor and not charity. Unlike other labor campaigns that advocate for increases in minimum or living wages, ours has been a campaign to be recognized as workers, period, and to be compensated as such. W.A.G.E.’s approach to organizing artists in a field that devalues our ‘labor’ while simultaneously overvaluing our ‘work’ has been a long process of emptying out the figure of the artist as an economic subject. W.A.G.E.’s advocacy exclusively on behalf of artists has been necessary to drawing attention to our unique status as unpaid workers, but it has produced a profound paradox: by excluding other supply chain workers from our campaign we have effectively re-asserted our own exceptionality and called into question any commonality our labor might have with others. Furthermore, at the precise moment we seem to have arrived at the realization of our goal, artist compensation feels like the least urgent ground for political engagement. The nature of artists’ labor and its proximity to a global elite betrays an undeniable level of class privilege relative to the dehumanizing work much of the world’s population endures. This talk takes up the question of how what artists do is both like and unlike other forms of contemporary work, and how W.A.G.E.’s new approach to coalition building with institutions might provide the conditions necessary for collective mobilization around a shared politics of labor.

One of a series of lectures presented as part of Sommerakademie Paul Klee, artists Lise Soskolne (W.A.G.E.) and Enno Schmidt made presentations and engaged in a discussion moderated by artistic director Tirdad Zolghadr. The subject: what are the possibilities for artists who wish to share responsibility for the economic realities that surround them? Today’s context actually does offer strategies that enjoy a surprising degree of traction and success. From professional pressure groups demanding fair remuneration, to broader social movements tackling the very idea of wages, and of a universal income.

Performance artist Martha Wilson, founder of Franklin Furnace, instigated an evening of presentations and performances as a "teach-in" with a selection of activist artists from the 1960s to the present, looking at the history of performance art as protest to consider which methods and strategies remain effective in today's political climate. 

Wilson, known for her political drag performances as first ladies Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan, performed her recent work Martha Does Donald, in which she impersonates Donald Trump. In addition, the event included presentations by artists Ann Agee, Rehan Ansari, Tomie Arai (Chinatown Art Brigade), Todd Ayoung (REPOhistory), Avram Finkelstein (ACT UP and Gran Fury), Alicia Grullón (Percent for Green), Amin Husain and Nitasha Dhillon (MTL), Taja Lindley (Harriet's Apothecary), Katherine Perk, Gregory Sholette (Gulf Labor Artists Coalition), Lise Soskolne (W.A.G.E.), and Barbara Zucker (A.I.R. Gallery).

This talk at the Henry Art Gallery introduced the work of W.A.G.E., tracking its evolution as an organizing body and how it has responded to changing conditions within the art field over the past 9 years. It also included W.A.G.E.'s thinking around the artist as a hyper-individuated worker—a construction of what the industry demands.

W.A.G.E.'s approach to organizing artists in a field that devalues our 'labor' while simultaneously overvaluing our 'work' has been a long process of emptying out the figure of the artist as an economic subject. The talk took up W.A.G.E.'s current work to rebuild and redefine this compromised and contradictory figure, and to provide the conditions necessary to mobilizing artists collectively as a labor force.

As a Decolonize This Place collaborator, W.A.G.E. co-organized with MTL+ a conversation with Mabel Wilson, David Joselit, Amin Husain, Eva Mayhabal Davis, Nia Nottage, Sneha Ganguly, and Lise Soskolne (W.A.G.E.), at Artists Space Books & Talks.

"The art world's economy is sustained by underpaid or free labor across many of its sectors, from the production of art to the construction and maintenance of museums. This is manifest through the dual expectation that cultural producers work for exposure whilst institutional staff and contracted laborers work for less than a living wage. Arts-activist campaigns like W.A.G.E. and Gulf Labor have strategically focused on correcting certain inbuilt inequalities, but neither have yet incorporated a discussion of the economic underpinnings of white supremacy in the art system, despite it regularly being cited as one of the least diverse professional sectors. To cite one question, can solely economic factors account for the highly racialized split between producers, on the one hand, and the ground staff, on the other?

Decolonize This Place has operated on a maintenance economy that is more germane to movement-building work than the professional compensation structure of the established art world. How can such projects—which, like much movement work, rely on a political and personal commitment that is rarely remunerated—be promoted and sustained when they so evidently fall outside of art's established commodity system of display and discrete consumption? To what degree can wider movements for reparations inflect upon the art world? In the years to come, with a Trump presidency likely to be hostile to the lifeblood of free and critical expression, movement art will be needed more than ever. Who's going to be paying for it?"

– MTL+

Neu Kirche (now closed) welcomed W.A.G.E. to Pittsburgh for the first time to meet with the local community. A public presentation for artists was followed by a workshop for administrators, directors, curators, and others who work in and for the Pittsburgh arts community to engage in an open discussion about equity and institutional practices. The discussion included an introduction to W.A.G.E. Certification with a focus on the challenges—and necessity—of implementing a system of compensation symbolic of economic value.

As part of the Art + Money series of the Black Art Incubator at Recess, W.A.G.E. talked strategy using two of its texts as a starting point: the W.A.G.E. Womanifesto and a statement written by W.A.G.E. in the summer of 2016 in support of Labor for Black Lives, an emergent labor coalition. The discussion was participatory, engaging how W.A.G.E.'s advocacy could operate more effectively at the intersection of labor and race, spurred by a question posed by W.A.G.E. to those in attendance: If artists, in general, have provided institutions with free labor by supplying content and services without compensation, how specifically has the uncompensated labor of black artists (and black workers) historically generated value for America’s cultural institutions? 

Nicole Cohen and Greig de Peuter organized and moderated a panel as part of 'Public Exposures: The Art-Activism of Condé + Beveridge (1976-2016)'. It included a presentation by W.A.G.E. on efforts to formalize artist fees through its Certification model, as well as an introduction to WAGENCY; Sally Lee of CARFAC Ontario discussed the artist's resale right; and artist Joshua Schwebel discussed his Subsidy project, an intervention in which he transferred his exhibition fee to otherwise unpaid gallery interns. 

'Solidarity. How do we work together? Towards Fair Practices in the Arts' was a joint trajectory by and for the cultural sectors organized by State of the Arts, NICC, oKo, Hoogtijd, ACOD, Kunstenloket and Kunstenpunt. This first work conference focused on the notion of 'solidarity' within the various work processes and relationships that constitute the arts. Between artists, commissionaires, subsidizers, policy makers, curators, production teams, institutions, mediators and the public etc. W.A.G.E. Skyped in.

Chat Room is a quarterly forum on art in the age of the Internet at Northwest Film Forum in Seattle. "Value and Labor" included researcher and digital activist Dorothy Howard; digital designer, muralist, activist Christopher Paul Jordan; artist, DxArts professor (UW) James Coupe; and members of HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN Christa Bell and Sienna Shields in conversation with W.A.G.E. (prerecorded).

Charge 2016 was a three-day convening presented by Art League Houston (a W.A.G.E. Certified organization) to 1. platform artist led alternative models of sustainability 2. advocate for equitable compensation for artists 3. consider artists' work in the larger economy. W.A.G.E. led a session on Sunday, January 10.

Along with Alec De León (National Performance Network - Visual Artist Network), Carolina García Jayaram (United States Artists), and Laurel Ptak (Triangle Arts Association), W.A.G.E. presented and participated in 'The Matter of Money: Compensation, Equity, and Valuing Artists,' organized and moderated by Elizabeth Chodos (Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists' Residency). The panel explored the ethics of artist support by residency programs. Read W.A.G.E.'s contribution here.

W.A.G.E., Marina Vishmidt, and Melanie Gilligan co-organized a day of events around the theme of 'Value' as part of WE (Not I), a four day and night convening at Artists Space Books & Talks. In the evening after an all-day open work meeting, Marina Vishmidt, Melanie Gilligan, Lise Soskolne, Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz and Silvia Federici were in conversation around the value relations of art production, and what kinds of (feminist) value-critical politics can create transversal connections between crises in the different spaces where we practice. A short text by Lise Soskolne connecting W.A.G.E. and Wages for Housework can be read here.

Taking on the question of value in an art context means immediately going beyond it but also through it, via the contradictions of race, gender, language, money and violence that structure the seen and said in the spaces we all try to carve an existence in. Departing from the challenges posed to value as it is reproduced in the spaces of art as in the political economy at large, we want to focus on how those challenges can and have been formulated through practices of collectivity, poetics, feminism, de-coloniality, technology and politics around race. The labor of reproduction and a non- or alter-reproductive futurity are close parameters here. Three main approaches to value will be pursued: conceptual, economic and the living-deathly of identity categories.

WE (Not I) took place September 30 - October 3, 2015 as a series of discursive meetings, presentations, and events that bring together a wide range of female artists, writers, curators and thinkers identifying with feminist practices to exchange and produce content addressing questions around the role of "we" in contemporary art practice.

W.A.G.E. participated in 'Art Works?', a panel organized by Alison Gerber, with Lisa Dent (Creative Capital) and Wing Young Huie (Artist), at the third national Hand-in-Glove convening presented by Common Field. Responding to the question, When and how should artists be paid for their art? W.A.G.E. delivered a position statement which can be read here.

'Art Works?' took as its starting point position statements by diverse practitioners on the question of value in the arts, and aims to use those statements to generate a conversation on the complexities of the valuation of artistic practice. How should we account for the relational value of artists' activities, for the social value of arts organizations? Should art work be for-profit, non-profit, low-profit, no-profit? As artists professionalize, what's lost — and what's gained? How should artists and arts organizations respond to inequities in the arts and in our communities? The panel aimed to illuminate the political, ethical, affective and relational dimensions of valuation in the arts, and to promote both practical and utopian gestures towards a sustainable artistic practice.

Hand-in-Glove is an itinerant gathering created by and for practitioners in the field of alternative art spaces, artist-led projects and artists' organizations, the four-day convening investigated the contexts and conditions of artist-led culture across the country, exploring existing and emerging structures of support, and deepening peer-relationships. 

Organized by Rena Raedle and Vladan Jeremic (Belgrade), this closed seminar in Trondheim, Norway brought together artists, writers, critics, and curators from Europe and the US who are active in groups struggling for better working conditions in the arts, and in society at large. Its aim was to come up with a common method for organizing and coalition-building in the art world and beyond. Raedle & Jeremic were invited as guest curators at LevArt (Levanger) and RAM Galleri (Oslo) in 2015 as part of an ongoing project collaboration between the two institutions.

Organized by the newly formed W.A.G.E. Artists' Resale Rights Working Group, this event at Artists Space Books & Talks included presentations and discussion with Dr. Theodore Feder and Janet Hicks of the Artists Rights Society, Maxwell Graham, Hans Haacke, Justice Barbara Jaffe, R.H. Quaytman, and Lauren van Haaften-Schick. 

In light of recent action at the congressional level concerning artists' resale rights, it provided a public forum for discussion around the proposed legislation of secondary market art sales in the US, locating these developments in relation to historical and international precedents and alternative models. 

This panel talk, organized by Shandaken Projects at NADA NY Art Fair's main stage, explored how increasing professionalization in the visual arts has affected artists, organizations, and cultural production generally. With Mary Walling Blackburn, artist; Ethan Philbrick, doctoral candidate, performance studies, NYU; Laurel Ptak, curator and director of Triangle Arts Association; Lise Soskolne, artist and core organizer of W.A.G.E.; Jack Waters, artist and former director of ABC No Rio; and was moderated by Nicholas Weist, director, Shandaken Projects.

Propeller Fund hosted application workshops and artist roundtables at Gallery 400, the University of Illinois. The weekend of events included a keynote by W.A.G.E. on May 1, and a roundtable discussion facilitated by W.A.G.E. with collectors, artists, and administrators, "On the Value of Art" on May 2, with Claire Pentecost, artist; Scott Hunter, Chicago art collector; David Hartt, artist; and Elizabeth Chodos, Executive Director of Ox-bow School of Art; moderated by Abigail Satinsky Interim Executive & Artistic Director of Threewalls & Lorelei Stewart, Director, Gallery 400.

Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and Politicized Practice Research Group presented the third in a series of events to showcase and critically discuss art activists' efforts to give a voice to the excluded, promote inclusive alternatives, and enrich global culture and citizenship. Speakers from W.A.G.E., Intern Labor Rights (both via Skype), and Precarious Workers Brigade presented recent work and discussed local conditions of their practices.

Art Handler hosted a series of talks and presentations at ALLGOLD @ MoMA PS1 Print Shop, framing art as an industry and fostering dialog between art laborers and art producers. W.A.G.E. participated in the panel, 'Organized Art Workers' with Antonio Serna (OWS Arts & Labor), Stephen Sewell (Art Handlers Alliance) and Julian Tysh (Teamsters Local 814, Art Handlers Alliance), moderated by writer Brian Kuan Wood.

For Dossier #3, art-agenda invited W.A.G.E. to develop an online tool to set standards of compensation for artists developing online commissions. The project was launched by a discussion at e-flux on commissioning and producing, with W.A.G.E. (Lise Soskolne), Filipa Ramos, Stephanie Luce, Suhail Malik, and Andrew Ross. The tool was never realized but the conversation generated Online Digital Artwork and the Status of the "Based-In" Artist, a text commissioned for SUPERCOMMUNITY, e-flux journal's contribution to the 56th Venice Biennale, 2015. 

In collaboration with Andrea Phillips, Common Practice London presented a one-day conference at the University of the Arts. Speakers included: Jesús Carrillo, Kodwo Eshun, Charlotte Higgins, Maria Lind, Andrea Phillips and Lise Soskolne (W.A.G.E.). Watch W.A.G.E.'s contribution here.

The conference took up the ways in which small-scale arts organisations produce artistic value beyond measurability and quantification, provide spaces for public experience extra to the market, and in so doing contribute importantly to cultural wealth. In this way, small-scale arts organisations provide ample evidence of the necessity to build rather than diminish state funding for the arts as a core public asset. 

Artists Noah Fischer (member of Occupy Museums) and Coco Fusco presented a conference to discuss the art and the debt economy at The Great Hall of Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Featured speakers included artists Julieta Aranda, William Powhida, Martha Rosler, Gregory Sholette; writer Brian Kuan Wood, BFAMFAPHD, cultural theorist Andrew Ross, and W.A.G.E. Read W.A.G.E.'s contribution, On Merit, here.

W.A.G.E. presented on W.A.G.E. Certification as part of Cue Art Foundation's workshop series 'If It's Not Work It Must Be Play', discussions on the state of work in the arts. CUE hosted labor economists, urban planners, activists, and financial consultants to analyze and respond to current conditions of work in the arts. Presented by CUE at the Joan Mitchell Foundation Art Education Center.

As part of the all-day conference at Artists Space Books & Talks, presented by Common Practice New York and the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, W.A.G.E. (represented by Lise Soskolne, core organizer, and Andrea Fraser, board member) presented W.A.G.E. Certification as conceived at the 2014 W.A.G.E. Summit in January, and prior to its launch in October of that year. W.A.G.E. presented alongside New York City Council Member Stephen Levin.

Composing Differences was a program of MoMA PS1 that brought together artists, curators, and researchers establishing new platforms to experiment with art and knowledge production, which defend the circulation of knowledge and the immaterial value of art as a tool of social change. It was conceived in collaboration with Glass Bead, PAF, Council, and Open School East. 

At the invitation of Glass Bead, W.A.G.E. (Park McArthur, Lise Soskolne) and Occupy Museums (Tal Beery, Noah Fischer) were recorded in conversation for Glass Bead Radio Workshops at MoMA AV Recording Studio. Other guest speakers included philosopher Reza Negarestani, musicologist and mathematician Guerino Mazzola, Institute for Wishful Thinking (Maureen Connor, Andrea DeFelice) and Council (Sandra Terdjman, Grégory Castéra).  

The program also included a series of commissioned writings by critics and researchers whose work focuses on artistic labor and cultural economies in a special two-part issue of Art Practical, a leading Bay Area online platform. Both the publication and practicum asked: What kinds of tactics allow artists to create a sense of agency regarding the economics of creative production? What are the key questions artists should ask themselves in defining standards for valuing their labor? How might artists and cultural producers disseminate or appropriate successful models to accomplish their own projects? How do different artistic forms (visual, public, relational, choreographic, theatrical) engage and revise different types of art economies? 

Artists and writers include Caroline Woolard (OurGoods), Lise Soskolne (W.A.G.E.), Lane Relyea (Northwestern), Abigail Statinsky (Curator, threewalls, inCUBATE), Helena Keefe (Artist, "Standard Deviation," San Francisco/UCB), Julia Bryan-Wilson (UCB), Shannon Jackson (UCB), Eleanor Hanson-Wise (The Present Group), Lauren van Haaften-Schick (Curator, "Non-Participation," New York), Josh Clover (UC Davis, Village Voice), and many others. 

Co-organized with W.A.G.E., Human Resources' first ever membership event included a discussion with Olga Koumoundouros, Simon Leung + Marina Vishmidt, bookended with taco stand refreshments by Feed Us Fund Us, and locally brewed beer. 

W.A.G.E. spoke on a panel with Laurel Ptak, Magdalena Sawon, and Suhail Malik, moderated by Corinna Kirsch. This event was part of a student-organized conference at the International Center of Photography. 

W.A.G.E. participated in The Alternatives Fair at Eyebeam, organized by the Alternative Economies Working Group within Arts & Labor. The fair aimed to connect and make visible entities and projects that provide alternative economic models based on mutual aid, cooperation, and other non-exploitative and non-oppressive practices for sustaining the livelihood of artists, art workers, and other populations. This was the first step in answering the question, What Do We Do Now? 

W.A.G.E. acted in Simon Leung's ACTIONS!, performed over two nights at The Kitchen. Using conventions of workers’ theater, academic conference, vaudeville, and postmodern dance, ACTIONS! gave thought to the questions, What is the role of the “art worker?” and What constitutes an “art action?” by looking again at moments when "actions" have been directed at the Museum of Modern Art. 

Spec in the 1960/70s by groups such as the Art Workers’ Coalition and Guerilla Art Action Group, when art activism was tied to civil rights and anti-war movements; and then in the year 2000, when members of the Professional and Administrative Staff Association (PASTA) at MoMA, which included curators, librarians, sales staff, editors and others, staged a four month-long labor strike. Originally inspired by the 2000 strike, ACTIONS! also returns to the recent past of the last two years, when protests in the art world by activist groups such as Occupy Museums and Occupy Wall Street Arts & Labor bring to bear the conditions of working in the art world today. Among collaborators reconsidering the intersection of art, labor, community, and politics today are union members, museum workers, activists, and artists, including Yvonne Rainer, Arlen Austin, Kabir Carter, Benj Gerdes, Sasha Sumner, Pat Catterson, Marina Urbach, Valerie Tevere & Angel Nevarez, Beth Whitney, Chris Kasper, Julian Tysh, Carina Evangelista, David Kelley, Filip Noterdaeme, Lumi Tan, Marcus Civin, Burns Magruder, Benjamin Young, W.A.G.E., and Andrea Fraser. Saturday’s performance concluded with a live discussion among participants including Leung and Julia Bryan-Wilson, moderated by Tim Griffin. Admission was based on MoMA policies in the year 2000.

BYO's framing of the event: The sphere of art has become newly bound to post-industrial economic structures, where terms such as "creativity" now circulate as hard currency in the branding of corporations and universities alike. The increasing value placed on cultural capital (in Pierre Bourdieu's formulation), and the rise of the so-called "experience economy" have blurred lines between production and consumption, making it increasingly difficult to define what constitutes work, and to identify who is working, and to what ends. Working Conditions brings together three artists and practitioners engaged in challenging the notion of "work" in an increasingly individualistic and creative economy. 

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 solo exhibition at the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt. Read the speech here.

Day 2 in a two-part discussion organized by Arts & Labor at CUNY Murphy Institute, workers from the Queens Museum, Creative Capital, ProjectProjects, and W.A.G.E. responded to the Day 1 discussion and talked about strategies used to build community, advocate for artists and create sustainable institutions. 

Originally scheduled for March 27, 2012 this was the third in a series of public forums contributing to W.A.G.E. and Artists Space's Research Partnership. 

A brief presentation by W.A.G.E. summarizing recent developments in the conception of its certification program was followed by curator, artist and writer Marion von Osten's presentation on the current conditions of artist labor in relation to the formation of creative and cultural industries. Andrew Ross, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU, provided responses to von Osten's talk and located W.A.G.E.'s advocacy in a broader discourse around the economies of creative labor.

A project by the steirischer herbst festival, Truth is Concrete was a 24/7 marathon camp on artistic strategies in politics and political strategies in art that took place from September 21-28 in Graz, Austria. 

W.A.G.E. participated in 'Neither working nor unworking: Contemporary politics of art and labour', hosted by Kuba Szreder (PL), with presentations by Hans Abbing (NL), Janek Sowa & Michał Kozłowski / Free Slow University Warsaw (PL), Adrienne Goehler (D), Ellen Blumenstein / Haben & Brauchen (D), Joanna Figiel (GB/PL) & Stevphen Shukaitis / Minor Compositions (GB/USA), and Precarious Workers Brigade (GB), and W.A.G.E. (USA).

This public meeting at The Art School (New Vic) was organized by artists Charlotte Prodger & Corin Sworn in conjunction with the Scottish Artists Union to address the need for artists' exhibition fees in non-profit art institutions in Glasgow and beyond. 

The line-up included an introduction by Charlotte Prodger & Corin Sworn, an overview of W.A.G.E. by Core Organizer Lise Soskolne, short presentations by Corin Sworn, Isla Leaver-Yap (Freelance Curator) and the Scottish Artists Union, followed by an open discussion.

As part of W.A.G.E.'s Research Partnership with Artists Space, this event presented the results and analysis of the 2010 W.A.G.E. Survey. With special appearance by economic sociologist Alison Gerber. Free food was provided by FEAST/Brooklyn and survey posters were distributed. Download a poster and read more about the 2010 W.A.G.E. Survey here.

This was the first in a series of programs presented by W.A.G.E. in conjunction with Artists Space in New York as part of a Research Partnership between the two organizations. After a brief introduction to W.A.G.E. Certification, artist, economist, and sociologist Hans Abbing, author of Why are Artists Poor: The Exceptional Economy of the Arts, presented on his current work. 

Abbing's presentation and Q & A were followed by a sustenance break with homemade soup, bread and drinks. The evening culminated in a town hall meeting, engaging the public in an open-ended discussion that contributed to framing the agenda for upcoming programs and the formation of W.A.G.E. Certification.

Coordinated by Silvershed at Art in General, W.A.G.E. participated in a panel discussion with Summer Guthery (The Chrysler Series) Rose Marcus (The Dependent Art Fair) Jackson Moore (The Public School New York) James Voorhies (Bureau for Open Culture), moderated by Liam Gillick. 

The panel addressed questions including: How do recent lateral, collaborative projects, ranging from artist-run spaces to curatorial initiatives to knowledge communities, counter the information/service-based economy and its elements of fluid social networks, entrepreneurial spirit, flexible labor management and interactions with daily life? Or do these art projects and communities utilize these factors and build upon them—in turn aligning with this mode rather than producing a disarming critique? 

The New York launch of the journal Are You Working Too Much? Post-Fordism, Precarity, and the Labor of Art took place at the STAGE on the STEPS @ MoMA PS1, presented by the e-flux book co-op at NY Art Book Fair. To mark the occasion, W.A.G.E. presented a live reading followed by a self reflexive Q+A, and Liam Gillick read from Construction of One: A Manuscript (2011).

This panel at the New School's Lang Auditorium focused on the aesthetic tropes activists use to express political dissent. With Mark Herbst, Journal of Aesthetics; Beka Economopoulos from Not An Alternative; Chris Mansour, Platypus The Artist-Citizen, Advocating Change, and W.A.G.E. 

Theatrical gestures such as street art (e.g., glamdalism), dance parties (e.g., Funk the War), or costumes have found their way into protest tactics. Simultaneously, many contemporary artists create 'activist' or 'social' art by pulling off media pranks against the government or corporations (e.g., Yes Men), reenact past protests (e.g., Mark Tribe or Sharon Hayes) and other forms of public performances. Guiding questions included: What are the historical roots that contribute to the use of current aesthetic interventions in political protests? In what ways do they expand or limit the possibilities for protests to transform the social order? How does experimenting with aesthetic and artistic sensibilities influence our political consciousness and practice?

In conversation with CARFAC (Canadian Artists' Representation/Le Front des Artistes Canadiens) Executive Director, April Britski, and curator Lauren Cornell at the New Museum, W.A.G.E. discussed its Certification of the exhibition Free, as well as the payment practices of non-profit institutions in the US and Canada. 

Working in conjunction with curator Lauren Cornell, W.A.G.E secured an artist fee for each participating artist (separate and in addition to the coverage of expenses) for the exhibition Free, on view at the New Museum from October 20, 2010 - January 23, 2011. This represents W.A.G.E.'s first certification, and its only certification of a single exhibition.

W.A.G.E. spoke at The Creative Time Summit: Revolutions In Public Practice II, held at The Cooper Union, and participated in a panel discussion about institutions with Danielle Abrams, Chen Chieh-Jen (represented by Amy Cheng), Andrea Fraser, and Otabenga Jones & Associates.

W.A.G.E. launched two online surveys targeting the exhibition experiences of visual and performance artists who had worked in New York with either or both Small to Medium Non-profit Institutions and Large Non-Profit Institutions and Museums between 2005-2010.

The purpose of these surveys was to compile information about the economic experiences of artists in order to bring greater transparency to the economic practices of institutions in New York City, and to establish a more just and sustainable relationship between artists and arts organizations. Read the January 11th e-flux announcement here, and about the 2010 W.A.G.E. Survey here.

Drawing on May Day's celebratory and labor-oriented themes, Human Resources' May Day Event showcased performances from musical artists Mad Gregs and Wounded Lion; performance collective My Barbarian; performance artists, Lucy Indiana Dodd, Corey Fogel and Dawn Kasper; and video presentations from Sharon Hayes and W.A.G.E.

W.A.G.E. spoke on a panel moderated by Zeffrey Throwell, with Steven Lambert and Carin Kuoni at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. 

Discussion subjects included: How can artists determine how to maneuver within the existing societal structure to achieve reliable, long lasting support both politically and socially. How can artists realize that individuals can hone power to implement change? What are the resources that artists may utilize to understand the rights and opportunities that already exist? What are some examples of artists who have advocated for more support and have succeeded? What are steps artists can take to achieve greater agency for themselves? 

#Class was organized by artists William Powhida and Jen Dalton at Winkleman Gallery, turning the space into a 'think tank' for guest artists, critics, academics, dealers, collectors, and anyone else interested in examining the way art is made, seen, and sold in our culture.

At the invitation of Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner, W.A.G.E. held an open teach-in, consciousness-raising, and fruitful, fruity discussion at the Whitney Independent Study Program. Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner was a series of feminist gatherings initiated by Malin Arnell and Johanna Gustavsson in New York in 2009-2010. 

W.A.G.E. participated in (crashed?) the Grantmakers in the Arts Annual National Conference, '2009 RECESSION Conference: Navigating the Art of Change'.

W.A.G.E. spoke on panel with DD Guttenplan and Christoph Thun-Hohenstein at the 2009 Frieze Art Fair in London, UK. Moderated by Jenni Lomax, the discussion took up the question: what are the pros and cons of state-funded art and cultural production at a moment of severe economic crisis?

Hosted by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), W.A.G.E. advocated that fair payment practices be established for visual artists, performers, and independent curators in the US.

"Held at X Initiative, NO SOUL FOR SALE – A Festival Of Independents brought together the most exciting, creative and respected not-for-profit centers, alternative institutions, artists’ collectives and independent enterprises from around the world that contribute to the international art scene by inventing new strategies for the distribution of information and by supporting a diverse cultural program." Hm. We participated. And then X Initiative asked us to 'review' the experience for publication in Charley Magazine. We did. They never wrote back. Read W.A.G.E.'s unpublished contributions here and here.

At NYU's Barney Building, W.A.G.E. spoke on a panel with Ruby Lerner (President, Creative Capital), Katie Hollander (Deputy Director, Creative Time), Tim Cynova (incoming Deputy Director, Fractured Atlas), Jeff Hnilicka (Founder, FEAST [Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics]), and Bryce Dwyer (InCUBATE, Chicago IL). 

Organized and moderated by Tracy Candido, a Master's candidate in Steinhardt's Visual Culture Theory program and founder of Sweet Tooth of the Tiger's Bake Sale Residency for Artists, a mini grant for artists who like to bake.

W.A.G.E. held an open teach-in at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. This event was an extension of graduate student Katerina Llanes' thesis project, SESSIONS.

Judson Memorial Church, New York.

Judson Memorial Church, New York.

W.A.G.E.'s first public meeting at Judson Memorial Church, New York. Vintage W.A.G.E. grafik flier here.

W.A.G.E.'s first ever public appearance was at Creative Time's Convergence Center at the Park Avenue Armory, the culmination of the year-long program 'Democracy in America: The National Campaign'. The Convergence Center was an activated space for both reflecting on and performing democracy. Including a major exhibition, participatory project space, and meeting hall, it was a site for speeches by political thinkers as well as community leaders and activists. Watch W.A.G.E's speech here.

Various apartments and studios.