Prefiguring the Federal Art Project (FAP), the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was organized by the Civil Works Administration "to give work to artists by arranging to have competent representatives of the profession embellish public buildings." Lasting less than a year, it provided employment for approximately 3,700 artists who created nearly 15,000 works .
Fighting censorship and advocating for artists' interests and welfare, the Artists' Committee of Action was formed by Hugo Gellert, Saul Belman, Stuart Davis, and Zoltan Hecht soon after a protest they had organized in response to the destruction of Diego Rivera's pro-labor mural at Rockefeller Center.
Based in New York City, The Artists' Union was a leading voice for unemployed artists, advocating within the Works Progress Administration-Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP) for more positions, better pay and working conditions, and lobbying against proposed cutbacks. Beyond the WPA/FAP, the Artists' Union fought censorship, lobbied for permanent federal funding for the arts, and for a Municipal Art Gallery in New York City in response to the destruction of Diego Rivera's mural at Rockefeller Center. After the gallery opened, they fought to remove a provision that excluded foreign-born artists from exhibiting work.
The visual arts division of the New Deal/Works Progress Administration provided employment for approximately 5,000 artists across 48 states through the Federal Art Project until 1943.
Organization founded in 1936 in response to the call of the Popular Front and the American Communist Party for formations of literary and artistic groups against the spread of Fascism. In May 1935 a group of New York artists met to draw up the Call for an American Artists' Congress, among the initiators were George Ault, Peter Blume, Stuart Davis, Adolph Denn, William Gropper, Jerome Klein, Louis Lozowick, Moses Soyer, Niles Spencer and Harry Sternberg. Davis became one of the most vociferous promoters of the Congress and was not only the national executive secretary but also the editor of the organization's magazine, Art Front , until 1939.
Established by Canadian artists in 1968, CARFAC is the national voice of Canada's professional visual artists, defending artists' economic and legal rights and educating the public on fair dealing with artists.
What preceded our efforts? The Art Workers' Coalition: read their Published Documents and Open Hearing Documents courtesy of Primary Information .
In the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library's Archives : the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition was organized in January 1969 by a group of Black artists in response to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition, 'Harlem on My Mind', which omitted contributions to the Harlem community by Black painters and sculptors. Self-described as 'an action oriented watchdog group that strived to develop the legitimate rights and aspirations of individual African-American artists and the total art community,' the BECC's main goal was to agitate for greater representation of Black artists in New York City museums and establish a Black curatorial presence. In 1971, the BECC called for the boycott of an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art after talks between the coalition and the museum failed to produce greater participation and visibility for Black artists. With the creation of an Arts Exchange program in correctional facilities in 1972 in response to major riots at Attica, the BECC's work moved beyond the arts industrial complex and into the prison industrial complex.
In the summer of 1969, artists Marcos Dimas, Adrian Garcia, Martin Rubio and Armando Soto joined the Art Workers Coalition and began collaborating with Rafael Montanez Ortiz, co-chair of the Art Workers Coalition Decentralization Committee, and founder of El Museo del Barrio. By winter the Puerto Rican branch of the Art Workers Coalition was formed. Read more from the history of Taller Boricua 1969-2010 .
Formed in October 1969 by artists Jon Hendricks, Poppy Johnson, Silvianna, Joanne Stamerra, Virginia Toche and Jean Toche, GAAG used violent-non-violent direct action to attack and ridicule an (art) establishment corrupted by profit and private interest. Sound familiar? Blood Bath. Cockroach release. Letters. Manifestos. Licensing cards.
Until things change: use this contract . Hans Haacke still does.
An artists' union forms in Boston and remains active until 1979. In 1977 members of the BVAU protest the $4 entry fee for "The Massachusetts Open" at Worcester Art Museum.
Founded in 1972 with the publication of Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community the International Wages for Housework Campaign started in 1972 by Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici, Brigitte Galtier, and Selma James, demanded remuneration from the state for unwaged work in the home and community, asserting that the work women do outside of the market reproduces the entire working class—and thus, the market economy is entirely built on the unwaged work of women. Out of this movement came Black Women for Wages for Housework , Wages Due Lesbians , the English Collective of Prostitutes and WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities).
Some things never change: The elucidating letter by Hollis Frampton written to MoMA's Curator of Film in 1973.
An extension of the WPA, CETA was enacted in 1973 to train workers and provide them with jobs in the public service. Under it, artists were recognized as chronically unemployed and in 1974 the San Francisco Arts Commission initiated the CETA / Neighborhood Arts Program, employing artists as salaried, community-based cultural workers. Providing free performances, workshops, classes, and exhibitions, CETA artists were pivotal to the revitalization of neighborhoods by bringing with them critical funding that sustained small cultural organizations serving Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American communities. By the late 1970s CETA was the largest public funding source for the arts, employing over 10,000 artists nationwide with an annual budget in 1978 of $75 million. In New York, the formation of CETA Artists Organization (CAO) served to unify artist workers. While not recognized as a collective bargaining unit, it advocated for more jobs under CETA and to make the program permanent. It also worked with non-artist CETA workers, including District 37 Municipal Labor Union.
Almost 40 years after the first congress in 1936, Survival! , the second convening, was hosted by the Boston Visual Artists' Union, the largest individual artists organization in America.
Reinventing the "f" word for the art world - feminism .