by Will Brand and Paddy Johnson on April 6, 2012
A little extracurricular reading has introduced us to Lucy Lippard’s essay “The Art Workers Coalition: Not a History.” First published in 1970 by Studio International, the piece feels strangely familiar in light of Occupy’s work. As it happens, their Arts and Labor group uploaded the full PDF to their site, so the essay can be read in its entirety.
We’ve excerpted a quote after the jump we felt was particularly relevant. History repeats itself.
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by Whitney Kimball on March 1, 2012
Still think the Art Workers Coalition were the first to object publicly to the art market? Nay. Way back in the 1920s, the New Yorker’s first art critic, Murdock Pemberton, was a vocal opponent of the starving artist ideal. Many of his writings echo those of contemporary critics and, more recently, Occupy Wall Street groups. His granddaughter, Sally Pemberton, has spent the past two years mining his archives and recently published a scrapbook portrait of Pemberton and his peers. The following are pieces from the New Yorker and lecture notes which Ms. Pemberton found in her grandfather’s suitcase in 2009.
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