[The Seven by Nine Squares home page] [YAWN 25] [Art Strike 1990-1993]

ARTEMISIA for the ART STRIKE


It is time to rethink our goals and objectives. Instead of clamoring for our "rightful" position as elitist cultural employees wielding power over a territory guarded by aesthetics-instead of assembly-line work inside capital's factory of self-monologue-

We have chosen to be really creative: We have chosen to refuse our role.

How we ever thought our "feminist critique" erased the elitist, supremacist "art" world reveals, in addition to personal greed, the ubiquity of capital. Instead of joining the club we used identical tools and materials to construct an exact replica right next door. Previously we perceived our "oppressors" to be the "physical" establishment (government, multinationals, NEA, etc.) yet in "reality" it "appears" that this beast is ideological.

ZEPPO: The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him. It means that the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien.

"Art" is alienation. What has become necessary is a critique that embraces activity: the refusal of roles already prescribed and compartmentalized: "feminist `artist'," "anti-semitic christian," "liberal," "conservative," "alternative radio"-how can this be?

Be Really Creative: Refuse Your Role