Backbeat: Strike museums, seize endowments, end art

Workplace democracy? Or workplace abolition?

The third and final part of “A Generous Grift” is out. There’ll be a little pamphlet version shortly. Let me know if you’d like a copy or a few to distribute.

Workplace democracy? Or workplace abolition? Are these desires hopelessly contradictory, or positively incendiary in their friction? Do bread-and-butter demands inhibit the appetite for social transformation? Is there a pro-revolutionary dynamic between museum unionism and community organizing? What role is there for rank-and-file militants within the strictures of business unionism? And what’s art without its commercial arbiters? The movement of artists and art workers in recent years raises these questions, and in the evident failure of its struggle against capitalism, as well as concessions yielded to its partial and particular demands, provides insights. In this final installment, I share observations and proposals for organizers in the arts, primarily addressed to culture workers contemplating the limits and possibilities of a militant museum unionism. [article]