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The following images appear as chapter openers: p. t2 Artists Poster Committee

(Frazier Dougherty, fon Hendricks, Iruing Petlin), Q And Bøbíes? ry7o, courtesy ofthe
Center for the Study of Political Graphics, photo by Ron L. Haeberle; p. 4o Carl Andre,
j7 Piøces ofWork (detail), 1969, art O Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, Nl
p. 83 Robert Monis , Untitled [Tímbers], r97o, photo @ zoog Estate of Rudy Burckhardt/
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, art @ zoog Robert Morris/Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York; p. rz6 Lucy Lippard at Ad Hoc Women's Committee protest,
Whitney Musem, r97r, courtesy of Lucy R. Lippard; p. r7z Hans Haacke, MOMA-Poll
(detail), r97o, photo by Hans Haacke, @ 2oo9 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/
VG Bildlfunst, Bonn. Chapter J appeared in a different fom as "Hard Hats and Art
Strikes: Robert Motis in r97o," Art Bwlletítu (Iúîe zoo7)i 313-59.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bryan-Wilson, fulia.
Art workers : radical practice in the Viebram War era / fulia Bryan-Wilson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
rsar 978-o-5zo'25728-3 lcloth: alk. paper)
r. Art-Political aspects-United States-History-2oth centffiy. z. Art
Coalition. I.
Workers Title.
N7z.v6ø79 zoog
7o9.7|o9o46-dczz zoogoog2ro

Mmufactmed in the United States of America

t8 17 16 r5 14 13 12 lT ro 09
rog 876s+ 327
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements ofANsr/Nrso

49.48-t992 (R1997) (Pemanøwce of Pøper\.

 Gontents

Acknowledgments I vii

Introduction I t

S From Artists to Art Workers I Is

X Carl Andre's Work Ethic I qt

* Robert Morris's Art Strike I 83

Lucy Lippard's Feminist Labor I tzz

g
Hans Haacke's Paperwork I lzs

Epilogue I 215

Notes I 223

List of Illustrations I zøs

Index I 269
 Acknowledgments

Completing a book is a peculiar form of labor, as it is a solitary task that is also de-
pendent upon much collective assistance. Many people have generously contributed
to this work in all kinds of ways, and I could not have done it without their research
input, editing advice, and emotional support.
First of all, many thanks go to the artists I discuss within these pages: Carl Andre,
Hans Haacke, Lucy Lippard, and Robert Morris. All made themselves available to
answer my questions, and I am forever appreciative of their help, in particular Lip-
pard's careful edits, Haacke's aid with documents, and Morris's willingness to house
me as I combed through his personal papers. Others who took time from their busy
schedules to be intewiewed indude Paula Cooper, EdGiza, Alex Gross, f on Hendricks,
Poppy fohnson, Atfred Lippincott, Donald Lippincott, Robert Murra¡ Willoughby
Sharp, f ean Toche, and Gene Tulchin. f an van Raay let me pore over her contact sheets
and helped me locate and reproduce some of her photographs.
Manythanks are owedto Stephanie Fay, Sue Heinemann, and Eric Schmidt at Uni
versity of California Press for their editorial guidance. As readers for UC Press, Suzaan
Boettger and Erika Doss gave intelligent and thorough comments. Nicole Hayward
did a wonderful job designing the book. I am grateful for the librarians, archivists,
registrars, and reference specialists who assisted me along the way, especially those at
the Archives of American Art, the Paula Cooper Galler¡ the Getty Research Institute,
the Museum of Modern Art Archives, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego,
the New York Public Library, New York University's Fales Library and Special Collec-

vil
 V¡i¡ I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

tions, the Smithsonian American Art Museum Library, the Tamiment Labor Library,
the Tate Gallery Archive, the Whitechapel Gallery Archive, and the Whitney Museum
of American Art Frances Mulhall Achilles Library. Elizabeth Botten, V/endy Hurlock
Baker, Liza IGrwin, and |udy Throm in particular provided tremendous support when
I was in residence at the Archives of American Art. Loy Zirnmerrnan of the Media
Resource Center at the University of California, Irvine, did truly heroic work with im-
ages on my behalf. Lory Frankel was assiduous in editing my chapter on Robert Mor-
ris when it appeared, in a different form, in the Art Bulletin. Others who graciously
furnished crucial assistance that helped make this book possible include Sarah Baron
at the Paula Cooper Gallery, Maureen Burns, fohn Hanhardt, and Paula Mazzotta at
VAGA.
Throughout my research and writing, I have been fortunate to receive travel grants
from the American Studies Association, the College Art Association, the Getty Re-
search Institute, and the Rhode Island School of Design, as well as fellowships from
the History of Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley, the Townsend
Center for the Humanities, the Smithsonian Institution, the Mellon Foundation, the
Henry Luce/American Council of Learned Societies, the Georgia O'I(eeffe Museum
Research Center for American Modernism, and the |. Paul Getty Trust. Barbara Buhler

Lynes and Eumie Imm-Stroukoff deserve special recognition for making my time in
Santa Fe so blissfìrl and productive. A Creative Capital/AndyWarhol Foundation Arts
Writers Grant provided indispensable frnancial help for reproduction costs.
I am indebted to my outstanding advisors at the University of California, Berke-
ley, where this project began as a dissertation. Conversations with Michael Rogin were
foundationalto mypreliminarythoughts aboutlaborinthe r96os, andWendy Brown's
perceptive readings were immensely helpful. Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby could always
be counted on for her fierce intellect and intense kindness. It was an honor to work
with T. f . Clark, whose passionate scholarly and political commitments provide peer-
less models for thinking about art. Most of all, I would like to thank Anne M. Wagner,
an unfailingly engaged, supporbive, and rigorous chair. I am profoundly grateful for
how willingly she continues to share her marvelously incisive mind.
Former fellow graduate students at Berkeley continue to be invaluable interloc-
utors, especially Elise Archias, Huey Copeland, Andre Dombrowski, Nina Dubin,
Christopher Heuer, Matthew fesse |ackson, Ara Merjian, and Bibi Obler. I am 1ucþ
to have worked alongside fantastic colleagues, both at my previous position at the
Rhode Island School of Design (including Mary Bergstein, Deborah Bright, Daniel
Cavicchi, Lindsay French, Daniel Peltz, Daniela Sandler, Wendy V/alters, and Susan
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I ¡X

Ward), and currentþ at UC lrvine, where Catherine Benamou, Bridget Cooks, Ana
Gonasová, fim Herbert, Lucas Hilderbrand, Arlene lGizer, Simon Leung, Llmn
Mally, Lyle Massey, Alka Patel, Amy Powell, Yvonne Rainer, Saþ Stein, CécileWhit-
ing, and Bert Winther-Tamaki are part of my exciting scholarly community. Bridget,
Lucas, Arlene, and Alka have also become cherished friends.
Conversations (intellectual and otherwise) with many academics at various points
in this process enriched my life and this project immeasurably: C. Ondine Chavoya,
Darby English, Christina Hanhardt, Christina lGaer, Michael Lol¡el, Helen Moles-
worth, Andrew Perchuk, Keþ Quinn, David Román, Rebecca Schneider, and Lisa
Turvey. Ann Pellegrini generously provided valued feedback as I was revising the
manuscript. I am especially privileged to be in dialogue with three contemporary art
historians whose critical investments I have the utmost respect for: f ohanna Burton,
Carrie Lambert-Beatty, and Richard Meyer. Their scholarship inspires me, and their
friendship sustains me. Other friends provided ongoing enthusiasm, insight, and
cheer; they include Liz Collins, fulie Davids, Sharon Hayes, Rachel Kushner, Laeben
Lester, Beth Maloney, Cynde Miller, Mike Mills, Cara O'Connor, feanine Oleson, |on
Rayrnond, Stephanie Rosenblatt, Amy Sadao, and Angie Wilson. Extra special thanks
are due to Miranda fuly for her brilliance and her uncanny understanding, Liz Hansen

for her unflagging humor, and Amber Straus for her sanity-saving wisdom.
My deepest gratitude goes to my family-Susan Bryan, DArcy Bryan-Wilson and
IGvin Murphy, ferry Beetz, Rebecca and Craig Clark, and Carroll and LyndaWilson-
for their patience and love. As the daughter of a Vietnam War*era veteran father and
a feminist working mother, I have long struggled to understand the legacies of the
r96os in U.S. history and memory, and my research was born from that struggle.
Since I began this project, four delightful children have consistently reminded me,
in the midst of my focus on labor and work, of the value of play: my nephews Seth
and Trent and my nieces Rosy and Lulu. I dedicate this book to them.
t:

lntroduction

l:

i.

In 1969 an anonymous letter circulated in the New York art world, declaring, "\I/e
must support the Revolution by bringing down our part of the system and clearing
the way for change. This action implies total dissociation of art making from capi-
talism. " It was signed, simply,'An art worker. " l A nameless, self, described art worker
issues a utopian call, impþing that how art is made and circulated is of consequence
't
within the political sphere. The urgent plea suggests thal ørtworkis no longer confined
to describing aesthetic methods, acts of making, or art objects-the traditional ref
erents of the term-but is implicated in artists' collective working conditions, the
demolition of the capitalist art market, and even revolution.
Art in the United States went to work in the late r96os and early r97os, as both

artists and critics began to identify themselves as art workers-a polemical redef-
inition of artistic labor vital to minimalism, process art, feminist art criticism, and
conceptualism. This book examines the specific social contexts of this redefinition,
showing its centrality to artists' attempts to intervene, through their activism and art
making, in a profoundly turbulent moment: the Vietnam'War era. My arguments
for this new version of artistic labor are developed through four case studies: Carl
Andre, Robert Morris, Lucy Lippard, and Hans Haacke. They were core participants
in the Art Workers' Coalition (AWC), founded in New York in ry69, and in the New
.War,
York Art Strike Against Racism, and Repression, which grew out of the AWC
ínt97o. Together, these two groups vocally agitatedto redefine artists as workers. As
art critic Lil Picard wrote in May t97o, Andre, Haacke, and Lippard were among the
 2 I INTRODUCTION

"faithful and leading personalities of the AWC."2 Though not involved in the AWC,
Morris took center stage in activist organizingwhen he headed the Art Strike.
Rather than write a frrll-scale history of the AWC and the Art Strike, I look closely
at the artistic and critical practices of these four key figures to explore the special power
and flexibility of the Ierm ørtworker. These four were far from the only figures to call
themselves art workers, but their individual practices, which I attend to along with
their collective identity as workers, shed light on the various tensions within that selí:
identification. I delve into the fraught, often unresolved relationship between the rhet-
oric of selÊdeclared art workers and the political claims of their art and writing.
The group identity ofthe art worker exerted pressure on individual understand-
ings about artistic labor within the AWC and the Art Strike, In addition, though art
workers attempted to organize collective political actions, collective art making was
not widely embraced or emphasized. Most did not question single authorship, even
as they identified as a coalition. This problematic is purposefuþ left unresolved here.
Written as a series of monographic case studies-"Carl Andre's Work Ethic," "Robert
Morris's Art Strike," "Lucy Lippards Feminist Labor," and "Hans Haacke's Paper-
work"-the book examines how four prominent art workers, each differently invested
in advanced art, attempted to confront the meaning of his or her own labor in a mo-
ment of historical turmoil. Each chapter brings this narrative into focus in a new way.
As a series ofcase studies, this account does not aim for an encyclopedic scope; rather,
it gestures toward the malleability and complexity of these influential artists' politi
cal understandings of artistic work. These art workers were chosen in part because,
though each was central to the AWC or the Art Strike, and each plays a major role
in postwar art in the United States, those overlapping realms of influence have gone
underexamined.
In addition, I limited my case studies to living artists, thereby acknowledging that
we aÍe at an watershed moment in which these figures are entering history. They are
pursued for their archives and their contributions to the past, yet are also very much
alive (and as reflective and insightful as ever). Memory, however, can be notoriously
unreliable, and it has been a challenge to attempt to balance the numerous gaps, in-
consistencies, and conflicting narratives as I describe the reimagination of artistic
labor through the lens of these four selldeclared art workers.
I claim that the emergence of the art worker in the r96os andrgTos in the United
States was catalyzedby the AWC and the Art Strike but was also dialectically forged
in relation to these artists' own changing artistic and critical methods. The redefin-
ing of art as labor was, I atgue, pivotal to the minimal art that preceded and informed
 INTRODUCTION I 3

the AWC, the process art that relied upon literally laboring bodies, the feminist pol-
itics that understood work as gendered, and the conceptual strategies that emerged
through and from notions of art as work.
One persistent narrative about postwar American art is that minimalism fed into
institutional criticlue, with feminism sometimes added only as a footnote; taking a

: somewhat diflerent route through that argument, I map how the nse of the ørtworker
(always gendered) importantþ rearticulated each of these practices. Artistic labor was
a site where ideas about making art and writing criticism were tested and transformed,

:t:
thus affecting the shape, form, and look of political art. My own critical investments
in art, politics, and labor are driven by my commitment to feminism, as it has pro-
vided a way to understand artistic work in its broadest ramifications.3 These femi-
nist concerns are made most explicit in the chapter on Lippard but extend beyond it,
since gender configured the relations between male art workers like Morris and their
objects, and since the burgeoning feminist movement gave many women art work-
ers a productive way to conceive of artistic labor. (Feminism, too, provides a way to
theorize connections bptween militarism and masculinity, as well as to think through
the gendering of subjectivity in times of national crisis.)a
Attempts to link art and labor have been central to American modernism. In the
r93os artists of the Works Progress Administration, seeking solidarity with the la-
borers they depicted, organized the Artists' Union. Thirty years later, artists tried to
rekindle the progressive identity by naming themselves art workers; however, they
manifestly refused the aesthetic dimensions of the WPA's social realism. Art Work-
ers tracks the unprecedented formation in the United States of an advanced, leftist
art not committed to populism-that is, not primarily concerned with making its im-
ages accessible to the very people with whom these artists asserted a fragile solidar-
ity. At the same time, the book attends to these artists' commitment to political change
and their belief that art matters- ¡}rat it works.
This study offers the first sustained look at the relationship between the activist
art organizations of this period and the emergence of new models of artistic and crit-
ical labor.s The story I tell about art and work thus differs from the one chroniclã'
by Caroline f ones in her important book Møchine ín the Studio: Constructingthe Post-
wør Arnencøn Afü*.6 As fones points out, this era was marked by a concern with
artistic identity in which artists such as Frank Stella, Robert Smithson, and Andy
Warhol vacillated between positioning themselves as executives and as blue-collar
workeïs. fones contends that the effort in the United States in the r96os to link art
making to traditional labor played out in artists' self,fashioning as workers. Building '
 4 I INTRODUCTION

on her scholarship, I contend that, for the artists of the AV/C and Art Strike, the
identity of worker was political above all.
As some of the most prominent faces of the movement to redefine art as work,
the four art workers I examine understood the meaning of aftistic labor differentþ:
for Andre it meant minimal sculpture; for Morris, construction-based process pieces;
for Lippard, feminist criticism as "housework"; for Haacke, institutional critique. What
is more, their influential artistic and critical practices in the late r96os and early ry7os
were uniquely shaped in øctive d.iølogwewith shifting notions of art as work. The sta-
tus of artistic work was called into question by the practitioners of minimalism,
process art, feminist criticism, and conceptualism. Their forms of making (and not
making) both highlighted and undermined conventional artistic labor.
Helen Molesworth has noted that "in the period following World V/ar II, artists
came to see themselves not as arbists producing [in] a dreamworld but as workers in
capitalist America."T The rise of New Left social movements, including anti-Vietnam
War activism and feminism, led artists and critics to debate what kinds of art work
mattered politically and what their collective role might be within activist politics. In
a time when diverse populations (such as "youth' and "students") were summoned
and discussed as cohesive entities, how and why did artists choose to organize not
just as artists but as ørt workers? The yoking of art to labor was especially charged
given the changing status of workers within the thinking of the U.S. New Left, which
distinguished itself from earlier leftist organizingin part by reorienting energy away
from union labor activism.s Rather than believing that only blue-collar workers were
the potential agents of revolution, New Leftists began to champion "intellectual la-
borers" such as students and artists. The specific formations of artistic labor activated
by Andre's minimalism, Morris's process art, Lippard's feminist criticism, and
Haacke's conceptualism were bound up in this shift, as well as in the large-scale work-
place and economic transitions that inaugurated postindustrialism.
While similar efforts to organize artists were occurring at this time elsewhere-
for example, in England and Argentina-this book focuses decidedly on New York
City.e New York, with its density of artists living within a rapidly changing urban land-
scape, its many powerful art museums, its history of an active Artists' Union chap-
ter in the r93os, and its consolidated, well-organized antiwar movement, provided
an especially fertile ground for fostering the antiinstitutional politics of the AWC
and the Art Strike.lo Other loca1 circumstances that might have provided further
momentum for the emergence of the AWC include the collective activities of New
York Fluxus and the energized network of dancers affiliated with Greenwich Village's
 INTRODUCTION I 5

fudson Memorial Church, especiaþ as both offered alternative ways to think about
arListic labor.11 Questions about artistic activism and radical form, however, are rel-
evant for the broader literature on art ofthe r96os and rg7os. The four art workers
of my case studies were all intimately involved in the AWC and the Art Strike, but
their diverse artistic activities in this time period mean that the chapter on each of
them opens up distinct issues, from the origins of materials (Andre), for example,
to the nature of intellectual labor (Haacke). Mining the sometimes strained relations
between labor, artists, and activism, I excavate how complicated fantasies about and
identifications with "workers"-a vexed category-lie at the heart of the political
aspects of art production in the r96os and r97os.

Toward a Radical Practice

"End your silence." So read the letter published in the N¿p York Times in April 1965
decrying U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Signed by over four hundred critics, artists,
and novelists involved with the group Writers and Artists Protest, it marks the first
collective anti-Vietnam War effort by artists in the United States.l2 As Francis
Frascina's useful account demonstrates, this ad was only the beginning of artists'
organizing against the war.13 In 1966 the Artists' Protest Committee, based in Los
Angeles, created t}re Afüli.;s' Tower of Protest, also known as ¡Jr'e Peøce Tower, a nearþ
sixty-foot-high work designed by sculptor Mark di Suvero that stood for three months
at the corner of La Cienega and Sunset. Di Suveros steel-pole construction, a tall tetra-
hedron, served as a focal point for the over four hundred two-by-two-foot panel art-
works installed around the tower in a one-hundred-footlong wall (Fig. r).The Peøce

Tower presented a visually pluralistic response to the U.S. military conflict in Viet-
nam: any artist who wanted to submit a panel was able to, and the panels were later
anonymously sold in a lottery organized by a local peace center.la
The panels, designed by artists including Eva Hesse, Roy Lichtenstein, Nancy
Spero, and Ad Reinhardt, were aesthetically diverse-some utilized abstract forms;
others depicted figurative, well-known antiwar motifs, such as Alice Neells skeleton
surrounded by flames emblazoned "Stop the War" (Plate r). They were installed
"democratically"-that is to say, in no particular order. As the detail in Plate r demon-
strates, the wall's expansive visual logic accommodated a cacophony of styles, with
panels featuring President |ohnsons face, an appropriated fragment from Picassos
Guemicø, a handwritten signature, and typewritten text pieces alongside more allu-
 6 I TNTROÞUCTtON

FIGURE I Susan Sontag

ai the dedicat¡on of the
Peace Tower, designed by
Mark di Suvero et al., Los
Angeles, 1966. Photograph
by Annette Del Zoppo.
Charles Brittin Archive,
Research Library, ïhe
Getty Research Institute.
Used with permission
(2005.rv.11),

sive geometric shapes and painted swaths of color. One panel shows a tic-tac-toe game

that has resulted in a stalemate and suggests that in war, too, there are no winners.
Arranged in a typically modemist grid, the squares, while they shared little formally,
attained an overall, quiltlike cohesion. Further, the varied designs were corralled to-
gether under the handlettered proclamation 'Artists Protest the Vietnam V/ar" and
thus registered as responses to the war regardless oftheir content.
Positioned in an empty lot ("last used for selling Christmas trees")1s at a busy in-
tersection, lhe Peøce Tower soughl to maximize its visibility within West Hollylvood;
the nearby "gal7ery row" on La Cienega secured the area as an epicenter of contem-
porary art. But rather than use the existing spaces for art, úte Peøce Towerbecame an
alternative, public exhibition site outside the art institution. Though it garnered much
 INTRODUCTION I 7

FlcuRE 2 Cover of Art in America,

November-December 1 971 , featuring the
Peace Tower. Courtesy Brant Publications, lnc.
Cover photograph by Charles Brittin.

pres s attention in L.A. at the time, th e P eøce Tow er w as publicized nationally only when
it was placed on the cover of the November-December r97r issue of Art in Amerícø;
the recent agitations of the AWC and the Art Strike made the tower's antiwar mes-
sage freshly relevant and helped pull it from obscurity (Fig. z). Significantþ though
it was six years after the fact, Art in Arnerícø published no photos of the completed
Peøce Tower; ínstead, it was depicted in progress, with three figures climbing like con-
struction workers over its gantrylike frame. In the accompanying arbicle, artists were
referred to as "artist-builders" and contrasted with the "hardhats and jocks" that re-
portedly "came around to harass and make troub1e."16 Such polarization of "artists-
builders" against hard-hat laborers is symptomatic of the persistent class tensions
embedded in the term ørt workers.
The PeøceTowerwas dedicated in a ceremony on February 26, 1966, with speeches
by Susan Sontag, among others, seen in Figure r standing atop a makeshift wooden
podium laced with flowers. She stated, "We've signed petitions and wriüen our con-
gressman. Today we're doing something else-establishing a big thing to stand here,
to remind other people and ourselves that we feel the way that we do."17 Sontag, who
at her best was one of the most incisive and articulate critics of the twentieth cen-
tury, calls the tower "a big thing to stand here"; that her eloquence is reduced to mono-
syllables indicates her uncertainty about what, indeed, the function of such a mon-
 8 I INTRODUCTION

ument might be. It does not educate, convince, or persuade, for instance; rather, it
reflexively "reminds" or reinforces already-held beliefs. This might be a recognition
that for the most part minds were already made up about the war. But Sontag's un-
usual, perhaps unconscious ambivalence about the tower betrays a larger anxiety about
the role of objects-"big things"-in the mid-r96os.
Many U.S. artists echoed Sontagls uneasiness about the insufficiency of object-
based art, particularþ its inability to oppose a war-saturated media culture. A year
after this speech, inry67, Reinhardt, a contributor Iothe PeøceTower (his panel placed
the words NO WAR on a plain blue ground), admitted that for him "there are no
effective paintings or objects that one can make against the war. There's been a com-
plete exhaustion of images."l8 The Tower embodied several notions of artistic activism
that were rapidly falling out of favor. Not long after, Peøce Tower designer di Suvero
categoricaþ refused to show his work in the United States for the duration of the
war "for fear of compromise."le Methods such as assembling anunjuried patchwork
of paintings to be sold (even if the profits were donated) would be called into ques-
tion as art workers strove to bring together their radical politics with their reinvented
aesthetic strategies.
The Vietnam War's effect on artistic production is often illustrated by works whose
antiwar message is explicit-Peter Saulls Søigon (tg6Z) or May Stevens's Big Døddy
series (1967-75), for instance.2o But how was artistic labor broadly articulated and
developed in relation to both politics and advanced artl How did artists shift from ac-

tion ("artists'protest" or "artists' dissent") to the collective identity ofa coalition or a

strikel Shifting conceptions of activism and artistic labor spawned an investment in
emerging, possibly political, forms of art-forms not legibly antiwar in any conven-
tional way. Hal Foster has cogently observed that the arlistic developments of this era
(such as minimalism) "must be related to other ruptures of the r96os-social and
economic, theoretical and political." However, he admits, "the diagram of these con-
nections is very difficult to produce. "21 Indeed. Interrogating such ruptures, but by no
means resolving them, I examine how artists grappled with the commodification of
their own labor within a museum system implicated in the ongoing Vietnam V/ar.
Andre, Morris, Lippard, and Haacke are by now canonical figures, but their em-
brace of artistic labor as a radical practice-a rehearsal or trial, the refining and try-
ing out of politics-has been overlooked. Ra.d'icøl prøctice is a term drawn from
Herbert Marcuse, whose writings on art and work exerted great influence in this
moment.22 While Marcuse uses the phrase to describe the bleeding of art into revo-
lutionary politics, it is also associated with perfoÍnance and as such maps an uneven
 INTRODUCTION I 9

field of attempts, rehearsals, and potential failures. By identifying themselves as art

workers, these figures gave themselves a stage on which to experiment with their ac-
tivism and their art and to test how those might intersect. Some of their art was ex-
plicitlybilled as quasi-theatrical, like Morris's r97o process pieces of timber, concrete,
and steel whose construction was initially supposed to be witnessed by the public.
As with many practices, these efforts sometimes fell flat or missed their mark. Yet
the many misreadings, thwarted attempts at collectivity, and misrecognitions un-
derþing the term ørt worker also proved incredibly fertile, as the era's redefinition of
artistic labor inaugurated new forms of both artistic making and political protest.

The Vietnam War Era

The period that encompasses the late r96os and earþ r97os is often referred to as

the "Vietnam Wat era."23 How did this periodization matter to the art of the time,
andwhy does it matter nowto art historiansl2a Recent monographs, anthologies, and
majormuseum exhibition catalogs, alongwith contemporaneous publications-such
as the voluminous art criticism in periodicalsllke Artforurn-make these years not
only a flourishing subfield of art history but perhaps the most exhaustively discussed
in all of post-r945 U.S. art. It has become commonplace to mention the vast cultural
changes of this time in relation to the tremendous innovations occurring within art
production, andmany have made crucial, specific connections between the political
and aesthetic practices in this era.2s At the same time, some authors who write about
this period-one indeliblymarkedbythe U.S. presence inVietnam-only glancingly
reference the war.26 It has proven especially contentious to conclusively link art move-
ments such as minimalism and conceptualism to the antiwar politics of the era. As
Tony Godfrey queries about conceptual art: "Were the artists of the late r96os polit-
ical or apolitical l Did they have Utopian aspirations, or were they careeristsl Why, if
they were so politically motivated, is there so little direct reference in their works to
the Vietnam War or the student riots in Paris in ry687'zt These are fruitful ques-
tions, and although adversarial politics were frequently made palpable in the art of
this era, those politics could also be veiled or difficult to decipher.
One way such commitments surfaced in art of the r96os and r97os was through
the politicization of artistic labor. This was made manifest, both overtly and not, in
the work of Andre, Morris, Lippard, and Haacke, whose artistic and critical practices
in turn redefined what it meant to be an art worker. Art and activism, in other words,
 1O I INTRODUCTION

were reheaÍsed-or prøcticed-through each other, although artists who identified

themselves as art workers found that identity increasingly conflicted, if not impos-
sible. Even as art workers considered their aesthetic making integral to-or autono-
mous from-their political work, they felt the discontinuities generated by the re-
organization of both art and labor in the late 196os. Art workers, øs such, restlessly
asked questions about effective modes of protest in the Vietnam V/ar era; specifically
through an emphasis on artistic labor, these figures made antiwar and other protest
politics visible in the art world.
This era continues to be a contested subject whose significance is very much in
flux, not least because "Vietnarn' has come to stand in for (still pertinent) questions
of the validity of foreign military intervention and the function of public protest. The
media firestorm about Senator |ohn Kerry's Vietnam War record during the zoo4
presidential election demonstrates that establishing such historical records is an
ongoing, volatile project. V/hile most scholars view the war as a catastrophic mistake,
revisionists rewrite it as a "just cause" or "necessary wa{'; these contrasting view-
points underscore how it continues to be framed by opposing interpretations.2s
Moreover, this time period seethed with transformative potential as extraordinary
numbers of people became politically active, and not simply because of the war. Var-
ious social movements-Black Power, Chicano rights, women's liberation, and gay
rights-exploded in the late r96os and were often met with state-sponsored hostil-
ity and violence.2e These liberation movements, as well as waves of cultural innova-
tion and vast numbers of people experimenting with "alternative" lifestyles, opened
up possibilities for profound political and social change. In the late r96os, in nearly
every sphere of public and private life, normative culture was being interrogated.
Acute crisis seemed imminent as the Vietnam War became more and more unpop-
ular and skepticism toward the U.S. government escalated. To cite but one statistic,
though one that indicates the sheer scope of the growing antistate unÍest: by ry7o,
resistance to the draft was so strong that in some states only half the draftees were
enlisting.3o Emboldened by the discord within the United States as well as momen-
tous international events such as the uprisings in Prague and in France of May 1968,
many believed that revolution was right around the corner.
This mood of nascent revolution was felt in many ways in the United States and
fed into claims about artistic labor and its social value. I take the art workers at their
word when they express utopian dreams of transforming (or smashing) the art
world, as well as remaking the wider world, though I also recognize the often un-
formed nature of such political visions. As Fredric fameson asserts, "One wants to
 INTRODUCTION I I1

insist very strongly on the necessity of the reinvention of the Utopian vision in any
contemporary politics: this lesson, which Marcuse first taught us, is part of the legacy
of the r96os which must never be abandoned in any reevaluation of that period and
our relationship to it. On the other hand, it also must be acknowledged that Utopian
visions are not yet themselves a politics."31 Historians of this era must be wary of suc-
cumbing to a nostalgia that sentimentalizes the moment and glosses over its com-
plicated risks, gains, and losses. At the same time, dismissing the art workers as mereþ
naive threatens to diminish their lasting contributions to debates about institutional
inclusion and the autonomy of art. It is therefore crucial to account for both the hope-
ful idealism and the ultimately untenable contradictions of art workers' desires to
reconfigure the role of viewers, market values, commodity-objects, art institutions,
and coalitional politics. This entails granting that their "successes" as well as their
"failures" might be productive, critically assessing the art workers' fervent stridency
while also acknowledging their troubling inconsistencies and limitations. (To some,
this era ushered in a newly selÊreflexive method of art making precisely becøuse of
the "failure" of 196os utopianism.)32
The moniker ørtworker gave leftJeaning artists a collective identity to rally behind.
That identity also brought a sharp focus to their frustration with the war in Vietnam
and the increasingly repressive tactics of the U.S. government. The term elaborates
the dense meanings embedded in the phrase ørt work-that is, it spells out the rela-
tionship between art as an object and as an activity. It also asks, implicitly: What work
does art dol How does it put pressure on systems of representation and forms of sig-
nificationl How does it intervene in the public spherel How does it function eco-
nomicaþ; how does it structure relations; how does it put ideas into circulationl The
definition of artistic labor in the late r96os and early r97os was highly mobile and
included writing, curating, and even viewing art. Despite the widely held belief that
art of this time effectively dismantled traditional notions of work (as it was "deskilled'
or "dematerialized"l, it will be made clear that the serialized steel plates of Andre's
minimalism, the spilled timbers of Morris's process works, the chance-based collages
of Lippard's writing, and the paper ephemera of Haacke's conceptualism are not a I

denial of work-an erasuÍe of artistic craft-but forms meant to underscore art's

connections to labor, if ambivalently. This book also demonstrates that artistic labor
at this time was not simply a matter of unstable political identification but was struc-

tured by its relationship to art institutions as museums became poststudio worþlaces,

sites of managerial authorit¡ and targets of antiwar activism all at once.
 From Artists to Art Workers

Coalition Politics

kidnapping. On fanuary 3, tg6g, artist Vassilakis Takis marched

It all started with a

into New York's Museum of Modern Art, unplugged his kinetic piece Tele-sculpture
(196o), and retreated to the MoMA garden with the piece in hand. Although the mu-
seum owned the work, it was not, in the arlist's mind, his best or most representa-
tive work, and he had not agreed to show it in their exhibition T:he Møchine øs Seen
øt the End of the Mechønical Age. Takis's protest of its inclusion without his permis-
sion became the cataþst for a wider movement. Täkis, who had witnessed firsthand
the student/worker revolt in Paris in May 1968, tied his individual discontent to a

larger, shared perception of artists' collective disenfranchisement with respect to art

museums. He issued a flyer announcing his action as "the first in a series of acts
against the stagnant policies of art museums all over the world. Let us unite, artists
with scientists, students with workers, to change these anachronistic situations into
information centres for all artistic activities."l The statement calls for cross-class sol-
idarity as it envisions revitalizing the institutional spaces of art viewing. Takis's recla-
mation subjected the ostensible neutrality of the art institution to scrutiny, a scrutiny
that would continue in many artists' actions over the next few years. How does art
circulate in a capitalist market system, and what rights do artists have over their work
once it enters the museuml
Friends and supporters quickly rallied around Takis, including fellow artists affili-

13
 14 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

ated with the Howard wise Gallery such as wen-ying Tsai, Tom Lloyd, Len Lye, Far-
man, and Hans Haacke. Many of these artists, including Takis, pursued technolog-
ically oriented art-hence, perhaps, the urgent need to unite "artists with scientists.',
Other concerned artists and critics soon joined the cause, including Carl Andre, ohn
f
Perreault, Irving Petlin (who was central to the organizing efforts of the Los Angeles
PeøceTowerinry66), Rosemarie castoro, Max Kozloff,, Lucy Lippard, andwilloughby
Sharp. Together, they adopted a groltp name-the Art workers, coalition (Awc).
within a few months, the AWC was busy telegraphing the need for comprehensive
changes throughout the New York art world.
The name Art Workers' Coalition drew upon several precedents. For one, it echoed
the venerable Art Workers Guild, established in England in 1884 as an outgrowth of
William Morris's Arts and Crafts movement, which had sought to reinvigorate hand-
crafting part of an explicitþ socialistprojectto dealienate labor.2 Despite the sim-
as a

ilarity in name, the two groups had little in common; many artists in the AWC em-
phasized ¡heir løck of conventional craftsmanship, either by making conceptual art
or by having their minimal sculptures made by professional fabricators. A more im-

' mediate precedent was found in the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, formed in
; 1968 in New York to protest the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Hørlem on My Mind.
show.3 This group, whose members had some overlap with the AWC, had recently
employed the language of the coalition (and the use of the term ernergenÇywould later
feed into the Emergency cultural Government of rgTo,discussed in chapter The
t).
AV/c positioned itself not as a guild, association, committee, or ensemble but as a
provisional coalition of disparate individuals. With that moniker, it thrust artistic 1a-
bor and a tendentious and tenuous collectivity to the center of its identity.
This bool< is not a chronological history of the AWC; instead, I focus specifically
on how, though it has been seen primarily as a vehicle for artists' rights, antiwar or-
ganizing, and struggles against racism and sexism, this group critically transformed
the meaning of ørt work in the late r96os and earþ r97os. (Ironically, racism and
sexism would become insurmountable internal problems that led in part to the de-
mise of the coalition.) There are competing accounts of this organization, and I pro-
vide only a brief outline of its salient activities here.a Its narrative is especially com-
plicated given the many inconsistencies that attend the term ørt worker-not least,
artists'incompatible moves to identifywith and distance themselves from',the work-
ers," a category itself under great pressure at this time. primary among the AWC,s
ambitions was the public redefinition of artists and critics as workers: these art work-
ers asserted that their practices were located within specific social relations, subject
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKËRS I I5

i
t
i
't
:
rl FIGURE 3 Art Workers'
,l
t Coalition, flyer for the
:: open hearing at the
i' School of Visual Arts,
i
New York, April 1 0, 1 969.
a
lmage courtesy of the
:, Lucy R. Lippard Papers,
é
ca. 1940-2006, Archives
T of American Art,
I Smithsonian lnstitution.

:'

I
i to economic imperatives and exacting psychic costs. In some cases, artists took this
literaþ and asserted that their work was governed by the power differentials (and ex-
ploitation) inherentto the rules of employmentwithin the capitalist.West. For others,
the recognition that art was work had more metaphoric weight and was a move of
emporrverrnent rather than degradaLion; work signifled serious, valuable effort. ltike
so many aspects of "work," these diflerences were informed by gender.)s As much
as it means to signal synthesis or hybridity, I argue that the term ørtu)orker would
present an intractable conflict in that it connected art to work while also distancing
artists from labor's specific class formations.
After Takis's kidnapping of his sculpture, the AWC issued a preliminary list of
demands, many of which emphasized concerns about artists' rights to control their
work, including "copyrights, reproduction rights, exhibition rights, and maintenance
responsibilities."6 (Haacke collaborated with Lloyd and Andre to draft this commu-
niclué.)7 The artists also requested a conversation with the director of MoMA to dis-
cuss museum reform; when that failed to happen, they held their own meeting on
April ro, 1969, al the School of Visual Arts, extending an invitation to many cate-
gories of art workers beyond visual artists, including "photographers, painters,
sculptors . . . museum workers . . . choreographers, composers, critics and writers"
(Fig. l). This early document, with its old-fashioned cartoon fr,gure, its two small,
clip-art pointing hands, and its use of outdated fonts to mimic the look of a circus
flyer, is reminiscent of some Fluxus materials. Though Fluxus might have offered a
recent, local precedent for collective artistic activity in New York, within a few months
 16 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

such a deliberately anachronistic aesthetic would disappear, to be replaced by posters

and placards that largely used only text and resonated with the minimal and conceptual
practices of many in the coalition. This flyer's faux-naif design indicates that the stark,
language-based look later favored by the AWC had not yet developed.
Several hundred attended the April ro meeting, and over seventy speakers read
statements, which addressed artists' rights along with the vietnam war, racism, and
sexism. T?anscripts of the speeches read at the meeting-the "open public Hearing
on the subject: what Should Artworkers Regarding Museum
Be the Program of the
Reform, and to Establish the Program of an open Art \vorkers' coalition'-varied
in tone, from mild reforms such as having arLists serve on museum boards, to sug-
gestions for overhauling the art press, to revolutionary demands to dissolve all pri
vate property. Institutional inclusion and access were consistent themes, as some
artists called for black and Puerto Rican representation in museums and others re-
pudiated the corrupt market system. \vhile many spoke of the potential power of
artists coming together for a common cause, gushing sentiments of solidarity did
not pour forth from every quarter. Feminist artist Anita Steckel castigated the critics
in the meeting for not reviewing her shows. She ended her rant by turning on her
fellow art workers: "f 'accuse, baby!"s
Although the AWC had no aesthetic agenda and included artists who worked in a
range of styles, from Leon Golu-u"s figurative paintings to Haacke's systems art to An-
dre's minimal sculpture, the notion of the art worker offered artists an up-to-date,
politically relevant model of identity. It enflamed New York artists as they organized
for change in the art world and in the wider public sphere. The diverse participants
at the open hearing included Andre, Robert Barry, Gregory Battcock, selma Brody,
Frederick castle, Mark di Suvero, Hollis Frampton, Dan Graham, Alex Gross, Haacke,
Robert Huot, foseph l(osuth, Sol LeWitt, Lippard, Tom Lloyd, Barnett Newman, Lil
Picard, Faith Ringgold, Therese Schwartz, Seth Siegelaub, Gene swenson, and
fean
Toche (this is by no means a comprehensive list). Many were prominent minimal-
ists and conceptualists (including Andre, Barry, Graham, Haacke, I(osuth, and Le-
witt) and their curatorial and critical champions (Battcock, Lippard, Siegelaub). Sev-
eral speeches at the open hearing, such as the one by Graham, emphasized that
conceptualism might be one way out of the relentless marketing of art, and ques-
tions about autonomy, decommodification, and authorship raised by minimalism and
conceptualism emboldened the antiestablishment ethos of the AWC.
Through the AWC, artists asked basic questions about their working conditions,
in particular the uses and misuses of their artworks that they claimed rights over,
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS I 17

even when the objects were no longer under their material ownership. Art's very mo-
bility leaves it open to multiple reframings; some artists sought to thwart potentiaþ
less-than-ideal circumstances of reception by ceasing to make objects (or "products")
or by creating only site-specific installations. Artists sought guarantees that might
allay their fears about losing control of their works, financially and otherwise. Inr97t
AWC member Siegelaub, along with Robert Projansþ formulated an artists' rights
contract, still used by Haacke, granting artists some financial protection in the reselling
of their work.e With the contract, "The Artist's Reserved Rights tansfer and Sale
Agreement," art was increasingly folded into the category of intellectual property.
In addition, artworkers understood the socíøl øndpoliticøI,not just economic, value
of their art. They became aware of how their art circulated, its symbolic and ideo-
logical "use" that challenged previous claims of its autonomy. Many art workers felt
that as image makers in a time of war dominated by images they might have some-
thing unique to ofler the antiwar movement. |ohn Perreault, in his statement for the
open hearing, said, "We cannot merely follow the techniques of the New Left or the
students. These may offer inspiration, but as artists we are in a position to provide
new examples for other groups by developing more effective methods of protest."lO
Some became frustrated by the AWC's lack of interest in these "more effective"
protests and formed action-based splinter groups and committees, such as the Guer-
rilla Art Action Group (GAAG), the Art Strike, the Emergency Cultural Government,
and Women Artists in Revolution (all discussed in the chapters that follow).
The open hearing was more than an airing of grievances about museum reform.
One of the most extreme, idiosyncratic statements came from Lee Lozano: "For me
there can be no art revolution that is separate from a science revolution, a political
revolution, an education revolution, a drug revolution, a sex revolution, or a personal
revolution. I cannot consider a program of museum reforms without equal attention
to gallery reforms and art magazine reforms which would eliminate støbles of arlists
and writers. I will not call myself an art worker but rather an art dreamer and I will
participate only in a total revolution simultaneously personal and public."il Read as

a foreshadowing of her Generøl Strike Piece, which announced her total withdrawal
from the art world, this brief paragraph lays out a vision of a revolution so total that

it encompasses almost every sphere of life, and it echoes the feminist calls to erase
the distinction between the personal and the political.l2 It also highlights an uneasy
dynamic of the AWC and its offshoots, which, though they included many of the ris-
ing stars of an increasingly consolidating art industry and art press-Andre, Morris,
Haacke, and Lippard among them-also envisioned the eradication of that industry.
 18 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

FIGURE 4 Joseph Kosuth, forged

Museum of lvlodern Art Visitor's Pass,
designed for the Art Workers' Coalition,
1969. Offset and rubber stamp on card
s|ock, 21/zx 4 in. O 2009 Joseph
Kosuth/Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York.

Lozancis denunciation of the term ørt worker in favor of ørt dreømer signals a model
of individual rather than collective transformation; she soon followed through with
her promise and abandoned art making altogether.
Those at the open hearing adopted a platform of thirteen demands, circulated as
a point of debate, revision, and departure during the next few years. The demands-
including planks about greater racial and gender diversity within museums-
demonstrate how the question of artists' rights and control over their work in the
institution moved rapidly into other activist concerns. From the original issue of mu-
seum display, the AVr'c moved to taking on the war and became the primary anti-
Vietnam Wãr outlet for New York artists. The leap between these two issues was not
all that great, as artists became concerned with how art was used for ideological and
economic ends within a larger political system in which museums sewed a central
role. Disgust with the museum "systern' was at the very heart of the AWC, and art
institutions were a logical target in artists'eyes, especially because of their poweï-
ful boards of trustees that had members like the Rockefellers. (David and Nelson
Rockefeller both served on the MoMA l¡oard of trustees; Nelson was at the time the
Republican governor of New York State.) The arhists and writers of the AWC felt they
were waging not only local battles al¡out artists' rights but battles of global signifi-
cance. As action artist |ean Toche said succinctþ "To fight for control of the muse-
ums is also to be against the war."13
The AWC insistence on "democratizing" museums took several forms. For one,
the group called for greater transparency and a larger voice in museum policies such
as exhibition schedules and acquisitions. They also wanted to extend the public's ac-

cess to the museum and demanded free admission for all. To that end, conceptual-
ist l(osuth designed a forged AWC "annual pass" to MoMA in order to sulwert the
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS I 19

FrcuRE s Tom Lloyd's son at the

Art Workers' Coalition and Black
Emergency Cultural Coalition
protest at the lvluseum of Modern
Art, New York, May 2,1970.
Photograph @ Jan van Raay.

usual procedures of paid museum admissions (Fig. +). Drawing on his skills as a
text-based artist, Kosuth mimicked the look of a museum pass and emblazoned it
with an official-looking stamp reading'ArtWorkers Coalition'where an individualls
name would usualþ go, affirming the collective identity of the group. This hijacked
pass turned the bureaucracy against itself appropriating the pass to assert art work-
ers' declared right to free entry. Mirroring Kosuth's own linguistic, word-focused art,
the card demonstrates that while conceptual art is sometimes cast as unconcerned
with functionality, artists in the AWC used their conceptual toolbox to hammer out
activist, interventionist objects.
Many of the AWC protests and activities focused on the art world's racist exclu-
sions. Some agitated for a special Martin Luther IGng fr. wing of MoMA, to be ded-
icated to black and Puerto Rican artists; others advocated the decentralization ofart
institutions, calling for branches in Harlem and elsewhere.l4 In one photo of such a

protest in r97o, Tom Lloyd's son holds a toy gun as a picketer behind him wields
a sign that reads, "Racist MoMA!" (Fig. S). Although softened by his smile and the
sma1l scale of the fake gun, the child's stance recalls images of the militant branch
of the Black Power movement, the Black Panthers, a reminder that the politics of
racial inclusion had serious stakes and was viewed at the time as connected to revo-
 20 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

lutionarypossibilities. Manyphotos of AWC protests include familymembers; these

intergenerational demonstrations indicate that it was a training ground not only for
artists, writers, and museum workers but for their children, though, as the chapter
on Lippard details, the "work" of parenting was not always acknowledged as such.
The AWC was decidedly anarchic in its organization-it had no elected leaders
and no set agendas, just meetings on Monday nights generally held at alternative
spaces. Ideologically it was also all over the map. Was it merely "middle-class trade
unionist"lls Or was it subversive, with the potential to "make or break the museum
and the entire art world"l16 Some in the AWC felt that museums should "use their
political influence in matters concerning the welfare of aftists, such as rent control
for artists' housing, legislation for artists' rights."lz They idealistically proposed a sys-

tem ofuniversal wages for all artists, to be paid out of a fund generated by the resale
value of the art of dead artists. However, many within the group believed that only by
demolishing the art market would they help inaugurate total revolution. As art critic
Gene Swenson cried in r97o, "Institutions have already begun to tremble at our mild
demands, our thirteen points. Let the state wither away. We have only begun."18 Rec-
ognizable in these complex, contradictory claims are both a reformist and a revolu-
tionary drive. These factions inevitably came into conflict with each other.
Over the next two years, AWC members undertook many protests, including pa-
rades, vigils, and performances urging museums to take a public stand on the Viet-
nam War.le In 1969 they asked MoMA to co-sponsor an antiwar poster that would
become the iconic image of the New York art Left in this era (Plate z). This poster
was developed by a subcommittee of the AWC after the U. S. massacre of civilians at
My Lai was revealed. It reproduces Ron Haeberle's photograph of dead women and
children on a dirt road with a superimposed, blood-red text, typed in the classic news-
paper font-"Q: And babiesl A: And babies"-a snippet drawn from a television in-
terview by Mike Wallace with the army officer Paul Meadlo. The poster appropriates
two forms of journalistic coverage, documentary photography and televisual utter-
ance, to graphically illustrate the war's casual attitude to the loss of life.
In the end, the museum did not support the poster financially or otherwise, and
the AWC printed and distributed it without their assistance. (Though careful to use a
union printing shop, the art workers were rudely reminded of their political distance
from other types of workers when many in the shop were openly hostile to the proj-
with MoMA disheartened many within the AWC who felt that
ect.)20 The incident

the museum had yielded to board members'political pressure, in particular the ob-
jections of CBS president William S. Paley. As the most important museum for con-
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS I 21

FTGURE 6 Art Workers' Coalition demonstration in front of Picasso's Guernica, Museum of

l\y'odern Art, New York, 1970. Photograph @ Jan van Raay,

temporary art and as the employer of many art workers who had worked there as

pages, clerks, and guards (including LeWitt and Lippard), the one "closest to ftheir]
hearts,"21 MoMA became the primary target for antiwar actions. lnlanuary r97o, art
workers held a protest in front of Picasso's Guemicø. Members of the action-oriented
AWC ofÏshoot GAAG clustered together in front of the painting holding the poster,
drawing parallels between U.S. crimes like My Lai and the bombing of innocents
during the Spanish Civil War while also sharpening the distinction between the large,
painted scene and the freely given protest posters (Fig. 6). The two artists in the cen-
ter of this photograph-Lloyd and Toche-hold the poster nearþ flush against the
surface of the painting, stretched between their extended arms. It hovers just above
the fist of the fallen soldier-the same figure that appeared in the Peøce Tower-and
the artists' hands, gripping the corners of the papeç echo its grasping clutch.
While the demonstration claims that the Vietnam war crime grimly reflecls Guer-
nicø's carnage, the poster's visual relationship to the painting is one of inversion rather
than syrnmetry. Picassos muted palette of gray shades emphasizes a shardlike frag-
mentation of the bodies, some of which hurl across the space to flee the destruction.
Its jumble of broken and upright figures stands in contrast to the full-color, yet üag-
icaþ inert, villagers depicted in the photograph. In addition to wielding their posters,
the protesters placed funeral wreaths under the painting, and f oyce l(ozloff sat down
on the ground, holding her eight-month-old baby in her arms; his live body was meant
 22 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

to vivify the dead children in the poster.22 In the wake of their disappointment at
MoMAs notco-sponsonngthe And Bøbiesposter, the AWC unsuccessfullypetitioned
Picasso to remove Guemicø from MoMA until the Vietnam War ended.23 This use of
the painting as both a metaphoric and a literal backdrop says much about the art work-
ers' strained relationship to the politics and aesthetics of the historic, modemist avant-
garde. The term øvønt-gørd.e, vtewed as antiquated and irrelevant, had largely fallen
into disrepute among U.S. leftist artists by the late r96os. Picasso's failure to heed
the art workers' boycott all but confirmed such a devaluation; as art historian Paul
Wood has observed, by ry7o the integrity and prestige associated with avant-garde
status had all but evaporated.2a
While conducting antiestablishment protests, the AWC also went through con-
ventional channels to secure its goals. ln ry69 it received a $r7ooo grant from the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the New York State Council of the Arts "for research
activities in order to establish Community Cultural Centers in eight black and Span-
ish speaking and poor sectors of greater New York."2s The grant was refused, yet
the irony of seeking Rockefeller money-associated with companies manufacturing
military munitions and with Gov. Rockefeller's prowar views-is striking. And this
recourse to such grant money was deemed unsavoÍy, as demonstrated by an AWC-
designed flyer featuring a hand-drawn, fake bill-"One Blood Dollar"-that substi-
tuted an image of Rockefeller in the place of George Washington (Fig. 7). "Not valid
for Black, Puerto Rican, or Female Artists," and'Al1 power to the museums!" read
its disclaimers; the bill is signed by Henry Geldzahler (curator at the Metropolitan
Museum) and Paley (chief of CBS and MoMA trustee). The collusion between state
and cultural power is summed up in this satire, and it illustrates the AWC's persist-
ent complaints about art museums: their exclusionary practices, their corporate affili
ations, and their elitist management. Although the "blood dollar" caricature is itself
part of a long lineage of older forms of activist art such as political cartooning, one
persistent claim of this book is that art workers' protest documents such as posters,
placards, and flyers were frequently in dialogue with their evolving aesthetic forms.
By r97r applying for Rockefeller's money was unthinkable, and museum boards
were further cast as the art worker's enemy. An AWC flyer issued in the wake of the
Attica prison riots of r97r, which ended with a bloody attack by the New York state
police, expressed the artists' anger: "we demand that the butcher of Attica resign as
a trustee from the Museum of Modern Art. It is a mockery that Rockefeller supports
the arts. It is intolerable that Rockefeller uses the art of the zoth century to gild his
prison." A poster for a demonstration was more succinct and pointed to the gov-

,
i
:

j
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS I 23

ûI¡I3r* sT:qrËS,{m
IåY TP Tl{T
slY t! !MÕ 'K¡¡?
t: l{g ú¡6 lS Éa 5*óWç
ii.
^3 aßrr ôlrtlrp€

rÊá{ñLc â*Tl*ag

FtcuRET ArtWorkers'Coalition,"OneBloodDollar,"ca. l9T0.Fakephotocopiedbill,offseton

paper, 6 x 21/z ln. lmage courtesy of the Lucy R. Lippard Papers, ca. 1 940-2006, Archives of
American A¡1, Smithsonian lnstilution.

ernor's power in both state policy and the museum: 'At Aüica and at the Modern,
Rockefeller calls the shots" (Plate 3). The black and white text is placed on a dark ground
splattered with bloody red bullet wounds. With its almost abstract-expressionist use
of paint, this poster mimics a gestural brush stroke to drive its point home. It seems
to ask: What better visual language than repurposed action painting is there to ad-
dress, and attack, MoMA, the very temple of such painting's sanctification?
Along with its anti-institutional and antiwar demonstrations, the AWC had a sig-
nificant proto-union component that should not be discounted: members voted to
form aunion on September 23, 197o.26 In lieu of support from museums or private
monies such as the Rockefellers, art workers were at a loss for how best to generate
the wages they agitated for. Their somewhat untenable ideas on this matter v/ere not
ì
lost on skeptical commentators. When the AWC demanded subsidies for universal
employrnent, Hilton Kramer queried, "From what untainted sources should the nec-
in
.-::

a:!, essary funds be drawnl The Federal Government, which is conducting the war
:::;
il Vietnaml"2T This quesiion had no satisfactory answer, though some looked seriously
to artists' guilds in countries such as Holland and Denmark as models. As art critic
and AWC member Alex Gross wrote, "lI may be that a free-wheeling undogmatic
artists' union of the type that has existed in Holland for the last z5 years may pro-
vide a few optimistic answers for the fulure."z8 Many complications accompanied this
union drive, not only because the underlying convictions of AWC were notoriously
heterogeneous, but also given the New Left's contentious, sometimes strained, rela-
tionship with union labor.
Further, the AWC emerged in a distinct political and economic climate: art work-
ers saw their organizing as countering the corrupt free-market capitalism of the
United States. The international artists' unions (which also existed inmany easteÍn
 24 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

European countries like Poland) that interested Gross, however, flourished in socialist
climates or under the aegis of state-funded arts programs that provided wages for
artists. Some members of the AWC at the time who called for unionizíngpoorly un-
derstood these structural differences, and it is doubtful that they would have been in-
terested in adhering to the recluirements that can come with such state support. Still,
others, such as Swenson, with his desire for the state to "wither away:' advocated for
the full-scale transformation of the United States toward such socialism. The for-
mation of a progressive artists' union seemed to many to potentiaþ herald-if not
actively catalyze-that change.
Paradoxically, it was primarily those artists who did not "work" in the conventional
sense-minimalists, whose work was made in factories; performance/action artists,
who did not make objects; and conceptualists, whose work was dematerialized and
did not evidence traditional skills-who gestured toward affiliation with blue-collar
workers. As my case studies demonstrate, this tension shadowed the identity of the
AWC throughout its history. Some in the coalition sought to align themselves with
union labor and demonstrated for arlist/worker solidarity-as in the March rB, t97o ,

protest supporting the postal workers' strike, which included GAAG co-founder Toche
and art critic Gross (Fig. 8).2e Toche, an emissary from the community of art work-
ers, holds a flyer that places the words "Support Postal Workers Strike" next to an im-
age of f. M. Flagg's r9r7 poster of Uncle Sam, shorn from its familiar context of mil-
itary recruitment. According to Toche, such a public protest was central to his larger
project to move the AWC away from its art world focus into the realm of "on the street"
labor politics; his invitation for the postal workers to join the art workers' museum
demonstrations, was not, however, reciprocated.3o
Toche's and Gross's show of support was somewhat unusual, as many art workers,
and U.S. leftists more geneÍally, were in the process of rethinking long-held ideas
about the revolutionary potential of workers. Influenced by thinkers like C. V/right
Mills and Herbert Marcuse, Tom Hayden's "Port Huron Statement" of 196z (a sem-
inal manifesto of the New Left) bemoans "indifferent" rank-and-file unionists and
the "quiescent labor movement."31 Both Mills and Marcuse urged the Left away from
its union roots; Marcuse, for his part, saw organized labor sharing "the same stabi-
Tizing, counterrevolutionary needs of the middle classes."32 The working class, se-
duced by what Marcuse termed "one-dimensional society," which "delivers the
goods, guns and butter, napalm and color TV," had turned into a conservative force
seeking to preserve its materialistic way of life.33 However, Marcuse was chastised
for his "crabby elitism' when it came to blue-collar labor; many labor historians in-
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKÊRS I 25

FIcURE a Jean Toche (left) and Alex

Gross (right) supporting the New York
postal worker strike, l\4arch 18, 1970.
Photograph @ Jan van Raay,

sisted thatworkers were not "one-dimensional" but "varied, dynamic, contradictory."3a

Hayden, like many in the New Left, recognized the importance of coalitions of stu-
dents and labor and saw great promise for reinvigorating the labor movement, par-
ticularly if it could become responsive to the needs of black workers.
Still, in i969 Carl Oglesby, then president of Students for a Democratic Society,
\¡/rote, "'You are nothing without *re workers,' advises a grand old revolutionary
warhorse who won the colors in the anti-fascist resistance . . . [, he] who cannot fathom
why his sons should now say, 'who precisely are theyl"'3s Who were the workersl
Oglesby answers his own question, saying, "The composition of the work force has
been significantly altered by the massive assimilation of industry and technology. Stu-
dents and workers are from now on one and the same. . . . The factory of the postin-
dustrial state is the multiversity. Students are now the working class."36 In fact, left-
ist art workers often turned to students as their models; in t97o Lawrence Alloway
noted that the AV/C was "in spirit closer to student protest than to earlier artists' com-
mitment to communism. "37 In resonance with this trend, some art workers distanced
themselves from blue-collar labor by embracing "deskilled' art or turning to schol-
arþ methods such as data gathering.
The AWC dissolved after less than three years, partly because of its inability to recog-
nize structural inequalities-including racism and sexism-in its own organization.
"By the endo[ r97r," wrote Lippard, "the AWC had died cluietly of exhaustion, back-
 26 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

lash, internal divisions . . . and neglect by the women, who had turned to our own
interests."38 Haacke further reflected back on the short-lived nature of the AWC,
proclaiming that the individualistic nature of Western art making was at odds with
collective organizing. He commented on the groups pronounced, and fatal, lack of
"coherence of ideas": "What one wants, the other objects to strenuously; e.g. one wants
to destroy museums, the other wants to reform them or to use the museums as they
are for his own artistic ends, and the third simplywants a piece of the pie."3e Haacke's

retrospective clarity about the conflicting nature of the AV/C with regard to privilege,
status, and access to power maps several of its major fault lines.
The AWC's significance extended beyond its short life span, as it brought together
a disparate group of artists to challenge the role of the institution and the autonomy
of art in a time of social crisis. It advocated for a host of causes, some of which have
persisted, including the artists' rights contract and the institution of museum free
days. (First started in February rg7o,rhe free daywas a direct result of the artwork-
ers' agitations.)aO In addition, the AWC validated artists', critics', and curators' claim
to the label worker; in doing so, it provided momentum for the drive to unionize mu-
seum staff.al In t97r the MoMA staff voted to form the Professional and Adminis-
trative Staff Association (PASTA), redirecting some of I}re organizational energies
that were waning within the AWC. However, as Andrea Fraser has noted, if the AWC
helped clarify these art workers' need for a union, it also signaled the beginning of
a new trend toward the professionalization of art.42

Art versus Work

How is the making of a sculpture any difÏerent from the making of some other kind
of commodityl At the heart of this question lie several critical issues: the division of
labor under capitalism, the importance of skil1 or technë , the psychic rewards of mak-
ing, the weight of aesthetic judgments, and the perpetually unfixed nature of the
artist's professional status since roughly the fifteenth century. The history of West-
ern art is marked by the unstable distinction between artistic, "creative" production
and the economics of "true" labor. The social value of making art has been in flux
since the Renaissance, when the "aurhor" of a work as a concept was born. The tran-
sition of art making from a mere mam.ral occupation to an inspired vocation has been
the subject of much literature, including Michael Baxandall's key work on the sepa-
ration of art from craft in the Renaissance and artists' assumption of a specialized
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS I 27

class position.a3 Objects such as paintings were no longer the products of anonymous

craftsmen but the singular creations of named individuals, and artists' earnings be-
gan to rise along with their status.
In the r96os art workers theorized how modes of human making are afÏected by
specific economic strictures, the aestheticizalon of experience, and the production
of sensibilities.aa What makes the coherence of the phrase ørt worker challenging-
even oxymoronic-is that under capitalism art also functions as the "outside," or other,

to labor: a nonutilitarian, nonproductive activity against which mundane work is

defined, a leisure-time pursuit of selÊexpression, or a utopian alternative to the dead-
ening effects of capitalism. While his writings on the matter vary over time and are
by no means unified, Karl Marx's contributions to this subject have been among the
most influential.4s He makes many explicit connections between artistic making and
labor, writing, for instance, 'A writer is a productive laborer in so far as he produces
ideas, but in so far as he enriches the publisher who publishes his works, he is a wage-
laborer for the capita1ist."46 Because of the erosion of patronage models, the artist is
ofren nnore subjected to the tastes of the market and its deadening effects than other
wage laborers are. This casts art not as "play" or nonwork but as another part of the
capitalist division of labor. Yet Marx holds out the hope for expression or production
beyond the market that might be unalienated, if sti1l recluiring skill: "Really free la-
bor, the composing of music for example, is at the same time damned serious and
demands the greatest efîort."a7
Drawing on Mart's theoretical work, and prompted by a desire to make art legiQ
mate, necessary, and meaningful, artists in the late nineteenth and earþ twentieth cen-
turies tried to erode the distinction between art and labor by insisting that their ac-
tions, and the products of those actions, were indeed work. These efforts were often
specificaþ socialist, even as their products ranged from high-priced luxury goods (as
in the utopian craftsmanship model ofWilliam Morris) to laboratory experiments and
functional design (as in the productivist art undertaken in the wake of the r9r7 Rus-
sian Revolution).a8 The Mexican muralists of the rgzos identified themselves as work-
ers, founding the Revolutionary Union of Technical V/orkers, Painters, and Sculptors
in tgzz and attempting to create new iconographies that would be legible to the work-

ing class.ae (ln contrast to the muralists' depictions of greedy industrialists and heroic
laborers, however, the art workers of the late r96os and early ry7os did not, by and ,

large, take a populist stance or insist that their art itself was "for the workers.")
In the rgzos and r93os in the United States, artists formed revolutionary cultural
organizalions in attempts to "forge links between them and the proletariat," as An-
 28 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

FtGURE 9 Artists' Union

Rally, ca. 1935, Left to
right: Edward "Deyo"
Jacobs, WìnÌfred Millus,
and Hugh Miller.
Photograph by lrving
lvlaranlz. Courtesy of the
Gerald Monroe research
material on Works
Progress Administration,
American Artists'
Congress, and Artists'
Union, ca.1930-71,
Archives of American Art,
Smithsonian lnstitulion.

drew Hemingway has phrased it.so Hemingway's nuanced account provides docu-
mentation of the ideological, economic, and social factors that led to the formation
of the Artists' Union in
ry33. Having taken part in the state-funded proiects of the
Works Progress Administration, the artists in the Artists' Union were literally wage
laborers, and on that ground they agitated for workers' rights and demanded better
pay (Fig. 9). "Every artist an organizedartist," proclaimed the posters at a 1935 rally,
featuring their signature logo in which an upraised fist wielding a paintbrush is rem-
iniscent of the Soviet hammer and sickle. The Artists' Union produced a newsletter

$he Art Front),went on strike, and organizedthemselves like the

industrial unions
that were increasingly influential. In 1938 they voted to affiliate with the CIO. The
New York branch was especially militant' demanding emplo¡zment of all artists by
the federal goveïnment. Taking their cues from the sit-down strikes and picket lines
in the Midwest, the New York Artists' Union held violent demonstrations to protest
the steady dismantling of WPA funding by the local administrator, Colonel Brehon
Somervell, who "had a profound conviction that to create 'pictules' was not 'work."'sl
Artists in the late r96os and earþ r97os-working under distinctly different eco-
nomic conditions-looked back to the r93os as the moment of the most aldent cham-
pioning of art and/as lal¡or in the U.S. context. Robert Morris recollects a widespread
interest in the Artists' Unions organizingefforts, citing Francis O'Connor's recently
publishedbo okFederøl SupportfortheVisuøl Arts:TheNew Deølønd.Now (1969), which
was circulated in the AWC.52 O'Connor used this study io make recommendations
 FROM ARTISTS TO AHT WORKERS I 29

to the National Endowment for the Arts regarding federal funding: lauding the WPA,
the report promoted state support for the arts and countered the prevailing wisdom
that such a system would necessarily impose formal restrictions on artists. Ëncour-
aged by these findings, some AWC artists supported a wage system for artists, even
as the artists proved difEcult to organize in any systematic way. As Lippard admit-
ted, 'Advocates of a tighter structure, of a real dues-paying union, have reason but
not reality on their side."s3 Some art workers worried that governmental oversight
would rob aesthetic production of its transgressive status. While admiring the Artists'
Union for its solidarity and collective energy, fim Hurrell, in an article for lhe Art-
workers Nswsletter entitled "What Happened to the Artist's Union of the r93osl" de-
clared that the New Deal state's "sterile prerequisites" had defanged the artsa (even
though, in fact, the V/PA artists experienced some degree of artistic freedom in their
projects). Few artists in the r96os and r97os wanted to return to making social re-
alist works under the auspices of the state; instead they sought new forms of oppo-
sitional art that were in concert with, yet not subsumed under, their politics.
One of the legacies of Marx's thought is his assertion that art is a mode of skiiled I

production- a{orm of work-much like any other and as such is open to categories
of anaþsis that attend to its production, distribution, and consumption. Within this i

rubric even purpoftedly "autonomous" abstraction practiced by arlists of the r94os

and r95os came under scrutiny by the art workers. As early as r965, Barbara Rose
'War."ss
stated that "art as a form of free expression is seen as a weapon in the Cold
The Left, haunted by the specter of Stalinism, had seen abstraction as one way out
of doctrinaire socialist realism. By the earþ r97os, however, in no small part because
of the efforts of Max l(ozloff, an AWC member, artists had become acutely aware of
how avant-garde art in the United States had been made to serve state power abroad.sG
According to these accounts, abstract expressionist artists, who, for some, embodied
the romantic ideal of working free from the pressures of the market, had, however
unwittingly, been marketed and sold as part of an ideological program in which the
American government trumpeted artists' freedom to create works seemingly unre-
lated to politics, in distinction to Soviet socialist realism. The Cold War era's volatile
entanglements of abstract form, ideology, and politics cast a lingering shadow on
artists in the late r96os, and some pursued "difficult" artistic practices that were con-
sciously removed from "expression." As witnesses to the morphing of culture into
what Theodor Adorno termed "the culture industr¡" art workers understood how
their efforts could become caught up in regimes of commodification as well as in the
larger machine of the military-industrial complex.sT In the face of this instrumen-
 3O I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

talization, some sought to assert art's "unsaleability and functionlessness," to quote

Rose's assessment of the radical promise of minimal art, while at the same time or-
ganizingas workers Io puzzle through their shared role in protest culture.ss
Thus the Vietnam War-era generation of leftist artists was influenced by numerous
factors, including a rejection of previous forms of artistic labor within the United
States. They were also aware-if unevenly-of contemporary international devel-

opments, notleastthe climate of radicalism of May i968. As Guy Debordwrote about

the Situationist International: 'An international association of Situationists can be
seen as a union of workers in an advanced sector of culture, or more precisely as a

union of all those who claim the right to a task now impeded by social conditions;

hence as an attempt atar-organization of professional revolutionaries in culture."se

Debord drew upon Marxs conceptions of how art is itself productive, for he under-
stood aesthetics as formative to the education of the senses-art, that is, helps create
In fact, relatively recent translations of relevant texts by Marx em-
social subjects.
phasized the psychic effects of alienated labor, selÊestrangement, and negation-
useful concepts to apply to the psychologicaþ dense act of producing art.60 One writer
in ry73 provides a summary of Marx's notions that circulated at the
time: "The sim-
ilarity between aït and labor lies in their shared relationship to the human essence;
that is, they are both creative activities by means of which man produces objects that
express him, that speak for and about him. Therefore, there is no radical opposition
between art and work."61 Art workers took this sentiment as a raþing point.

l
,[-Àr T. f . Clark noted in ry73,wilhinthe fine arts, "for many reasons, there aÍe veïy
' few images of work."62 In the late rg6os and early r97os, representations of work
were politicaþ interesting to art historians like Clark. More to the point, the ques-
tion of how artistic making might be understood as a category of labor was, when
Clark was writing in the early rg7os,just beginning to be thought through with rigor
via the new field of social art history.63 Much of the art examined in this book does
not provide easy visual proof that the artist "works" and is instead somewhat resist-
ant to such imaging, either because the labor in question is performed by other hands
or because it is primarily mental. In the late r96os and earþ I97os, that is, many la-
boring artistic bodies were displaced: they yielded to the body of the viewer or to the
body of the installer, or they were somewhat eflaced in a move toward intellectual
work.
In the r96os and earþ rg7os, the publication of English editions of texts by An-
tonio Gramsci, the influence of Debord, the importation of Frankfurt School writers
such as Adorno and Marcuse, and the appealance of contemporary writings by Louis
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS I 31

Althusser (both in French and in translation) also drove a reevaluation of how art and
labor might be considered together.6a Marcuse in particular exerted considerable in-
fluence on art workers. In his early writings, he fostered a utopian conception of how
work might function. He believed that once erotic energies were no longer sublimated,
work would be transformed into play, and play itself would be productive: "If work
wefe accompanied by a reactivation of pre-genital polymorphous eroticism, it would
tend to become gratifying in itself without losing rts work content."6s Moreover, in
the late r96os Marcuse turned his attention to artistic making and often explicitly
connected it to his ideas about work. In books such as An Essøy on Liberøtion and
Counterrevolution ønd. Rwolt,he sawthe merging of art andwork as the ultimate airn f
--J
of any revolution.66
The class mobility conferred on artists makes for a complex story, and aftists'
identification with, dependency on, and estrangement from the bourgeoisie are long-
standing issues-for Renaissance art historians as well as for theorists of modern
art. The artist's ambiguous class position raises a series of questions about both art
and work: How can art be a profession if there is no employerl To count as "work,"
need the effort involved be paidl Need it be, as Harry Braverman defined irinry74,
"intelligent and purposive" 16z What, then, does this mean for artists whose work goes,
intentionaþ oÍ not, unseen or unsoldl Or is work simply, as Studs Terkel put it in
rgTz, "whatpeople do all day"l68 Is "work" an activit¡ or is it a spatial designation,
a place or sitel And how does the art itself function-how does it produce meanings,

representations, and social relations? What mode of production is art making, and
how does it mediate between the political economy of exchanged goods and, to use
fean Baudrillardh phrase, the "political economy of the sign'?6e That is, how does art,
as an object and a system of signification, cifculate as both commodity and signl
Precisely these questions were at stake for artists in the r96os and r97os, along
with others: How might aft operate in and upon the public sphere, and how might
it serve as a kind of political activityl What was new about the conception of the art
worker was not only the turn away from an explicitþ unified aesthetic but also the
art workers' almost single-minded focus on the art museum as their primary anlag-
onist. Because artists in this period did not receive wages from a socialized state or
a government pfogfam in any systematic way, they viewed the museum as the pri
mary gatekeeper of power, prestige, and value.
By calling themselves artworkers,artists in the late r96os meant to move away from
taints of amateurism (or unproductive play) and to place themselves in the larger
arena of political activity. This is the connotation summoned by the British political
 32 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

theorist Carole Pateman in the definition of work she offers in her r97o book Pør-
ticipøtion ønd Democrøtic Theory:

By "work" we mean not just the activity that provides for most people the major deter-
minant of their status in the world, or the occupation that the individual follows full time
and that provides him with his livelihood, but we refer also to activities that are carried
on in co-operation with others, that are "public" and intimateþ related to the wider so-
ciety and its (economic) needs; thus we refer to activities that, potentially, involve the
individual in decisions about collective affairs, the affairs of the enterprise and of the
community, in a way that leisure-time activities usually do not.70

Art is often understood as an essentially solitar¡ individual act, but Pateman's term
provides one way to configure a broader terminology for artistic identity; it also sug-
gests that "leisure-time activities" are usually-but not always-opposed to art. Pate-
man's definition of work is useful, especially as it encompasses questions of the pub-
lic and of the collective.
Whlleløbor andwork, as near-synonyms, are used somewhat interchangeably, it is
important to recognize that they are not exact equivalents. Instructive evidence of the
distinctions between the terms that operated in the late r96os and earþ r97os can
be found in mainstream and scholarþ texts on employment, trends in the worþlace,
managerial styles, and human production, from sociological studies, government re-
ports, and congressional testimonies to trade paperbacks and business handbooks.
In these terts work and løbor are by no means transposable . Work re[ers to jobs and
occupations in the broadest sense; Iøbor designates organized labor or union politics.
Two books from the era illustrate the poinL one, Work in Americø, is a governmen-
tal report assessing employrnent trends, productivity, and worker satisfaction; the
oIheL Løbor in Americø, brings together conference papers proclaiming the urgency
of unionization and the possibilities of raising class consciousness.Tl
As Raymond V/illiam notes, work stands in for general doing or making, as well
as all forms of paid employment, while løboris more explicitly affiliated with the or-
ganizalionof employrnent under capitalism. As "a term for a commodity and a class,"
løbor denotes both the aggregate body of workers as a unit and "the economic ab-
straction of an activity."T2 Williams further comments on the slightly outmoded and
highly specialized nature of labor; the phrase ørt worker, meant to signal class affili
ations even as those afEliations were frequentþ disavowed, thus activated a much
wider sphere of activity th an ørt\øborer and was used to encompass current concerns
such as process and fabrication.
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS I 33

U.S. Labor in the Late 1960s and Early l97Os

Artists were developing into art workers within a specific historical context. The late
r96os and earþ r97os witnessed widespread uncertainty about the value of work in
an emerging information-based economy, including feminist calls for pay equity and
an intensification of strikes unprecedented since the r93os. The very definitions of
work and løbor in the Vietnam War era were undergoing massive shifts that called
their contours relentlessly into question . Løborwasbeing stretched to encompass more
and more territory (as feminists defined household chores as work, and new cate-
gories of laborers organized, such as Chicano farmworkers). Bythe late r96os, more-
over, attitudes toward work were changing as many young people dismissed, scorned,
and otherwise devalued regular wage labor.73
More substantive changes being wrought in global and national economies forced
a reevaluation of what it meant to work, what work should look like, and who counted
as a worker. From 196z ro 1969, real wages (after taxes and adjusted for inflation)
dropped significantly.Ta In addition, work became increasingly hard to find, as rising
inflation due to the cost of the war swelled unemployment rates, especially among
blacks in urban areas.'Work in the United States is marked by stark gender and race
inequalities. The unemployment rate in the mid-r96os for blacks was double that of
whites; education levels were also lower, and proportionally twice as many blacks
worked in low-paying manual or service jobs.
Nationally, agitation against labor conditions reached a boiling point at this time.
In t97z General Motors workers in Lordstown, Ohio, went on strike for twenty-two
days, not to protest low wages or increase benefits, but to insist that working in fac-
tories was fundamentally inhumane. The workers objected to the punishing pace of
the assembly line, GM's push for "industrial speed-up," and the constant monitor-
ing and regimentation that characterized the Taylorized shop floor. In other words,
they rebelled against industrial work itself. As Gary Bryner, the Lordstown union
president said in 1972, "There are symptoms of the alienated worker in our plant.
The absentee rate, as you said, has gone continually higher. Turnover rate is enor-
mous. . . . [The worker] has become alienated to the point where he casts off the lead-
ership of his union, his Government. He is disassociated with the whole establish-
ment. That is going to lead to chaos."7s The alarmist tone suggests that alienation at
work undermines a worker's obedience not only to factory manaqers and union lead-
ers but also to the state, leading to an unraveling of society. Bryner was careful to
note that this alienation stemmed from the systemic problem with factories and un-
 34 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

just conditions of labor rather than from individual workers' declining work ethic.
Discontent in the worþlace led to a great wave of strikes known as the Vietnam
War-era "Labor Revolt."76 Strike activity reached a peak unseen since the r94os,
climaxing in a dramatic number of shutdowns from rgTo to rgTz.Labor historians
have traced this wave of strikes to low wages and to "a widespread increase in strike-
proneness" as a more restless workforce became more willing to engage in extreme
actions.TT
Even outside organized labor, dissatisfaction with work was palpable enough to
prompt a Senate subcommittee hearing in r97z dedicated to the perceived crisis of
"worker alienation."Ts This remarkable deployment of the Marxist concept of alien-
ation within official U.S. governmental discourse demonstrates how widespread the
crisis-the threat the union leader called
language of alienation was at this time. The
a brewing "chaos"-seemed all the more dangerous as it sent ripples out beyond the

circle of unionized labor. Large numbers of students went on strike to protest the
Vietnam V/ar, and groups like the Chicano Moratorium demanded an end to work
as usual. The strike and its cousin the moratorium extended the focus of protest from
working conditions to demand nothing less than the withdrawal of citizens from the
nation. As Marcuse said in t97z, "In spreading wildcat strikes, in the militant strat-
egy of factory occupations, in the attitude and demands of young workers, the protest
reveals a rebellion ag ainstlhe whole of workingconditions imposed, against Ihe whole
performance to which one is condemned" (italics in original).7e
No longer did industrialization promise an end to the worker's miser¡ as some
had proclaimed in the immediate post-World War II era. The days of cheeriþ opti-
mistic tracts such as Industríølism ønd, Industriøl Møn $96o1, which predicted that
technology would lead to less work and more leisure for virtually the entire work-
force, had passed.8o By the mid-r96os pessimism began to set in; with real wages de-
clining and unemployment rates ballooning, it was commonplace to assert that as

technology took over, alienation in the workplace crept in. Books like Bertell Ollman s

Alienøtíon: Fundørnentøl Problen'ts of Mørxisn'r. (t97\ and István Mészáros's Mørx'sThe-

ory of Alienøtion $97o) sharpened an interest in alienation as the cenlral problem of
capitalism.sl
It is not overstating the case to suggest that the popular attitude toward work in
this decade was summed up in the very first sentence of Terkel's best-selling oral
history of ry72, Working: PeopleTølk øboutWhøtThey Do All Døy ønd How They Feel
øbout Whøt They Do: "This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS I 35

violence-to the spirit as well as the body."82 Terkel took this bleak assumption as

his starting point; in the United States in 1972, work was violence. The explicit con-
nection lretween work and violence was also made in rgTzwhen members of a spe-
cial task force, formed by Nixon s secretary of health, education, and welfare, decried
the degradation of work in America because of industrial manufacturing processes,
the numbing eflects of the division of labor under Täylorism, and the exclusion of
both blue- and white-collar workers from decision making: "significant numbers
of American workers are dissatisfied with the quality of their working lives. Dull,
repetitive, seemingly meaningless tasks, offering little challenge or autonomy, are
causing discontent among workers. . . . As a result, the productivity of the worker
is low-as measured by absenteeism, turnover rates, wildcat strikes, sabotage, poor-
quality products, and a reluctance by workers to commit themselves to their work
tasks."83
Even white-collar workers felt the toll of Taylorism as dissatisfaction permeated
all levels of employment. To cite the govelnment task forcek report: "The office to-
day, where the work is segmented and authoritarian, is often a factory. For a grow-
ing number of jobs, there is little to distinguish them but the color of the worker's
collar: computer keypunch operations and typing pools share much in common with
the automobile assembly line."8a The report notes that the line between blue- and
white-co1lar workers was polous, a comment that suggests the possibility of an un-
expected alliance between different sectors of workers if they recognized their com-
mon oppression. The resistance to current conditions of work was waged on multi
ple fronts, from organized la.bor to the women's movement, which, inflected by
socialist theories, analyzed the gendering of labor and promoted nothing less than
of everyday life. For example, feminists redefined household
a total restructuïing
chores as work-possibly remunerative-and advocated for equal pay for women in
the workforce.ss
At the bodily rather than the psychic level, workplace dangers were being exposed
by Ralph Nader, who reported that in ry68 "a total of r4,Joo people died in indus-
trial accidents in our country-almost exactþ the same as the number of American
servicemen who died in Vietnam that year."86 Because the working class was dis-
proportionately fighting in the Vietnam War, the parallel with the wartime body count
is notable.sT These juxtaposed statistics signaled that working-class bodies were be-
ing treated as expendable, whether they were crushed on the factory floor or gunned
down in Southeast Asia.
 36 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

Postindustrial Professionalization

fust as artists increasingly embraced manufactured objects as part of their work

process, such manufacturing was being broadly reconfigured. In addition to being
framed by the Vietnam War, the late 196os and early r97os initiated economic and
cultural changes known in shorthand as postindustrialism.s8 In this time, the com-
position, tenor, and manufacturing base of work in the United States shifted mea-
surably, as did the international economy. Hallmarks of the changing order include
a growing emphasis on technological information and knowledge, the decline of
skilled manufacturing jobs, and a transition away from a goods-producing economy
to a service economy. This break was noted at the time in texts such as Alain Touraine's
Post-industríøl Society, Tornorrow's Socíøl History (rg6g) and Daniel Belts Corning of
P o st -in du striøIi srn $ 97 3\ .8e

Furthermore, the postindustrial society is characterizedby an increasingly com-

plex interweaving of the economic and the cultural. That is, the postindustrial is con-
nected with the postmodern (as a culturally dominant style, a mode of capitalism,
and a historical period). Art historians have suggested that the r96os, in its artistic
and political ruptures, represented, as Ha1 Foster has written, "a paradigm shift to-
wards postmodernist practices."e0 The economic, social, and political crises of the
late r96os and earþ r97os were loosely bracketed, in the U.S. context, by the Viet-
nam'War; indeed, Fredric |ameson called Vietnam the "first terrible postmodernist
war."el At the threshold of this new economic order, and in a time of political tur-
moil, work-and art-was both ruthlessly redefined and reorganized. In other
words, there was a complex interface between the war, postmodern forms, and postin-
dustrial labor conditions.
This turn to postindustrial labor generated further class arxieties for artists. Art work-
ers understood themselves to be a marginal population, underpaid and undervalued-
especiaþ if they did not make marketable art. Sometimes, instead of identifying them-
selves as the downtrodden proletariat, they turned to racial metaphors. Andre in 1976
referred to his position in relation to the museum as "slave practice."e2 This state-
ment is shocking, as artists have privileges, choices, and opportunities that slaves do
not; such claims of righteous victimhood and powerlessness verged on the ludicrous.
The New York artistic Left was fraught with problematic exclusions with regard to
race even as it espoused and attempted inclusiveness. Black artists such as Lloyd,
Ringgold, Art Coppedge, and Benny Andrews, as active members of the AWC, made
highly visible, widely supported demands for racial ecluity in museum exhibitions;
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS I 37

it was one of the primary planks of the AWC's thirteen demands. But comments about
the "enslaved' staírs of artists indicate that the cross-racial solidarity claimed by the
AWC could itself be laced with racism. Ringgold, who was arrested along with GAAG
founders Hendricks and Toche for her participation in the antiwar FIøg Show al
fudson Church in t97o,later recalled the impressively quick integration of race-
related issues into the AWC's platform but also denounced the Art Strike of r97o as
a platform for "superstar white artists."e3 Likewise, black scholar Michele V/allace
(Ringgolds daughter) recounts that the Art Strike was her mother's most visible en-
counter with the racism of the art world.ea Dissatisfied with the lack of attention to
racial inequities among art workers, she and Ringgold defected from the AWC and
formed a splinter group, Women Students and Artists for Black Artists' Liberation
(wSABAL).
Art workers' dubious connections with "slaves"-and with the conventional work-
ing class-were made all the more pronounced by the inauguration at this time of
an unprecedented boom market for arf. Thomas Crow writes of this paradox: "It will
emerge that the story of art within the new politics of the r96os is one of consider-
able ambivalence, as artists attempted to reconcile their stance of opposition with in-
creasing suppoft for their activities in a new and aggressive global marketplace."es
Artists were supported by patrons and institutions as never before, giving them in-
creased opportunities to receive grants, sell their works, and garner press attention.
Harold Rosenberg commented in ry67 that minimalism "reflects the new situation
of art as an activity that, having left the rebellious semi-underworld of bohemia, has
become a profession taught at universities, supported by the public, discussed in the
press, and encouraged by the government."e6
In other words, in the r96os occupational prestige for artists increased greatþ One
factor in this, as Howard Singerman has documented in his Aø Subjects: Møking Afüsts
in lhe Arnerícøn \Jniversity, was the large number of artists receiving formal training
in universities, which legitimized art making as a field of study and emphasized artists'
"employable" skills.eT Brian Wallis posits that another factor in this professionaliza-
tion was the formation,inry65, of the National Endowment for the Arts, which ac-

tively encouraged artists to "market" themselves and offered seminars on "the busi-
ness of being an artist."es The NEA began granting awards to individual artists in
ry67 and quickly became a source of income; included on the list of NEA grant recip-
ients from r9 67 andr968 were Andre, |o Baer, Dan Flavin, Robert Huot, and Morris.ee
In the late r96os and earþ rg7os, new marketing tools aimed at young artists-
for example, a series of workshops run by the management consultant Calvin f. Good-
 36 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

Postindustrial Professionalization

fust as artists increasingly embraced manufactured objects as part of their work

process, such manufacturing was being broadly reconfigured. In addition to being
framed by the Vietnam War, the late 196os and early r97os initiated economic and
cultural changes known in shorthand as postindustrialism.ss In this time, the com-
position, tenor, and manufacturing base of work in the United States shifted mea-
surably, as did the international economy. Hallmarks of the changing order include
a growing emphasis on technological information and knowledge, the decline of
skilled manufacturing jobs, and a transition away from a goods-producing economy
to a service economy. This break was noted at the time in texts such as Alain Touraine's
Post-industríøI Society, Tornorrow's Sociøl History (tq6g) and Daniel Be71's Coming of
P o st -in du striøli srn (t 9y) .8e

Furthermore, the postindustrial society is characterizedby an increasingly com-

plex interweaving of the economic and the cultural. That is, the postindustrial is con-
nected with the postmodern (as a culturally dominant style, a mode of capitalism,
and a historical period). Art historians have suggested that the r96os, in its artistic
and political ruptures, represented, as Hal Foster has written, "a paradigm shift to-
wards postmodernist practices."eo The economic, social, and political crises of the
late r96os and early r97os were loosely bracketed, in the U.S. context, by the Viet-
nam War; indeed, Fredric |ameson called Vietnam the "first terrible postmodernist
war."el At the threshold of this new economic order, and in a time of political tur-
moi1, work-and art-was both ruthlessly redefined and reorganized. In other
words, there was a complex interface between the war, postmodern forms, and postin-
dustrial labor conditions.
This tum to postindustrial labor generated further dass anxieties for artists. Art work-
ers understood themselves to be a marginal population, underpaidandundervalued-
especiaþ if they did not make marketable art. Sometimes, instead of identifying them-
selves as the downtrodden proletariat, they turned to racial metaphors. Andre in 1976

referred to his position in relation to the museum as "slave practice."e2 This state-
ment is shocking, as artists have privileges, choices, and opportunities that slaves do
not; such claims of righteous victimhood and powerlessness verged on the ludicrous.
The New York artistic Left was fraught with problematic exclusions with regard to
race even as it espoused and attempted inclusiveness. Black artists such as Lloyd,
Ringgold, Art Coppedge, and Benny Andrews, as active members of the AWC, made
highly visible, wiclely supported demands for racial equity in museum exhibitions;
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS I 37

it was one of the primary planks of the AWC's thirteen demands. But comments about
the "enslaved" status of artists indicate that the cross-racial solidarity claimed by the
AWC could itself be laced with racism. Ringgold, who was arested along with GAAG
founders Hendricks and Toche for her participation in the antiwar Fløg Show ar
fudson Church ín tgTo,later recalled the impressively quick integration of race-
related issues into the AWC's platform but also denounced the Art Strike of r97o as
a platform for "superstar white artists."e3 Likewise, black scholar Michele Wallace
(Ringgold's daughter) recounts that the Art Strike was her mother's most visible en-
counter with the racism of the art world.ea Dissatisfied with the lack of attention to
racial inequities among art workers, she and Ringgold defected from the AWC and
formed a splinter group, Women Students and Artists for Black Artists' Liberation
(wsABAL).
Art workers' dubious connections with "slaves"-and with the conventional work-
ing class-were made all the more pronounced by the inauguration at this time of
an unprecedented boom market for art. Thomas Crow writes of this paradox: "It will
emerge that the story of art within the new politics of the r96os is one of consider-
able ambivalence, as artists attempted to reconcile their stance of opposition with in-
creasing support for their activities in a new and aggressive global marketplace."es
Artists weïe supported by patrons and institutions as never before, giving them in-
creased opportunities to receive grants, sell their works, and garner press attention.
Harold Rosenberg commented inry67 that minimalism "reflects the new situation
of art as an activity that, having left the rebellious semi-underworld of bohemia, has
become a profession taught at universities, supported by the public, discussed in the
press, and encouraged by the government."e6
In other words, in the r96os occupational prestige for artists increased greatly. One
factor in this, as Howard Singerman has documented in his Ar¿ Subjects: Møking Afüsts
in the Arnericøn university, was the large number of artists receiving formal training
in universities, which legitimized art making as a field of study and emphasized artists'
"employable" skills.eT Brian Wallis posits that another factor in this professionaliza-
tion was the formation, in 1965, of the National Endowment for the Arts, which ac-

tively encouraged artists to "market" themselves and offered seminars on "the busi-
ness of being an artist."es The NEA began granting awards to individual artists in
ry67 andqrÀcþbecame a source of income; included onthelist of NEA grantrecip-
ients from ry67 andry68 were Andre, fo Baer, Dan Flavin, Robert Huot, and Morris.ee
In the late r96os and early r97os, new marketing tools aimed at young artists-
for example, a series of workshops run by the management consultant Calvin |. Good-
 38 I FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

man, "The Artist's Own Business" (Fig. ro)-promised to teach artists and dealers
how to "develop new markets, improve their pricing policies, and earn more income
through increased art sales." One seminar addressed "the artist as an independent
businessman." The cover of Goodman's promotional brochure makes his agenda
clear: on it a tube of Grumbacher oil paint sclueezes out a dollar sign. Similarþ how
to books like The Artist's Guid.eto His Mørket,published in I97o, suggested that artists
approach banks and furniture stores and ofier to show their work in lobbies and show-
rooms.100 (Unsurprisingl¡ the title reads "his markel"-feminist artists were seek-
ing alternatives to a gallery system that mostly excluded them.)
ln ry67 Rosenberg commented that "instead of being . . . an act of rebellion, de-
spair or selÊindulgence, art is being normalized as a professional activity within so-
ciety."101 Diana Crane, in her quantitative account of the explosion of the New York

art world from t94o to 1985, tracks broadening governmental, corporate, and foun-
dation support, as well as growing numbers of individual patrons who were buying
larger numbers of artworks. Galleries and dealers were turning bigger profits, and
coïporate art collections expanded at an astounding rate, from sixteen founded in
rg4o-59 to nearly eighty estal¡lished in ry6o-79.102 Using Bureau of the Census
statistics, Crane also indicates how the ranks of those who identified themselves as "work-
ing artists" swelled considerably (ín ry7o that number was six hundred thousand).1o3
ThenumberofartdealersinNewYorkmorethandoubledbetween196r andt97o.10a
Simultaneous with the NEAs boosterism and the explosion of corporate support
for arI, reports appeared that forecast the end of the gallery system, the collapse of
the art market, and the dire economic position of artists. One 1969 report called "The
Economic Crisis in the Arts" reported a "glum outlook" for the arts, saying that de-
spite the "myth of a cultural boorn' the situation was bleak.10s An article in the Søt'

urd.øy ReviewinrgTo admitted that despite the much-lauded increase in arts patronage
artists still scrambled for money, lived in poor conditions, and had scant resources.106
It cited a ïeport issued by the MacDowell Colony that found that only one in ten
painters or sculptors "was able to support himself and his family on what he earned
from sales of his work."107 Lippard finds even that small fraction inflated-'Almost
nobody could pay rent from As Gross wrote in r97o: "V/e are on the l¡rink of
"11."108
a genuine state and national emergency situation in the arts' . . . An emergency will
have to be declared in Washington and Albany within the next six months if the art
world is to survive in any form at all and if thousands of artists are to escape evic-
tion, starvation, or the total annihilation of their profession."lOe
It is hard to get a handle on these competing claims-the art market is booming
 FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS I 39

gac leebee
th*rb ¡n sürbr ¡dh,r
sdîlãllt d.r¡Fd loÌ t'.

lhFôr. dì.ir t&i'{ !.ú.ist

¡nd sn rnô* ;¡àh. !&m¡*[ ilffid !il

;,trÉ":
o.ú{'tt

crls
r*'d* Gah'in J. Goodrnan
ll.rqÈDel ûr!úd lù tk &r

N.lroúqf Odrlx.9
&k¡¡l Odolcr ¡ô
tiqô tur'hr l3
hlld.i¡[¡! Mnn{r t

FtcuRE r o "The Artist's Own

Business," brochure for a seminar
led by Calvin J. Goodman, 1971 .

Courtesy Calvin J. Goodman and

rar f!ilh* inlôieNio,,od Rlvitìêoi ¡l.nc (?¡ji 47ó.rð2!
Gee Tee Bee.

but most artists are starving-but this contradiction is exactþ the point. The art mar-
ket was (and still is) predicated on a "star systern'that elevates only a small number
of individuals. Most others struggle to pay the rent, take up adjunct teaching posi-
tions, or work day jobs. By the mid-r96os some artists were acknowledged profes-
sionals making decent livings, but nonetheless many felt themselves to be disen-
franchised workers who demanded greater control over their working conditions. The
rising number of educated artists, it could be argued, raised artists' sense of the value
of their artistic labor. Art workers' unionizing efforts ignited precisely when market
forces legitimized arlists' desire for status and money.
Although the AWC and the Art Strike as organizarions effloresced and quickly
folded, their legacies-including a complex investment in art as work-endure. The
reimagining of artistic labor dramatically altered how art was made and circulated
in the United States, as well as how its forms and aesthetics were theorized. Con-
ceptions of artists as workers were not monolithic and were often unpredictably de-
ployed, as the case studies that follow demonstrate. But the major redefinition of artis-
tic identity vis-à-vis class, protest politics, and the art institution was unprecedented
in the United States.
 Garl Andre's Work Ethic

Bricklaying

"V/hat a load of. . . art work, BoU' (Fig. rr). This photograph ofbricklayer Bob Breed
leaning against a chest-high stack of bricks appeared in a British newspaper inry76.
It made pointed reference to the controversy sparked by the Tate Gallery's purchase
of Carl Andre's Equivølent VIII-a arrangement of rzo firebricks stacked two high,
six wide, and ten deep in a rectangular solid on the ground (Fig. rz). The caption de-
clared that the Täte's purchase had upgraded Breed's quick stacking-it reportedly
tookthe bricklayer all of five minutes-to the status of avaluable "masterpiece." This
humorous news item from the Luton Evening Post was only one of hundreds of arti-
cles, irate letters to the editor, cartoons, and sarcastic caricatures produced when it
was revealed in early ry76 thatthe Tate had used public funds to purchase Andre's
low stack of bricks.l So great was the uproar about this purchase thal Equivølent VIil
quickly became "the most derided work of art ever shown' in England.2
The Evening Posf's joke, of course, is that for the photographs presumed audience,
Equivølent VIII (first version 1966, remade in 1969) is essentially valueless and that
to call it art is nothing but a load of crap (the implied word after the ellipses). The
suggestion that bricklaying and art mfing might be indistinguishable from one other
is the source of the photographs humor; even as the ad flirts with the interchange-
ability of these forms of labor, it ultimately delineates, polices, and hardens the
line between the worker and the artist by presenting this commonality as absurd.

41
FrcuRE l1 "What a load of
. . . art work, Bob," Luton
Evening Pos¿ February 17,
1976. @ Tate, London, 2009.

FlcuRE l2 Carl Andre,

Equivalent Vlll, 1966,
Firebricks, 1 20 units, each
I
l1/2x41/2 x in. Art O Carl
Andre/Licensed by VAGA,
New York, NY Photograph
O Tate, London, 2009.
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ÊTHIC I 43

Questions of the valuation of labor loom in the press accounts of the "Tate bricks,"
as they came to be called.3 Many criticisms stemmed from the fact that the sculpture-

bought in r97z for around four thousand pounds-cost more than a bricldayer would
earn in a year.
Held in place by gravity alone, the bricks of Equivølent VIII are lined up one on
top of another in straightforward rows and columns. The lack of staggering or
interweaving-the technique that gives brick walls their strength-betvveen the two
layers in Equivølent VIII renders the sculpture useless as a structure and implies in-
stead a contingency and rearrangeability. The bricks just sit: they are not stacked in
a faux wall, nor is the public invited to walk on them like a patio floor. In this, the
bricks retain a mute antiutilitarianism. As Andre stated, "I wouldn't ever be inter-
ested in laying a brick wall with mortar."a
The Westem Døily Press thus got it wrong when it asserted, "The Tate Gallery has
decided that bricklaying is an art."s In a sense, Equivølent VIII lets us see precisely
what bricklaying is not-'itis not a matter of merely arranging bricks on the ground,
especially not flush on top of each. lnthe Evening Post's photograph, as in many of
the scandalized articles about the incident, bricldayers were asked to prove themselves
eclual to Andre by making similar stacks. None of their configurations look an¡hing
Tike Equivølent VIil; inslead, bricks pile up in thick columns that stagger their seams.
Regardless, their ordinariness was cause for scorn, as reflected in the comment that
"bricks are not works of art. Bricks are bricks. You can build walls with them or chuck
them through jeweler's windows, butyou cannot stackthem two deep and call it sculp-
units-as well
ture."6 Andre's art, with its laconic placement of available industrial
as its purchase and installation in a museum-appropriates for itself the mantle of

labor, thereby destabilizing a value system that relies on a differentiation between

"real" and artistic work.
Éflorts to align Andre with literal bricklayers were not limited to clever parodies
or horrified news accounts; Andre himself utilized this classed terminology. As he
wrote in ry71 "My work derives from the working-class crafts of bricklaying, tile-
setting, and stone-masonty."7 From the r96os on, interviews with Andre mention his
worhng-class background as a significant factor in his working method.s Some key
facts, then, that have shaped Andre's reception as it is relentlessly biographized: his
grandfather was a bricklayer, his father was a draftsman for the shipbuilder Bethle-
hem Steel, and Andre himself worked for four years as a brakeman for the Pennsyl-
vania railroad.e He recalls his hometown of Quinc¡ Massachusetts, as dominated by
industrial shipyards and flat planes of steel; and his artist's publication Quincy Book
 44 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

documents this formative landscape \¡/ith black-and-white photos and shows careful
attention to the sites of steel and granite production.l0 Invoking this gritty childhood
backdrop helped shore up his claims to a complex class identity that was also sig-
naled through his predilection for blue overalls-"Maoist coveralls," they were called
in tg7o11-4is daiþ uniform starting in the rg6os. while Andre's afifto:m the be-
ginning was intimately invested in identifications with and anxieties about "work,"
these anxieties were heightened in the late r96os during the AWC era.
This identity was by no means straightforward. Still, assertions of resonances be-
tween artistic production and labor mattered to Andre a great deal, and he often re-
peated them during the years of the AWC and after. His biographical stake in such
a classformation surely helped him feel authorized to assert, as he did ín t976, that
"the position of the artist in our society is exactþ that of an assembly line worker in
Detroit."l2 This blunt assertion forces a reductive equivalence between the labor of
the factory worker and that of the arrist (disregarding the distinct relations each has
to free time and access to cultural capital) and resonates within a long history of artists
aligning themselves with the working class as a wider avant-garde gambit.
In Andre's case this identity was nuanced, though he was also the most visible figure
to promote radicalism as a style. For instance, in a photograph taken at the I97o Art
Strike, Andre and Robert Morris stand surrounded by a teeming, unruly crowd who
thrust their hands into the air to demand attention (Fig. r3). With his bushy beard
"that would look well on a revolutionary poster,"13 overalls, and commanding phys-
ical presence, Andre is the focal point of the image. He is also, with his mouth clearly
caught midsentence and his palm outstretched, the central figure holding court amid
a multitude of clamoring voices. As much as his wardrobe choice signals a working-
class affiliation, this affiliation has always been shadowed by ambivalence; as he stated
inr97o,he did not identify with a "producing,literally, working class."1a Instead, An-
dre has long insisted that he is both bourgeois and laborer, and in response to criti-
cisms that he carries out "work like working-class work, but you wear clean overalls,"
he admits that his connection to the working class is "formal rather than practical,"
though he does not "think this formal connection is false."1s
This chapter asserts that Andre's "formal" alignment of art making with work does
in fact hinge on questions of form-that is, aesthetics, materials, and process. Of all
the art workers this book investigates, Andre went the furthest to promote art mak-
ing as "a vocation' and a "trade."16 This identification was fraught by the tension be-
tween the symbolic nature of artistic work and the literal facts of manufacturing-
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 45

FIGURE 13 CaTI
Andre (center left) and
Robert Morris (center
right) a1 the New York
Art Strike Agaìnst
Racism, War, and
Repression, l\,4ay 22,
1970. Photograph @
Jan van Raay.

its real bodies, materials, and consequences. Andre's very classmobility-his deci-
sion to drop out of the middle class or reidentify with the workers-is itself an in-
dication of class privilege. Andre influentiaþ articulated and enacted the charged
ambiguity between worker and artist. His theories of work were fundamental to the
politicization of artistic labor in the late r96os and earþ r97os. Looking at issues of
material labor and how his artworks were fabricated-investigating, one might say,

not only how a "pile of bricks" became art but also how those bricks came to be in
the first place-this rereading differs from the primarily Duchampian accounts that
have held sway in the Andre literature for the past several decades. Fundamental ques-
tions about process-the acfinlwork of making art-are often elided in discussions
of minimaiism. Douglas Crimps analysis of Richard Serra regarding steel workers
and the efforts of ngging provides one important corrective to this, particularly his
look at Serra's "attentions to the processes and divisions of labor."17 These cluestions
about fabrication and materiality are crucial to understanding the politics of mini
malism during the Vietnam V/ar. Andre's art foregrounds labor while also disavow-
ing it, and it is critical to keep this dialectic alive.

Minimalism's Ethical Grounds

From its inception, minimal sculpture had a contested relation with arristic labor.
The philosopher Richard Wollheim coined the term minimøl ørt in t965 for a new
 46 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

movement in art that seemed to deploy a "minimal" amount of work.l8 Wollheim's

argument partiaþ pivots on an axis of the viewer's judgment. What, he asks, are the
minimum criteria that enable viewers to identify a work of artl He proceeds from
categorization to discuss making itself, insisting that production as well as reception
creates art. Wollheim was not particularþ familiar with the sculptures now most
closely associated with minimalism; he instead was writing about the appropriation
strategies of Duchampian readymades and Robert Rauschenberg's combines, works
that may be subject to popular suspicion, Wollheim speculated, because they "fail to
evince what we have over the centuries come to regard as an essential ingredient in
arl work, or manifest effort."le
V/ollheim suggested that this "minimal" effort requires us to recalibrate our un-
derstanding of the "work" of making art and to broaden the definition of art to in-
clude acts of decision making.2o The detractors Wollheim conjures-who do not be-
lieve that enough actual labor was involved in creating the work-occasionally
vocalized their dissent in the mid-r96os. Mark di Suvero, for example, claimed in
1966 that minimalism was not art since its objects were unmanipulated by the artist's
hand. He said, "I think my friend Don fudd can t qualify as an artist because he doesn t
do the work. . . . A man has to make a thing in order to be an artist."2l
Di Suvero's objections aside, by the late r96os sending art out to be made at a fac-
tory based on a sketch or blueprint was a widespread and accepted practice. First hailed
as a "breakthrcugh'and "landmark" for sculpture,22 it was institutionalized at the

ry66 Primøry Structures show at the fewish Museum, and by the end of the decade
the "rationalism of manufactured units" verged on being the hegemonic style.23 As
dancer Yvonne Rainer explained in her summarizing account of minimalism, the
very first charge for those making minimalist objects was to "eliminate or minimize
the role of the artist's hand [and] substitute factory fabrication."2a
Some sculptors refused to make small-scale models, giving industrial manufac-
turing plants little more than line drawings on graph paper or schematic diagrams.
This was the era when artists were "turning the studio into a factory,"2s as Barbara
Rose claimed aboutthe sculptor David Smith. Smiths reliance on hand-welding and

his personal involvement in every stage of production, however, puts him firmly with
a generation earlier than that of, say, Tony Smith, who claimed to have ordered a six-
cube-his now-iconic 196z sculpture Die----over the phone,
by-six-by-six-foot steel
Lazlo Moholy-Nagy style, with simple verbal instructions. As Anne Wagner details
in her study of fean-Baptiste Carpeaux, sculpture has long been associated with the
division of labor, since muscled workmen/assistants perform the physical making
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 47

in distinction from the intellectual work of the artist.26 This division was emphasized
in minimalism, and the turn to factory fabrication has been seen as further remov-
ingany touch of human labor.
The much-touted elimination of the artist's hand, however, was rarely enacted.
While minimal artworks aspired to look like factory works rolling off assembly lines,
they were meticulously crafted, one-off creations or very limited editions. Generally,
minimalist objects were as unique and as skillfirlly and finely crafted as "old-fashioned'
sculpture; it was the choice of mass-produced materials that set them apart. Even if
Morris's pale gray geometric solids were made by hand, they seemed manufactured
because they used industrial plywood. (Morris's laconic wood also stands in dis-
tinction to West Coast minimalists' embrace of fiberglass and other "finish fetisn-
materials.)27 Still, the myth of hands-off industrial manufacturing was rapidly as-
similated into the repertoire of sculptural making. ArLrnagazine articles detailed the
pïocesses of sheering, rolling, and welding steel, sometimes reverentþ transcribing
fabrication procedures with all their minutiae and jargon. An Arts Møgøzíne article
frorn t97r recounts in great detail the making of one factory-fabricated sculpture; a

typical line reads, "Everdur sheet .156 inches thick was prepolished to be a #8 NEMA
finish by pregrinding on a reciprocating table surface grinder with a wet 8o-grit grind-
ing belt to achieve uniform thickness."28 This arcane and specialized terminology
was most likely unintelligible to the majority of the magazine's readers, yet the in-
clusion of these instructions implies that art audiences were hungry for signs of tech-
nological proficiency. Caroline f ones's critical account of workmanlike studio prac-
tices also describes the intense investment in these technologies and practices.2e As
Robert Smithson observed, the "valuation of the material products of heavy indus-
try . . . led to a fetish for steel and aluminum as a medium."3o

New industrial techniques were the crux of much minimal art. Many artists re-
ported looking to technical journals for information on which materials and processes
would best suit their aesthetic programs. Artists swapped information about which
metal-rolling plant or fiberglass producer most meticulously followed directions or
let artists into the factory to modify their plans. Robert Murray reported working with
furniture plants, stainless steel tanker companies, and bridge and helicopter fabri-
cators; Dan Flavin contacted General Elecrric about using their equipment in exchange
for publicity.3l Such sources of materials would be a significant concern of minimal
artists in the late r96os and earþ r97os.
While Andre began his foray into the serial units that typify minimal sculpture as

earþ as 196o, with his Elements series, he started his signature floor works in the
 48 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

mid-r96os. These pieces-metal squares of aluminum , zinc, or steel laid out on the
floor, for instance, or a line of firebricks-mean to present materials purely as them-
selves, without recourse to illusion, narrative, symbolism, or personal expression. An-
dre's earliest floor series consisted of tzo sand-lime firebricks set in mathematical
arrangements-these are the Equivølents series from 1966, of which the Tate piece
was one part. Much of his seminal work follows the schema set forth by Equivølents:
serial, geometric units that are placed directly on the ground, from stacks of tim-
ber to billets of foam to rows of bricks to plates of metal. In a radical inversion of
pedestal-bound sculpture, viewers are invited to walk on the metal works, their steps
on the plates making a distinctive, if muffled, noise. In his metal floor works, the
plates are often one foot square, having been cut to Andre's simple specifications,
and then are laid out, by hand, with the help of gallery assistants on the bare ground.
The plates never overlap and are often set up in a sçluare, although sometimes An-
dre forms different patterns such as long thick lines or pülated triangles.
In Andre's 37 Pieces of Work (rg6g), aluminum, copper, steel, magnesium,lead, and
zinc-what he termed the "metals of commerce¡32-are laid out, z16 plates of each
metal, in a r,296-unit square over a thirty-six-square-foot area (Plate 4). The title evokes
questions of labor at the very outset and plays with lhe indeterminacy of work as both
a noun and a verb; Andre's title refers to the thirty-six metal squares used to make each
precisely repeated pattern, as well to the piece as a whole. Each metal plate, one foot
square, is part of a decorative chessboard. This enoÍnous patchwork-the largest of
Andre's works in square footage-was the centerpiece of his r97o Guggenheim solo
exhibition. Meant as a study in proportion and balance, with its strict symmetry and
its contrasting hues of light and dark and pulsing earthy colors, it was likened by An-
dre to a fugue by Bach.33 Diane Waldman, the curator of the show called it "almost
Byzantine in its splendor. "3a Its horizontality brings viewers back to an encounter with
metal as a sensuous entity; the sound of their footsteps changes subtþ as they walk
across the hopscotch surface. Andre said in ry69, "My dream is to make an art which
approaches timelessness, and I don t mean timelessness as a quality. I mean a place
of stillness and serenity where we can re-gather ourselves."3s
Among the minimalists, Andre (and perhaps Flavin) went the furthest to actual-
ize the claims of industrially made art. He is insistent on the (somewhat selÊevident)
point that he had no part in the making of his objects when he states, "I did not mine
the ore. I did not forge the metal. I did not burn the brick."36 Andre brags that his
work "reflects the conditions of industrial production; it is without any hand-manu-
facture whatsoever."3T This statement is true only in a limited sense: some of An-
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 49

dre's metal plates, for instance, have slightly wavy edges, indicating that they are flame
cut (cut by hand with a torch) rather than machine mi1led.38 Such subtleties of line
are evident only when one sees the work in person; this work is notoriously resist-
ant to photography.3e
By the mid-r96os Andre was at the forefront of an abstract, politically committed

art practice. For Andre's critics, horizontality was central to these politics, and not
only because he emphasized how his art enacted a complete negation of sculptural
traditions of verticality. In one of his best-known artistic statements, Andre spoke of
putting Constantin Brancusi's End.less Column "onthe ground." He continued, "Most
sculpture is priapic with the male organ in the air. In my work Priapus is down on
the floor. The engaged position is to run along the earth."ao While the word engøged
here has an explicitly erotic connotation, it has also been read as a stand-in for "so-
ciaþ committed." As David Bjelajac wrote in zoor, 'Andre's art was influenced by
his syrnpatþ with leftist politics. He argued that horizontal sculptures running across
the ground signified a political.engagement with lived space and the real world."al
Although B jelajac addresses only one aspect of "engagement," this assessment sums
up a critical consensus about Andre's work that was nascent in the r96os. From the
very beginning, his "leveled' artworks were linked to notions of equality or a level
society. Andre's political affiliations no doubt contributed to these readings; however,
most writers did not cite his statements, instead discussing formal matters to bolster
support for his art's "broad social implications," as Gregory Battcock put itint97o.a2
Some interpretations of Andre's work pointed to its challenges to the art market;
one critic reported inry67, 'Andre's art is extremely radical and very daring; it com-
pletely upsets many criteria of traditional methods of judging and evaluatin g art. . . .
The very nature of his works severely limits their potential market."a3 This state-
ment quickly became irrelevant as collectors and museums began to clamor for An-
dre's art, but the parallel between his form and his politics-both termed "radical"-
lingered. In 1969 Barbaru Rose insisted that minimalism's "cleanliness, integrity,
efficiency, and simplicity" relate to an "ideally leveled, non-stratified democratic
society. "aa
These readings respond to several elements in the works: the standardízed, "ordi-
nary" materials were perceived as "commorf' and antielitist.as In addition, the use of
"ec¡uivalent" units suggested an "antihierarchical and anti-authoritarian' approach.a6
Andre, moreover, countered the usual prohibitions about touching artworks by invit-
ing audiences to walk on his art, a move that embraced bodily participation. Finally,
their flatness and levelness seemed to subordinate the floor works to the viewer. As
 5O I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

Gregoire Müller noted ínrgTo, "Horizontality is almost an ethical limitation. . . . Hor-

izontality is what we know."a7 For Müller, horizontality, perhaps because it negates
monumentality, implies an elhics.
The discourse about the accessibility and ethics of Andre's floor works fed directly
into the rhetoric surrounding the 1969 formation of the AWC, to which Andre was
central. The ethics of making art were very much at issue in the late r96os, just as
Andre began producing his metal plates. Lucy Lippard referred to a "growing ethical
and political concern' in the art world in rg7o!8 This issue mattered intensely to
Andre, as did his emerging sense of what, following Helen Molesworth, I call his
"work ethic."ae To return to an issue central to the scandal of the Tate bricks-what
is the value of the artist's specialized form of laborl
Andre's claims regarding the "proletarianization of art and artists by the ruling
class," as he put ilin ry76, are by no means unique.so For Andre, David Smiths in-

volvement with the welders' union was the most immediate and important art his-
torical precedent.sl He also looked to other antecedents from earlier in the century-
the Russian artists in the wake of the r9r7 Revolution being among the most notable
and influential. Although U.S. artists in the late r96os knew little about the Russians
and understood their goals only vaguely, Camilla Gray's Greøt Expenmentr: Russiøn
Art, ß6j-ryzz,s2 published in 1962, ofTered enough information to bathe the con-
structivists in ahazy romantic glow, as did a number of articles published from 1968
to r97o that provided U.S. artists with information on revolutionary Russian art.s3
After the revolution, according to Gray, some Russian artists moved briefly into
working for factories. As salaried workers, they envisioned their artistic endeavors
as part of a larger process of the socialist reconfiguration of all manner of making

and living. For them, the job of the cultural worker was to engage in imaginative
speculation-to envision or engineer objects in advance of their making. Artworker
was a term much in circulation in this moment, for these artists understood them-
selves to be actively participating in the creation of a future society and saw their work

as continuous with that creation.sa They couched even their nonutilitarian objects in
the language of labor; as Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote, "Poetry is a manufacture."ss
Because they labored under the unique conditions provided by a revolutionized state,

however, this work was manifestþ not understood as alienated: their production was
tied to the vision of a collective world, and many of the objects they created were de-
signed to be used.
Gray's book fueled further speculation about the merging of art and labor when it
very briefly described Vladimir Tatlins work for the Lessner metallurgic factory (that
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 51

FlcuBÊ 14 Carl Andre, Wooden Piece, 1959 FIGURE l5 Alexander Rodchenko, Spatla/
Wood, 16 x81/zin. Arl @ Carl Andre/Licensed Construction, 1 920. Ad @ Estate of Alexander
byVAGA, NewYork, NY Rodchenko/HAO, Moscow/VAGA, New York.

it was a metallurgic factory was no doubt significant for Andre). The realities of these
artists' forays into wage laboï were probably less than ideal.s6 Andre, aware of their
formal expeïiments and also familiar with their active engagement with the working
class, mused, "I would like to think my work is in the tradition of the Russian rev-
olutionary artists, Tatlin and Rodchenko."sT Andre clearþ studied these artists care-
fully, even given his limited means of access, as is evident in Wooden Piece $959,
Fig. t4) , a geometric configuration of stadced lumber that is a clear homage to Alexan-
der Rodchenkcls Spøtiøl Constructíon (r9zo, Fig. 15). Designating a piece of unworked,
unpainted lumber as sculpture is especially striking given the primacy of cawed, hand-
tooled wood within postwar sculpture. The use of industrially processed timber is
thus a gesture of refusal that seeks to reject a whole history of sculptural efforts; this
earþ piece uses the basic materials of construction and industry to put Andre squarely
into a neo-constructivist lineage.
But Andre's statement about the parallel between the artist and the factory worker
is distinct from these earlier moments, primarily because his idea of art as work was
not accompanied by a rhetoric that the art itself was "for the people." Even as his use
of "equivalent" units gestured toward a kind of nonhierarchical leveling,ss there was
no detectable populism in Andre's esoteric works, which were neither experiments
in materials that led to new everyday objects nor realist depictions of valorized work-
ing men. What were the conditions of intelligibility for Andre's 1976 contention of
 52 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

an "exact" parallel between the factory worker and the artistl It was, in effect, a sum-
rnarízíng statement made coherent by the insistent discourse of the preceding few
years in which artists struggled with their identities as art workers-within the "elite"
art world and its institutional spaces.
Andre has referred to himself as a "post-studio' artist.se Unlike Andy Warhol, to
whom the same term has been applied, or such precursors as Marcel Duchamp (who
made drawings, installations, and large-scale glass works), Andre has emphasized
that he doesnot creøte anylhing. (He does, howeve¡ draw diagrams on graph paper-
the geometrical arrangement of his units-that he calls "security drafts.")60 Andre
draws in space with the materials; this drawing is a matter of selecting and arrang-
ing. He calls metal manufacturers, orders squares, and has them shipped directly to
museums for placement on the floor. If he is not present for the installation of a
work, he sends instructions for the museum's installers. Rather than manipulate his
materials behind closed doors, Andre annexes the museum floor as his studio space-
the institution, in other words, becomes his work site.

Andre and the Art Workers' Goalition

Andre became one of the key AWC players as early as March ry69, andby Novem-
ber of that year he was one of the most visible and active members, speaking at meet-
ings and issuing proclamations on museums and their economic interests in the Viet-
nam'War. Although this casually org anized group had no elected leaders, Rose called
Andre the groups "leading light" and "spokesman."6l (He preferred to describe him-
self as a "stalwart.")62 Lippard recalls that "it was Carl Andre, our resident Marxist,
who insisted on the Ierm workers, bringing a sector of the art world into the prole-
tariat in one eloquent s\Moop and including critics, crÍators, and other art types in
the labor force."63 (Lippard confesses that Andre was one of the few people in the
AWC "who d actually read Marx.")64
Andre consolidated his position as the "resident Marxist" by his active participa-
tion in the AWC and by his singular obsession as a sculptor with materiality; his work
sought to bridge "historical materialisrn'-another term for Marxism-with actual,
physical materiality. As he put it inrg7o, "My art is atheistic, materialistic, and com-
munistic."6s He elaborated: "Matter as maüer rather than matter as symbol is a con-
scious political position I think, essentially Marxist."66 As recounted in Chapter r, the
AWC was founded out of concern about the conditions of display and moral "own-
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 53

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dg¡ignnrt, film.m*sm, ilu$ßm rurftBr$, p¡intum,;

$[rlo0r¡[llcr$, [rinlnrs, snul¡lnru, lmidnmhls, elr,

ARE ASKID TO CO¡18 TO TtlE }1USEUI,l OT I'IODEAN ART GAIIF¡I

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TO }IfrANO ACCESS TO $USTUI4 POLICY-I'1A(IN6 ON BEIIAL.F OF AñT }IORKE'IS,

Dg,I/lOÅ,fSTRATÊ
OUtr STñFruGTH
F¡cuRE t 6 Early Art Workers'
Coalition flyer, "Demonstrate Our
Strength at IVOMA!" March 1969.

AT MOMA! lmage courtesy of the Lucy R.

Lippard Papers, ca. 1940-2006,
Archives of American Art,
Smithsonian lnstitution.

ership'of artworks. Andre's art, with its emphasis on materiality, economic fact, and
the "metals of commerce," seemed to rehearse an ideological program regarding is-
sues of control and display that were central to the AWC.67
However, as fames Meyer has perceptively noted, Andre's materialism "is not well
understood."68 Orthodox Marxist theory proves insufficient grounds for any complex
understanding of the stakes of Andre's sculpture during these years, in part because
it charts lines of influence in only one direction-as if Andre's work were shaped by
the AWC in some mechanistic way. But these lines are difficult to chart, and in fact
Andre's equalizing vision was also in dialogue with and had an impact on the AWC's
expansive conception of artistic labor. Flyers announcing earþ AWC meetings list a
wide spectrum of art workers (Fig. 16): "architects, choreographers, composers, crit-
ics and writers, designers, fllm-makers, museum workers, painters, photographers,
printers, sculptors, taxidermists, etc."6e This reflects how Andre himself proposed
the broadest possible definition in an interview in r97o:

A collector can consider himself an artworker. In fact, anybody connected with art would
be considered an artworker if he makes a productive contribution to art. I make arhvorks
 54 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

by doing artwork but I think the work itself is never truly completed until somebody
comes along and does artvvork himself with that artwork. In other words, the percep-
tive viewer or museum-goer whos got some kind of stimulus from the work is also do-
ing artwork, so that broadens the term out to a ridiculous extent; but I think it should
be as broad as possible because I never liked the idea of an art political, economic, so-
cial organization which is limited to artists, because that's just returning to another kind
of elitism.To

Minimalism has often been cited for activating viewers-making them conscious
of their bodily encounter with the sculptural objects in specific sites.71 But it is one
thing to say that the viewer becomes aware of the physical space and her place within
it, and cluite another to then name that viewer an art worker on the same footing as '

the artist, the collector, or the museum guard. Yet this leveling is enacted by An-
dre's floor-based works themselves, as the relentless horizontality of the metal plates
puts viewers on the same plane, occupying the space together. In this context the
floor pieces might be seen as an attempt to imagine and create an adequately large
"political, economic, and social organizaliori' or field-this is the radical spatial-
ity that Andre's floor works perhaps propose. They become foundational pløtfonns-
literally and spatially-for new kinds of relations between object, maker, viewer,
and institution.
It was such an alterative political platform that Andre agitated for within the AWC.
While the original thirteen demands of the AWC focused on increased racial diver-
sity and artists' rights, by March their demands had a radical socialist tone, calling
for palliative economic measules only "until such time as a minimum income is guar-
anteed for all people ."72 They called for rental fees for showing works, profit sharing
for resold works, and "stipends and health insurance to working artists."73 Inspired
by state-subsídizedartists' incomes in some European countries, they hoped to im-
plement similar policies in the United States, and in September r97o over thlee hun-
dred artists passed a motion to fotrr- aunion in New York.Ta Alex Gross commented,
"In Holland, the state buys the artist's work to the extent that he has a guaranteed
yearþ income. There is no reason why the same thing cant be done here."7s In fact,
there were several reasons why not, including the antigovernment stance held by most
art workers disgusted by the ongoing Vietnam War'
Andre actively pushed for wages for artists; at the October 1969 meeting of the
AWC he called for artists' work to be "widely and honorably employed' and "justþ
compensated."To At the April 1969 open hearing, he insisted, to thunderous applause,
 CABL ANDRE'S WORK ÉTHIC I 55

"The art world is a poison in the community of artists and must be removed by oblit-
erarioî."77 Andre's words, filled with hope and rage, articulate a wish for new forms
of social relations between artists, ones not framed by the market. Then-editor of
Artforum Philip Leider later admitted that what Andre read was actually written by
Leider as a mocking exaggeration of the AWC.78 Andre's full-scale appropriation
of someone else's words could be linked to the ethos of factory fabrication-here,
again, he did not "make the work" himself. Regardless of its parodic intent, this text
was read with full conviction. Andre's disregard of the originaþ scornful tone of the
text demonstrates that, however ridiculous or far-fetched it seemed to some, many
in the AWC were compelled by idealistic visions that aspired to bring together a new
"community of artists." That Andre read someone else's words and claimed them as

his own also points to a wider strategy of political appropriation or reclamation that
troubled conventional notions of authorship and effaced the role of the maker.
By the late r96os Andre was one of the artists commanding relatively high
prices-according to one source, his ry69-7o prices were in the $3,ooo-$8,ooo
raîge, at a time when many other artists were not selling at a11.7e Andre elaborated
on the gross discrepancies in the art world in a December 1969 talk, saying that
"ninety-nine percent of advanced artists . . . get nothing, or certainly no serious part
of their incomes from art."80 He expounded:

Art is a lousy career. I mean in terms of whal society thinks. . . . And it's a very bad sys-
tem where a dozen people get tremendously over-inflated incomes. . . . I myself have been
in New York and working with an organizatron called the Art Workers Coalition. . . . One
of the problems we confront, is the fact that we don t want to take anything away from
those twelve artists who have six figure incomes. . . . But the point is, let's put a floor on
it so that a person can have a career as an artist, he doesn t have to be an advanced artist,
he can be any kind of artist he wants to be, he just has to say he's an artist and certain
things should therefore be provided: health insurance, dental insutance.sl

Andre articulates a dream to bring all artists up financiaþ establishing a"floot"-

a significant phrase given his sculpture-rather than to take some artists (including
himself) down. How to reconcile unequal financial situations among artists at vari-

ous levels of commercial success would prove an unsolvable dilemma for the AWC.
On April 14, rg7o, he participated in a panel at MoMA on "art and subsidy"; parr'
elists considered everyday economics, housing, and sources of income for artists.s2
Andre's comments elicited the following arrgry thought from fohn Hightower, the
MoMA director (although at the time he was too abashed to say it aloud): "The Mu-
 56 J CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

seum of Modern Art was not established as a foundation to support the livelihood
and lifestyles of artists. . . . Don't use us to take care of your 1ives."83
Some artists viewed the moniker ørtworker as a hollow attempt at collectivity. As
the artist Paul Brach said in r97t: "The hysteria of the rhetoric blew my mind. .. .

Carl [Andre] and Bob Morris-have used it to do a hell of a lot of grandstanding, as

far as I'm concerned. . . . I think one of my problems in relating to the Art Workers'
Coalition is that somewhere in my early twenties I stopped thinking of myself as a

worker in the proletarian fantasy. I am an intellectual and not a worker."8a Accord-

ing to Brach, Andre's and Morris's class politics involved imagining artists as "work-
ers in the proletarian fantas¡" and he objected to this vision by explicitly associating
his own work with intellectual labor.
Minimalists like Andre also faced a different accusation. IGrl Beveridge and Ian
Burn wrote in the For in rgT1¡'r}rar "the split between art and real problems emerged

in the r96os in an essentially apolitical and asocial art-to the extent that, for most
artists, political engagement meant moving to an extra art activity."ss In other words,
for artists such as Andre activism was an alibi for not making explicitþ political art.
Perhaps, Beveridge and Burn suggest, these artists asserted themselves as workers
precisely because their labor was no longer evident in their objects. Their politics were
displøced onto their personal identities, enacted on the level ofpersonal style rather
than arlistic content.
Although Andre's workhas remained fairþ aesthetically consistent since the mid-
r96os, in t97t, the heyday of the AWC, Andre broke from his usual format with a

show that acknowledged the shaping forces of commodification and patronage on

artistic practice. At the Dwan Gallery, he laid out twenty-two different lines of found
material, from plasticine bricks to steel rods to lead-plated copper wire to thin rib-
bons of scavenged metal (Fig. 17). Although the works in the line show differed lit-
tle visually from some of his earlier works, this exhibition nonetheless marked a de-
parture for Andre with regard to his pricing: each yard of material would be priced
according to the income of the collector. The scraggly snakes of materials, the vari-
ation of gestural lines scribbled and scrawled in diflerent texhrres and colors, and
the installation's almost two-dimensional quality made this installation as close to a
drawing as any work Andre had ever produced.
Reviewers immediately related the Dwan show of r97r Io Andre's larger political
agenda of that time. 'A new wrinkle here, which for Andre may be an effort to un-
thwart himself politicall¡ is the imposition of an egalitarian pricing system on col-
lectors: r percent of the purchaser's gross annual income per linear yard of the work."86
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 57

FtcuRE r 7 lnstallation shot of Carl Andre's exhibition at the Dwan Gallery, New
York, 1971 . Photograph by Walter Russell. Courtesy of the Paula Cooper Gallery,
New York. Art O Carì Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Andre pegged the value of the work directly to the collector's income. By requesting
a payment of r percent of the purchaser's annual income for each yard of sculpture-
measured out like so much expensive silk-Andre interrogated how the value of art
is commonly linked to the artist's cultural worth. The material has value, he suggests,
not because of any intrinsic quality it might possess or because of its selection and
arrangement by an artist, but because of the wealth of the collector. An exhibit of
materials found on the street priced in such a manner could be staggeringly expen-
sive or a bargain, depending on what the buyer earned. Not only does this pricing
turn questions of artistic value on their head, but it also opens the possibility of pur-
chase to those for whom art is usually far outside the realm of economic feasibility.
Andre increasingly hardened his position that institutionalizingart severed objects
from their maker. He referred to this as a "slave practice," maintaining that his "works
of art installed trophies of acquisition [are] enslaved to a vision of sales. "87 Andre's
as

tellingly hyperbolic criticlue asserts that the commodification of art is somehow akin
to the brutal deprivations of slavery. It also reads like a boilerplate summation of
Mart's conception of alienation, in which the wage laborer is alienated because of
specialization from the object he produces. Yet theorists and laborers alike have long
idealized art as the very opposite of alienated labor. For instance, Mike Lefevre, a steel-
worker interviewed in t97zby oralhistorian Studs Têrkel for his book Working, offerc
this testimony:
 58 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

dying breed. A laborer. Strictly muscle work . . ' pick it up, put it down, pick it
up,
I,m a
put it down. . . . It's hard to take pride in a bridge you're never gonna cross, in a door
the end re-
you re never gonna open. You re mass-producing things and you nevef see
sult of it. I would like to see a building, sa¡ the Empire State, I would like to see on one

side of it a foot-wide strip with the name of every bricklayer, the name
of every electri

cian, with all the names. So when a guy walked b¡ he could take his son
and say, "See,
can point to
that,s me over there on the forty-fifth floor. I put the steel beam in." Picasso
a painting. What can I Point to?88

Lefevre explicitly articulates his alienation from the steel he helps produce,
which is

funneled toward projects that he will never see oÏ use. He contrasts his situation
with
that of the artist, who in Lefevre's idealized vision can point with pride to the object
he creates.
The disconnect between the object and its maker, however, is precisely what
Andre

evoked when he claimed that artists were akin to factory workers:

"The assembly-

line worker has no equity in any part of his production. Once he receives his wage
packet at the end of the week, he's completely severed from his production. He can
t
say what's done with it, and he gets no profit or benefit from
it. In a similar way, the
artist, by receiving money, is severed from any connection to the true vision or des-
tiny of his work."se For Andre, the degradation of the art worker stemmed from artists'
lack of control over their works: that is, the circumstances of their display and
sale'

This statement skirts the actual processes of consumer capitalism and the wage la-
bor system, collapsing the distinction between use value and symbolic value: unlike
decide
factory workers, artists do have some control over their products, as they can
not to sell them or choose to give them away'
show at the Dwan Gallery demonstrated Andre's desire to microman-
If the line
age the conditions of sale for his artworks, he was especiaþ particular
about how

his works were received and shown. His "security drafts," which were reaþ certifi-
He wanted
cates of authenticity, were one way to get around the works' reproducibility'
his works to be his; you could not find your own firebricks and make youl own ver-
sion of EquívøIentVIlL Agitated by the disregard museums, galleries, and collectors
showed toward his exacting display requirements, Andre, in calling the alienated
artist

to afms,was singularþ concerned that artists maintain a stfong voice in the resale,
display, and maintenance of their work. (Such issues were especiaþ important
to

minimal and conceptual artists, whose works in theory were readily reproducible')
The question of artists' rights galvanized the New York art world, as in the for-
,Artist's Reserved Rights TTansfer and Sale Agreement" that resulted
mulation of the
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 59

from the AWC's organizing efforts, especiaþ their call for a percentage of profits
from resold works. (As Alexander Alberro has chronided, this sale contract was drafted
in r97r to help artists maintain control-financial and otherwise-over their artworks
as these works entered the marketplace.)e0 The AWC was deeply involved in ques-
tions of the "value" of artistic work as well as issues of control over its display: these
questions riveted Andre and shaped his practice from the beginning.
While the AWC shied away from pronouncing what socially engaged art should
look like, the founding motifs of minimal art were integral to some of its own protest
materials: for example, a flyer from r97o weaves Andre's aesthetics into the fabric of
the AWC's practice (Fig. r8). Typed on standard letter-sized paper, it lays out the hope
that a Vietnam Moratorium-a day when all business as usual is halted to resist the
war-will escalate month after month, day after da¡ until every moment is annexed
into protest. Seen next to one of Andre's word poems, "Leverwords" from ry64, I}re
flyer reflects one of his favorite configurations for words on a page, in lines of grad-
uated length that form a beveled edge cascading down the white sheet. The follow-
ing is an excerpt:

LEVER WORDS
beam
clay beam
edge clay beam
grid edqe clay beam
bond grid edge clay beam
path bond grid edge clay beam

(Text @ Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY)

The AWC leaflet turns the simple shape of Andre's poem into the shape of propa-
ganda, relying on the simplicity of the typeface, serial repetition, concrete elements,
and a design that emphasizes escalation. Here the AWC has borrowed Andre's min-
imalist aesthetic for its polemic.el
Andre's work crystallized an ideology of making and the market that found favor
among influential, and like-minded, critics and curators, especially those affiliated
with the AWC. His rapid rise to prominence in this time, including his solo show at
the Guggenheim in r97o, attests to the efiect of his art among critics such as Rose
and Lippard, who wrote favorably about him and curated his work into important
shows. Perhaps Andre's works gained momentum during the AWC years because
 58 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

I'm a dying breed. A laborer. Strictly muscle work . . ' pick it up, put it down, pick it up,
put it down. . . . It's hard to take pride in a bridge youire never gonna cross, in a door
you're never gonna open. You',re mass-producing things and you never see the end re-
sult of it. I would like to see a building, say, the Empire State, I would like to see on one
side of it a foot-wide strip with the name of every bricklayer, the name of every electri
cian, with all the names. So when a guy walked by, he could take his son and sa¡ "See,
that's me over there on the forty-fifth floor. I put the steel beam in." Picasso can point to
a painting. What can I point tol88

Lefevre explicitly articulates his alienation from the steel he helps produce, which is
funneled toward projects that he will never see or use. He contrasts his situation with
that of the artist, who in Lefevre's idealized vision can point with pride to the object
he creates.
The disconnect between the object and its maker, however, is precisely what Andre
evoked when he claimed that artists were akin to factory workers: "The assembly-
line worker has no equity in any part of his production. Once he receives his wage
packet at the end of the week, he's completely severed from his production. He can t
say what's done with it, and he gets no profit or benefit from it. In a similar wa¡ the
artist, by receiving money, is severed from any connection to the true vision or des-
tiny of his work."8e For Andre, the degradation of the artworker stemmed from artists'
lack of control over their works: that is, the circumstances of their display and sale.
This statement skirts the actual pïocesses of consumer capitalism and the wage la-
bor system, collapsing the distinction between use value and syrnbolic value: unlike
factory workers, artists do have some contïol over their products, as they can decide
not to sell them or choose to give them away.
If the line show at the Dwan Gallery demonstrated Andre's desire to microman-
age the conditions of sale for his artworks, he was especiaþ particular about how
his works were received and shown. His "security drafts," which were realþ certifi-
cates of authenticity, were one way to get around the works' reproducibility. He wanted

his works to be his; you could not find your own firebricks and make your own ver-
sion of EquivøIent Vlil. Agitated by the disregard museums, galleries, and collectors
showed toward his exacting display requirements, Andre, in calling the alienated artist
to arms, was singularly concerned that artists maintain a strong voice in the resale,
display, and maintenance of their work. (Such issues were especiaþ important to
minimal and conceptual artists, whose works in theory were readiþ reproducible.)
The question of artists' rights galvanized the New York art world, as in the for-
mulation of the 'Artist's Reserved Rights T?ansfer and Sale Agreement" that resulted
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 59

from the AWC's organizing efforts, especialþ their call for a percentage of profits
from resold works. (As Alexander Alberro has chronicled, this sale contract was drafted
in r97r to help artists maintain control-frnancial and otherwise-over their artworks
as these works entered the marketplace.)eo The AWC was deeply involved in ques-
tions of the "value" of artistic work as well as issues of control over its display: these
questions riveted Andre and shaped his practice from the beginning.
While the AWC shied away from pronouncing what sociaþ engaged art should
look like, the founding motifs of minimal art were integral to some of its own protest
materials: for example, a flyer from r97o \Meaves Andre's aesthetics into the fabric of
the AWC's practice (Fig. r8). þped on standard letter-sized paper, it lays out the hope
that a Vietnam Moratorium-a day when all business as usual is halted to resist the
war-will until every moment is annexed
escalate month after month, day after day,
into protest. Seen next to one of Andre's word poems, "Leverwords" from ry64,rhe
flyer reflects one of his favorite configurations for words on a page, in lines of grad-
uated length that form a beveled edge cascading down the white sheet. The follow-
ing is an excerpt:

LEVER WORDS
beam
clay beam
edqe clay beam
grid edge clay beam
bond grid edge clay beam
path bond grid edge clay beam

(Tèxt @ Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY)

The AV/C leaflet turns the simple shape of Andre's poem into the shape of propa-
ganda, reþing on the simplicity of the typeface, serial repetition, concrete elements,
and a design that emphasizes escalation. Here the AWC has borrowed Andre's min-
imalist aesthetic for its polemic.el
Andre's work crystallized an ideology of making and the market that found favor
among influential, and like-minded, critics and curators, especially those affiliated
with the AWC. His rapid rise to prominence in this time, including his solo show at
the Guggenheim in r97o, attests to the effect of his art among critics such as Rose
and Lippard, who wrote favorably al¡out him and curated his work into important
shows. Perhaps Andre's works gained momentum during the AWC years because
 6O I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

1¡10 lì.üS ôf l:olrrtûl¿lUit

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h)''iìl t\ iì ii'ii'il¡ri:fl
'\itl.!:.r1,',.1i: ìi ii ,Jii. ìil

FtcuRE l8 Art Workers' Coalition, "The Days of Moratorium" flyer, 1970. lmage courtesy of
the Lucy R. Lippard Papers, ca. 1940-2006, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian lnstitution

they fit a certain ethic of representation; what is more, his hybrid art worker identity-
born of a marriage of hands-off production with an insistence on the arlist's tenu-
ous status as a worker-became available for adoption by others.
Charting connections between an artist's art and politics can be tricky, even when
the art is clearly meant as protest. It is made all the more difficult when the art in clues-
tion is, on its surface, so resistant to direct reference. David Raskin offers one model
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 61

for mapping these links; his writing on Donald fudd details the artist's political affili-
ations and thinks through how those might be in dialogue with |uddt boxes.e2 An-
dre's politics function a bit differently. If the AWC had some influence on how he made

art, his art in turn shaped the direction of the AWC. Andre's work in essence formed
a platform on which the AWC's philosophies (broadly understood) could articulate
themselves; both how he made his sculptures and how he understood his own labor
were crucial elements of this influence. That is, minimalism made available the con-
ditions through which artistic labor might be rendered newly visible. Minimalism was
not only in keeping with the AWC; minimalism, at least as practiced by Andre, with
his emphasis on leveling and labor, heþed make the notion of the art worker possible.
During the AWC years, Andre issued contradictory proclamations about the value
of art. Sometimes he granted it incredible powers of sustenance and vitality: "Given:
Art is a branch of agriculture. Hence: r. 'We must farm to sustain life. z. We must
fight to protect life."e3 At other times he viewed it as a useless, even frivolous affair.
Andre's wavering reflects the complex diversity of interests in high art, as opposed
to mass culture, an issue that was poorly understood in the r96os and r97os. He
also insisted that, though art was of interest to few people, it was not "elitist." The
"elite" as a category had attracted new attention with the publication in i956 of C.
Wright Mills's The Power Elite,which posited incestuous relations between the over-

seers of the military, the government, and large corporations that began in select prep

schools and Ivy League universities andwere sealed in equally select country clubs.ea
(Among the prep schools Mills mentionsinThe Power Eliteis Andover, where Andre
himself had been a student-a further complication to his claim of a purely working-
'War.
class childhood.) The notion of the power elite was made urgent by the Vietnam
For the New York art world, the example that hit closest to home was the Museum
of Modern Art board of trustees, made up of governmental and corporate leaders
such as the Rockefellers.
The charge of elitism carried a special sting for selfproclaimed art workers, as it
was firmly understood to be a characteristic of the institutions they were fighting. As
founding AWC member Takis wrote in alanuary 1969 statement, 'Artworkers! The
time came þiclto demystifythe elite of the artrulers, directors of museums, and
trustees."es WhenintgTt the staff of MoMA, drafting offthe successes of the AWC,
organized into a union, they chose to affiliate with the Distributive Workers of Amer-
ica, a militant, mostly black and Latino union, a move one journalist saw as a pro-
tective measure against charges of being "middle-class kids playing revolutionar-
ies. . . . They shrivel up inside when you call them elitists."e6 \I/ithin the AWC, the
 62 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

charge of elitism became a bit of a bogeyrnan; many AWC flyers scomed Rockefeller
and the "elite" who ran the museum. Andre attempted to colrnter art's inherent elit-
ism when, for his ry7o Guggenheim show, "at the recluest of the artist" there was
no private opening and instead the museum held a free day.e7
V/hen the Whitney Museum displayed Andre's work in ry76 in an "unacceptable"
position next to a wall with a windoW he responded with the most scathing indict-
ment he could muster: "The [museums] are the true elitists, don t you think' . . . An
elite is a minority that has, in some aspect, power over the majority. My position with
the Whitney is a powerless one. That is what this whole thing proves."gs BY casting
himself as powerless-as, in effect, an alienated worker-Andre could buttress his
claims that he was opposed to elitism.
This arxiety about elitism strikes at the uncertain position of the abstract artist
within the Left. Many artists in the AWC wanted their art to be political without hav-
ing to compromise its nonrepresentational, esoteric form. They struggled to define
the social value of their specialized work, given that its primary audience was pre-
ciselythis "elite." Thelerma.vønt-gørde-whichcouldhave givenminimalism, atleast
as practiced by Andre, some political purchase because of its implied antagonism to
mass culture-had little currency for the AWC. Minimalists did not have a thinker
like Clement Greenberg to defend their art's estrangement or autonomy from pop-
ular culture as a critical, even political task or to demonstrate that such autonomy
rested on the question of radical form.
The minimalists of the AWC did have Herbert Marcuse, however. Or, to be more
precise, they had a set of critics who appropriated Marcuse's theories to justify the
relevance of minimal art. Gregory Battcock was at the center of this appropriation,
although in practice it often meant creatively misinterpreting Marcuse himself.
Battcock's 'Art in the Service of the Leftl" (note the uncertainty implied by the ques-
tion mark) insists that "Minimal art, electronic sound experimentation, and Con-
ceptual choreographic efforts all remain subversive," even though, "according to Mar-
cuse, they fall short of being acceptable as art."ee Plowing right past these apparent
contradictions, Battcock decides that Marcuse "is wrong on this, his major point."100
Battcock repeatedly invokes Marcuse as the cornerstone of minimal aesthetics-a
viewpoint that would become widespread as Marcuse's theories exerted great influence
on artists and activists alike in the late r96os and early r97os.
'Art," Marcuse wrote, "opens the established reality to another dimension: that of
possible liberation."lOl Marcuse called for new forms in art that would pave the way
for revolutionary sensibilities, hoping that art could sustain "a dialectical unity be-
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 63

Art in the 0ne-0imensionalSaciety

RV HERBERT MARCUSË

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in il* ¿.¡rd kore phùh .í,ver ¡n.atu.. d 6ù!L r, nd [email protected] 'núL¿{(,
t *ùnd odd ¡i¡n nil' el ¡L( Lfublùli'.bl
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;rneds{!*ðúcsd. .*;$h.hhf t-r'ry ii q. li'. id"t. vhe¡h.r il'n
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ah.ìñù ôl ûr s6 ss,¡eûI. Á.1 k *s qrsr¡dd k¡urr hdg's$ û ¡ r*!lwhn!'! l,isu4(. ¡rk iÌ,þ!is ùr t4ñGF

¡qint¡ngl io 3.êr, PrìDo¡y l,s¡t Gtôúp {.¿ g¡ôê,, ¡fd., ôit .! e¡hi Cr!¿ary GSr*nU¡B Mur¿!ú,
FrcuRE i9 Article by
Herbert Marcuse in Árts
Magaz¡nq May 1 967, 26.
Reproduction of Jo Baer,
Pr¡mary Light Group: Red,
Green, Blue, 1964-65, oil
on canvas, triptych, each
panel 152.3 x 152.3 cm,
Museum of l\4odern Art.
Courtesy of Jo Baer.

tween what is and what can (and ought to) be.'102 Art critics picked up on a parallel
here with Andre's art. Peter Schjeldahl wrote in rg73 tha| 'Andre's message seems
more ethical and social than esthetic. That is, his work seems to exist less as some-
thing io be enjoyed than as an embodied proposition about what art ought to be'"103

And in 1978 Rose asserted that Andre's art was "democratic," further stating: 'Andre
displays the raw materials with which we could transform the world, if we cared to

build a new order."1Oa Rose's vision of building a new order echoes certain formula-
tions made by Marcuse.
'We
cannot know what kind of "liberatory" art forms Marcuse had in mind, for he
gave no specifics in terms of visual art. It matters, however, that someone-perhaps
Marcuse himself or Battcock, who was an editor at Arts Møgøzine-decided to il-
lustrate the front page of Marcuse's ry67 Arts Møgøzíne article 'Art in the One-
Dimensional Society" with three minimal squares (Fig. r9).10s These paintings, by
 64 ì CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

the AWC member fo Baer, establish an immediate visual sympathy between the
title and minimalism.l06 It is unclear what, exactþ this parallel means. Do the paint-
ings endorse the new form Marcuse envisionsl Or are they the blank face of the one-
dimensional society itselfl They appear to stand in for minimalism, productively
understood here as an art that diagnoses the flatness of contemporary society and
proposes a ne\ry aesthetic that would move beyond this flatness.
Marcuse offered some minimal artists a way to see their formal, abstract experi-
ments as gestures of political possibility. The resonance between minimalism and
Marcuse was not limited to form; Marcuse was also a significant theorist of the chang-
ing status of the worker, and his conception of labor was instrumental for artists as

they looked for ways lo organize a viable political identity around their uniclue form
of work. In his Essøy on Liberøtion, Marcuse theorized that in the new economy the
educated intelligentsia-students and artists-rather than the working class were
the agents of change.107 Marcuse's theoryreinflects Andre's statement aboutthe "pro-
letarianization' of the artist subjugated to the ruling class. Andre did not say that artists
were the same as workers, but, like Marcuse, he claimed that artists (that is, art work-
ers) occupied the revolutionary position once held by workers. For Marcuse, revolu-
tionary subjects above all throw the whole system into question by abolishing their
own dependence on that system. The slogans of the AWC speak to this aim, even if
their goals for a system that included (and paid) them all did not.108

Making Matter Matter

While Andre scavenged materials for his first works from Manhattan construction
sites-Phyllis Tuchman records that "he found several plates," which then spawned
his signature style-he cluicþ discovered that foam, brick, and metal in multiple,
regular-sized units were not easy to come by and had to be purchased at metal sup-
pliers or speciaþ ordered.l0e He relied on the small manufacturing plants in lower
Manhattan, although by the late r96os these were being rapidly replaced by artists'
lofts. As he continued to use to numerous standardized units (which he could not
salvage from garbage piles), Andre discovered the best suppliers through trade mag-
azines about metals and mining. His lifelong interest in metals and their properties
had made him a regular reader of technical books and Scíentific Amencøn.110
Over the next decade, he made works with a variety of metals, as well as with ivory,
magnets, stones, andwood. Some of his metals are elemental-lead, silver, gold, cop-
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 65

FlcuBE 20 Carl Andre, Magnes¡um-Z¡ncPtain, 1969. Zinc(l8units) andmagnesium(lBunits), each12x12x

% Ìn, overall 72,72 *3/a in. Photograph courtesy of the Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Collection of Museum
of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Art @ Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

per, magnesium, and aluminum-and in 1968 he underscored this, using a repro-

duction of the periodic table to advertise an exhibition at the Dwan Gallery. He has
used some nonelemental metals: steel, for instance, which is most commonly an
alloy of iron and carbon.lll In the r96os Andre's steel came primarily from U.S. Steel
in Pennsylvania, a common source for many arlists because the factory let them spec-
ify the size and thickness of the plates.112

One of Andre's very first square metal floor pieces was a three-inch square of
eighteen-carat gold (Gold. Field', 1966, Plate 5). The art patron Vera List commissioned
Gotd Field after she had purchased one of Andre's magnet pieces. Andre remembers
going down to the custom jewelry makers in the Bowery and asking for an ounce of
gold made into a small, three-inch flat square-the price, $6oo, was equal to the
price he got from List.113 Andre quickly realized what a productive method laying
out metal squares could be, and the next few years saw a burst of activit¡ making
manyfloorpieceiterations, suchas Møgnesiurn'ZincPløin[romr969 (Fig. zo),which

lays out alternating metals, their blotchy patinas mottling their surfaces as they dully
reflect the gallery lights.
Critic Barbara Rose saw Gold Field as an ironic gesture about the corrupt nature
of commissions, writing that'Andre's first blow to the profit motive consisted of tak-
 66 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

ing the money a collector had paid for a commission, buying an ingot of gold with
it and giving the gold back to the collect or.'114 It was meant to be different from other
sculptures made of precious materials because it was more visibly and literally tied
to its worth, dissolving the line between use and exchange value. Andre recounts bring-
ing the work-not an ingot but a very small flat sheet-to List in a velvet casing, proud
of how delicate and rare it seemed. He was disappointed by how dwarfed the work
was in List's palatial apartment.lls
However, Andre was compelled by the aesthetic properties of the flattened metal
itself, as is evident from his making squares of metal one of his primary motifs soon
thereafter. Furthermore, Andre was interested in the economic power of gold, not-
ing in 1969 that to "take all the gold out of Fort I(nox . . . would break the whole myth
of the system. It would break the whole Western capitalist system."116 Andre's com-
ment on the gold standard-dismantled two years later, in r97r-reveals his aware-
ness of both the symbolic and the real power of metals. For Andre, metals gll;aran-
teed value; if they underlay the capitalist system (metaphoricaþ and literally), their
recirculation could, perhaps, also undermine that system.
In his important work on minimalism, Hal Foster has written that works such as
Andre's, with their manufactured units like so many standard commodity objects, in
some respects embody industrial efficiency.117 They are also, he asserts, complexly
entangled in the transition to a postindustrial order. In addition, Andre further
positions his work within a temporally complicated place somewhere between the
preindustrial-that is, the crafted and the hand-worked-and the manufactured. He
has mentioned his profound respect for the "crafts" of construction work and the great

kinship he feels with the dignity and grace of bricklaying.ll8

More cruciall¡ throughout the late r96os and early r97os, Andre emphasized that
he did work with his hands. While friends and rivals such as Smithson were making
large-scale earthworks, he wanted to ìre known as the minimalist who was not at-
"Ilike to be personally involved. Part of
tracted to tfie massive. As he said in ry7o,
the reason why I make things in elements is because they come in sizes I can han-
dle. I can actuaþ put down a piece by myself. I've only done a couple of things with
elements I couldn't handle myself."11e Is there much distance between asserting that
he personally handled his art and saying itwas hønd worked? Even if positioning a
block of wood is not carving it by hand, Andre, by repeatedly invoking his bodily in-
volvement with his art, means to bridge thal gap.
For Andre, making art is primarily a matter of lifting and placing. "My making
a mark on a canvas has never convinced me. Moving a brick from one side of a room
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 67

to another, that convinces me. I know I've done something when I've done it.'120
These rudimentary tasks of lifting and placing-related to his idealized notion of
bricklaying-are akin to manipulation, to carving or marking a surface. Those tasks
become his brush strokes. In this way, he participates bodily in making his art. He
has emphasized that participation further by relating his artwork to manual lifting:
"I do not visualize works and I do not draw works and the only sense I have running
through my mind of the work is almost a physical lifting of it."tzt
The metal floor works thus have a dialectical relationship with industrial proce-
dures. The plates look as though they are straight offthe assembly line roller-freshly
pressed steel, shiny aluminum, glinting zinc-yel they are intentionally cut to be
just heavy (or lighQ enough for one individual to lift. Recall steelworker Lefevre's defi-
nition of "muscle work" inWorking: "Pick it up, put it down, pick it up, put it down."
With his floor works, Andre presents himself as a laborer with a single skill; this re-

duces the idea of labor to a distillation of manual work. What is more, his work tele-
scopes through the preindustrial and the postindustrial all at once.
Consider Lwer (t966; remade in 1969), a long straight row of r37 firebricks: the
bricks are positioned thin side up (Fig. zr). This placement recalls an illustration in
Frank Gilbreths rgrr study of briclavorkers that demonstrates the "rightway to pick
up [a] brick" (Fig. zz). Gilbreth, a motion analysis pioneer who worked in the tradi-
tion of F. W. Taylor, calculated precisely how workers interacted with materials to de-
velop the "one best way" for moving with efficiency."'He wanted to decrease wasted
motions to increase worker productivity. Although Gilbreth is often seen as a ruth-
less Taylorist engineer scheming to turn workers into machines, in fact he aimed to
create less effort and strain for the workers to humanize the worþlace. His first study
was of bricklayers, and Andre's grandfather was probably schooled in his techniques.
As this diagram illustrates, Gilbreth recommended turning the bricks on their edge
so that workers could grab them more effectively; Lwer'slaytngof bricks with no over-
lap conforms to Gilbreths recommendation. One might assume that Andre's bricks
likewise facilitate an efficient laying out, prepped as they are for easy pickup. Yet the
bricks in Lever signlfrcantly difler from those illustrated: they are tightly packed in
their neat row, allowing no room for the hand to grasp them. What is more, they are
on the ground. Gilbreths single most important innovation was to recommend that
bricks be placed on a waist-high scaffold so that workers would not "waste" molion
bending down to pick them up.
Lever,líke all of Andre's work, places materials backbreakingly on the floor. An-
dre's art thwarts efficiency, requiring the installer to bend over and pick up, bend over
FIcURE 2t Cad Andre, Lever,
1 966, installed in |he Primary

Structures exhibit at the Jewish

Museum, New York. Firebricks,
1 37 units, each 4'/z . B7/a . 2t/zin.,

overall 41/z x 87/e x 348 in.

Photograph @ The Jewish lVuseum,
New York/Art Resource, NY Art O
Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New
York, NY

FlcuRE 22 Frank B. Gilbreth,

illustration ftom Motion Study: A
Method for lncreasing the Effìc¡ency
of the Workman (New York: D. Van
Nostrand, 1 911). Caption reads,
"Right way to pick up brick from
upper tier on lhe packet."
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ËTHIC I 69

and put down.123 His works demonstrate a longing for the days before Täylorized work
and efficiency, a time when a worker could obsess about squaring bricks just so, mov-
ing materials from one side of the room to another, feeling the weight and heft of a

handheld load. As Alex Potts asserts, "In hindsight, the world of industrial processes
evoked by Andre's work has more to do with the aging rust ìrelt than with the new
world of consumer commodities and high technology industry. The materiality of
his work, with its evocations of industrial grittiness, might now even have a slightly
nostalgic parina."lz+ The arrangement of the metal pieces, too, suggests the need for
the care and precision not of a machine but of a craftsman. These works represent
a deliberate archaism, harking back to artisanal times while invoking standardized
factory fabrication. Are the artists who embraced manufactured art engineers, crafts-
men, or factory line workersl Though Andre claims that artists have been proleteri-
anized, he acknowledges that "my social position, reaþ in the classic Marxist analy-
sis, is I'm an artisan."12s
A curator recentþ wrote the.following account of installing an Andre retrospec-
tive in Oxford, England: "It was hard, physical labor, some of the time; but never at
any point did anyone ask'Whyl' People identified with the work so totally that there

was not even the usual request for a verbal explanation of the meaning. . . . There
was never one moment of alienation, only a straightforward love and respect for the
material."126 The use of the term øIíenøtion-and the suggestion that the installation
of an Andre exhibition forestalls that alienation-is remarkable. If one is tempted to
dismiss this statement as an instance of enthusiastic curatorial excess, there might
be a grain of truth regarding the relationship between the installer and the art. Per-
haps Andre's respect for his materials, and the impossibility of laying them down
efficiently-one must be gentle and conscious in aligning them precisely-enacts
in some small measure Andre's dream of contradicting the Taylorist rigidity of in-
dustrial manufacturing. As the comparison to Gilbreth shows, something in the
way the materials are laid out-something inherent in Andre's work-resists mind-
numbing routines. The curator's statement is curiously defensive, as if the installers
would be expected to feel more resentful handling Andre's work than that of other
artists; this may be explained by the lasting fallout from the Tate bricks controversy,
which pitted artist and worker against each other.
If a lasting legacy of minimalism was that it handed over much of the "work" to
viewers by activating them in their perceptual space, Andre's minimalism also nom-
inates instøIlers as part of the act of making, inviting them to contribute to the art's
experiential gestalt. As the artist has said, "There's one aspect of participation that I
 7O I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

like and that is that my works lend themselves to installation, and I mean building
and taking down very readil¡ so people can put them out when they want to and put
them away when they want to."127 Installers, spectators, and the artist are on equal
ground doing the work that actualizes the art. For Andre this work is not the grind
of employment but the unalienated pleasure of "putting [the works] together. "128 Yet
whose labor is he invoking herel It is first and foremost his own, as well as that of
the installers and spectators, but the other laborers with whom he wants to assert an
affiliation are often erased from his account of making. There are working bodies
behind his metals and his bricks, workers that his own accounts have not taken into
consideration; asking questions about his art's actual manufacturing is one \May to
bring those bodies at least partially into view.
In an earþ review of Andre's sculpture, Mel Bochner asserts that Andre "de-
mythologized the artist's function. . . . There is no work or craftsmanship."l2e More
recentþ Benjamin Buchloh has argued that minimal sculpture such as Andre's dis-

mantled the "mythified construction techniques" of previous sculpture because of

the "transparency of [his] production procedures. "130 Both Buchloh and Bochner mo-
bilize the ide a of "myth," as if Andre's metal plates had come clattering down to wake
us from our collective dream and return us to cold hard reality. They also both claim
that the work is "transparent." This reading assefis that Andre's minimalism is a ver-
sion of Duchamps readymade, and the importance of Duchamps example of inves-
tigations of art, value, and artistic identity in the r96os and r97os should not be un-
derestimated. Buchloh in particular has done pioneering work to assess the relation
between the historical and the neo avant-garde. Yet the Duchampian influence claimed
for minimalism overlooks the material specificity of its objects; thus Andre's actual
production process is not often interrogated.
It is a powerfulþ deceptive aspect of Andre's work that it appears so ordinary and

unworked. It is true that most of his earliest works were "scavenged" and that he con-
tinued to use local found materials in some of his pieces. While 64 Steel Squørewas
composed of sixty-four precut steel plates that Andre had purchased from a salvage
company on Canal Street, this was not his process for the vast majority of his works.
Clearly a square plate of gold was not merely lying on the street like so much rub-
bish. It is true that Andre did not make his magnesium, nor did he shape it or cut
it-but how, even, did he locate itl Can one just call up a metal supplier and ask for
a square of pure copperl Could you do so in ry67, and where would that copper
have come froml The readymade argument makes Andre's choices more concep-
tual than aesthetic, when Andre deeply resented being called a conceptualist, as-
 CARL ANDRE'S WOBK ETHIC I 71

FrcuRE 23 Carl Andre, Feef, 1966, remade at the Solomon R. Guggenheim

Museum, New York, 1969, Styrofoam planks, 65 units, each 20 x 10 " 108 in.,
overall 20 x 1 08 x 650 in, Photograph courtesy of the Paula Cooper Gallery, New
York. Art @ Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

serting that his art has "nothing to do with ideas-in-the-head and everything to with
13 t
matter-in-thg -\Mevld.'r
Rosalind I(rauss writes that "minimalist sculptors . . . exploit a kind of found ob-
ject for its possibilities as an element in a repetitive structure. This is true . . . of Carl
Andre's rows of Styrofoam planks or frrebricks."l32 But neither industrial lime bricks
nor large orange Styrofoam planks of a $966, Fig. z3l are "found
work llke Reef

objects" in the way that Duchamps bottle rack is. Wirh Reef, the planks are tilted on
end and lined up in a row on the ground like an outsized, inflated version of Lever
to become a confrontational presence. Reef, made of buoyancy billets used to keep
docks afloat, was constructed of planks made by Defender Industries in New York;
each plank cost $zz.z5 for a total of $r,78o.133 When a similar Styrofoam work, Cnb
 72 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

(tg6ì,sold to a collector in Germany, the planks had to be speciaþ ordered from

Dow Chemical. Since Dow was worried about their flammability, Andre wrote to the
collector, "I would suggest that when writing you state they are for 'marine applica-
tion.''134 In other words, these were not found on the street but purchased at spe-
cialized stores or ordered from chemical companies.
Styrofoam was not Andre's only use of Dow products. In his 1969 Møgnesium'
Zinc Pløin, the underside of the magnesium (Plate 6) bears the imprint of Dow
Chemical. (I was allowed to violate Andre's own rules for viewing the art and turn
over the metal plate).13s This brand imprint speaks volumes about the materiality of
metal and Andre's ethics of making, issues that nonetheless remained somewhat
obscured at the time of the work's creation. Though it was not meant to be seen, the
underside of this plate is remarkable and offers up a wealth of visual interest. It has
a scribbled mark-the abbreviation for magnesium-handwritten at a skewed angle

in dark gray over the mottled, lighter gray patina of the scratched, worn metal. The
sudden intrusion of the linguistic mark harks back to Andre's word poems. The
stamped imprint, visible on the right side of the plate, is hard to decipher initially
but floats between surface and ground in ghostly light blue. It is repeated three times:
DOW MAGNESIU-Ihe final M was severed by the arbitrary cuts made when shap-
ing the plate.
In ry69-7o Flavin used his signature fluorescent lights in rhe Spøces show at the
Museum of Modern ArU as is detailed in small print in the catalog entry for this work,
these lightbulbs were manufactured and donated by General Electric (Fig. z4). GE at
the time was under fire for its major governmental contract with the military, pro-
ducing munitions for the Vietnam War; not only that, but when the show opened,
GE workers tvere on strike. In response to Flavin's art, the AWC sent a letter that ac-

cused him of collaborating with the enemy by using GE-made materials. They de-
manded that he take responsibility for using products that they felt were directly im-
plicated in the war they had united to end. "We question the use of Art (and artists)
by a corporation that is one of the largest government contractors of war mate-
rial. . . . Is it moral for you as an artist to benefit from a company involved in human
destructionl'136 Battcock wrote an article in Arts Møgøzinø that explicitþ addressed
where artists got their materials and these corporations' connections to the war. As
Battcock speculated, "The artists get their materials where they can. Why not? There
is no connection that can be philosophically demonstrated between the art works
themselves and the war. However, there is just one connection; even though it isn t
a scientific one, it is ideo1ogica1."137
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 7S

Þan Flavin

ùnl¡lld (þSonja).1s9.

Yûlrós andorâen flrorsscent l¡qhL

t { ¡lgh x 20'6" w¡dê x s'd dêêÞ.

Lârg€ L3óp Div¡sìoû, Fixtûr€s påniå¡ly

donåþd by tunìs-Ërêdro Lighl'ng

r¡è compleb lrrcrescènr dFbð. ?rôj. Pn út oû pweL ê z {, omþd by thê a4¡.!

{lo P¡el Monddrn who lækôd!óoô). ,969

,arsùtc'd e¡âsti. co*!èd g.æn
tuüèêe.t tùh!, âtutdinaLt
.t h¡gh t 2A' w¡& t ,1 þng,
qedelik vaô abþeñoseØ, E¡kdtußn

FtcuRE 24 Dan Flavin, entry in catalog for Spaces exhÌbition, curated by Jennifer Licht, Museum of Modern
A¡1, New York, December 30, 1969-l\/arch 1 , 1970. lvluseum of Modern Art Library, New York. lmage @ The

lvluseum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/ArI Resource, NY Art O 2009 Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York.

Likewise, when Maurice Tuchman's 1969 exhibit Art øndTechnology arthe Los An-
geles County Museum of Art praised the public involvement of private industry "in
the creating of art works," a skeptical revie\Mer asked, 'Are any of the participating
corporations manufacturing for the American war machine)'138 Artists were asked
about where their materials came from, and the answers were often understood to
be matters of life and death.
But Andre never came under fire for using Dow-made Styrofoam or Dow-made
magnesium, even though Dow Chemical was a {arlarger target for antiwar protest-
ers in the late r96os than GE. A major manufacturer of napalm, Dow was second
only to the ROTC as a target on college campuses.l3e One of the bloodiest riots of the
r96os took place during a sit-in to protest recruitment for Dow at the University of
Wisconsin in ry67; nearþ one hundred students and police officers sustained in-
juries.laO Most leftist groups boycotted Dow, and by ry69 stockholders put pressure

on the company to disinvest from the chemical weapons business.lal

 74 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

M*yb" the absence of discussion around Andre's Dow materials reflects Andre's
political clout in the AWC, but it also goes back to the specificity of his materials and
their veiled, opaque origins. Because we use lightbulbs in our everyday lives and see
their brand name when we purchase them, we know GE made them. This is not the
case for massive planks of Styrofoam or a solid flat square of magnesium, neither
of which has any domestic use. The readyrnade argument confuses Styrofoam cups,
which can l¡e bought at the grocery store, with large buoyancy billets, which are highly
specialized materials. I(rauss repeatedly characterizes Andre's work (along with that
of his fellow minimalists) as composed of "everyday objects," "commonplace" ma-
terials drawn from "ordinary stuffs," remarkable for their very "banality." (These
phrases are taken from a single paragraph in her important and pathbreaking Pøs-
søges in Modem Sculpture.lla2 Copper might be as ordinary as the pennies in your
pocket, but a large carpet of it, shining and pure under your feet, is about as "every-
day" for the average viewer of art as a trip in a submarine. To say that these metals
are "banal" or "transparent" ignores the fact that most viewers have no idea how
these things are made or where they come from. The readymade reading of mini-
malism, as much as it wants to "demythologize" sculpture, rests on its own myth,
which is that its materials are "everyday," when many of them are quite exhraordinary
or remote. Buchlohs and Ifuauss's signature, brilliant contributions to the literature
on minimalism continue to be formative to understandings of this movement. De-
spite the broad-and deserved-influence of that Duchampian paradigm, however,
it is vital to reconsider the material aspect of Andre's work beyond the readyrnade
rubric.
This veiling of Andre's materials is one of the key characteristics of the postin-
dustrial age. Andre's art points back in time, to the artisanal and preindustrial, but it
is also predic aled on postrndustrial conditions. There are two interrelated features of

the postindustrial landscape: the manufacturing basis of the economy is eroded be-
cause of a rise in service or information-related jobs, and what manufacturing re-
mains is displaced, sent elsewhere, outside our (collective) view. Steel.is still milled,
but it no longer occupies a certain national imaginary, largely because production
has moved outside U.S. borders. As Mike Davis has argued, it is a characteristic of
the postindustrial to assume that work has disappeared, or has been taken over by
machines, when in fact such hard labor continues unabated, relocated to poor, un-
143
derdeveloped countries.
In the years that factory fabrication became so prominent in the art world, steel
mills and other manufacturing plants were shutting down in record numbers. The
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 75

industrial base of the United States shifted just as Andre began to move away from
his carved wood pieces to his prefabricated floor works; the early and mid-r96os are
notable for the great expansion of global trade routes involving the raw materials of
capitalism. Andre's metals followed a logic of global availability. Donald Lippincott,
who owned and ran the art fabrication firm Lippincott Inc., reported that while his
firm never had any problems accluiring metals, their price rose and fell depending
upon the world economic situation. The quality of the metal likewise fluctuated on
the basis of the global market.la U.S. industrial production of metals reached its peak
in 1968;thereafter it steadily declined, and Americalooked aggressivelyto the world's
supply.ias
In short, Andre's materials were part of a U.S. industrial context that was becom-
ing somewhat obsolete. Michael Newman has observed that the displacement of "the
industrial mode of production . . . from the centre of advanced economies was prob-
ably what made it available for art."1'46 By the early r97os the steel for Andre's art no
longer necessarily came from Pennsylvania. Instead, it was increasingly likely to be
imported from developing nations. Nowadays such items are both more within reach
and more confusingly distant than ever. One can order a 3/s-inch-thick square foot
of aluminum-exactly Andre's preferred dimensions-from MetalsDepot and have
ii
shipped out directly (Fig. z5). Re-creating his 44 Alurninurn Pløin aI zooS prices
would cost more than six thousand dollars, plus shipping fees. But as the metals are
easier to buy, their sources are receding. Where such things originate is anyone's guess:

despite the map of North America on this catalog cover, the company reports that it
has changed the source of the metal it purchases on the basis of market fluctuations
and that much now comes from eastern Europe.laT
This transition was well under way when Andre began making his allegedly "every-
day" objects, and by the earþ r97os the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy
had greatþ changed. Following a 27 percent drop in steel use during the r96os, the
U.S. steel industry saw its first-ever decline in production in r973Jas By tgTS scores
of plants were closing in the Midwest, and an era was endingJae The shutdowns con-
tinue today. The Bethlehem Steel Company in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which not
only worked with sculptors such as Robert Murray in the r96os but also employed
Andre's father, closed its doorsin 1995 after almost r5o yearc of metal production.
Automation, foreign imports, and domestic competition drove it out of business.
There are now plans to turn the plant into a "recreation and retail complex" that will
include the Smithsonian National Museum of Industrial History, complete with an
"iron and steel tour."1s0 In other words, the Bethlehem Steel Company, like Andre's
 76 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

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work before it, will move metal into a museum. That the Massachusetts Museum
of Contemporary Art (a former electrical parts factory) and Dia:Beacon (a former
Nabisco printing plant) are now the two largest repositories of minimal art in the
United States is no coincidence-these transformations follow the logic of turning
shut-down industrial plants into spectacular showcases for cluasi-industrial art
objects.
This obsolescing of the industrial is integral to the process of Andre's making, as

in the example of EquivøIent VIII. When Andre first found a single sand-lime brick
in Manhattaninry66, he immediately liked the brick's non-
at a construction site
domestic properties-its solidity, its unusual pallor.lsl To find enough such bricks
to make the entire Equivølent series, which required almost a thousand bricks, he lo-
cated a brickworks in Long Island City, Queens. After his 1966 Tibor de Nagy show,
where none of the works sold, he returned them to this factory.ls2 When Andre wanted
to reconstruct the art inry69, he went back to the factory to repurchase the bricks,
only to find that it had closed. "This $zo million factory had just disappeared," he
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 77

reported with amazement. "I find that it very often happens that materials that I work
with, which are perfectþ accurate, disappear practically overnight."ls3 The story of
these bricks is also the story of the dismantling of New York's industrial base. Al-
though in the earþ part of the century New York had many manufacturing indus-
tries, by the mid-r95os they were slowly being displaced as Robert Moses's plans for
Manhattan moved manufacturing out of the city.lsa Andre felt himself a victim of
the displacement of manufacturing. In 1972, when his dealer Virginia Dwan closed
her gallery and he lost his representation, he complained that he felt like a worker
in a New England mill whose plant had been shut dowrr.lss

Minimalism in the War Years

What is the relationship between politics and artl

A. Art is a political weapon.
B. Art has nothing to do with politics.
C. Art serves imperialism.
D. Art serves revolution.
E. The relationship between politics and art is none ofthese
things, some of these things, all of these ihings.
Carl Andre (1969)

Did Andre's art have a dialogue with the politics of the Vietnam War erallsG For some
critics, the answer is an easy "no." Irving Sandler wrote that Andre "never connected
his art with revolutionaÍy or utopian politics."1s7 Likewise, in zooo Hilton Kramer
wrote of minimalism, "The art itself was so little affected by the war in Vietnam and
the antiwar movement and everything thatwent with it. . . . [The war] had absolutely
no influence on the minimalist movement."1s8 Kramer's opinion is not merely revi-
sionist hindsight; some critics in the r96os and r97os accused minimal art of a
supreme lack of interest in its own historical moment and castigated it for irre-
sponsibly removing itself from the social turmoil of the time. The autonomy of
minimalism-for Andre, his work's "stillness" stood in opposition to a war-filled
world, and he often slid from promoting antiwar politics to describing his art's own
"peaceful clualities"lse-led to accusations of irresponsible detachment.
Some even suggested that minimalist art such as Andre's colludedwiththe war, es-
peciaþ in its reliance on technology. fames Meyer has stated, "The circulation of
minimal art in Ëurope in 1968-69 became a pretext for contesting US military pol-
 78 I CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

icy at the height of the Vietnam war."160 Factory-made minimal work seemed to some
to buttress U.S. imperialism; when the show The Art of the Reøl: USA ry48-ry68
traveled abroad in 1968 it elicited widespread protests because ofperceived links be-
tween the art and U.S. domination. Likewise, the exhibit Minirnøl ArtaIItre Hague's
Gemeentemuseum in 1968 aroused a storm of violent controversy regarding the
role of U.S. aggression in Vietnam, even as its artists, particularly Andre, explicitly
marked themselves as against the war.161 Although defenders felt that Andre's art
challenged the market and democratically approached questions of work, critics of
his art circled back to minimalist art's (dis)engagement with labor and its status as

an art commodity.162
MinirnøIisrn is a slippery referent, however, and has generated starkly contradic-
tory readings. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood sum up the problem: "It is, of course,
impossible to draw a secure connection betvveen a B5z raid in Vietnam and an art gal-
lery in America filled with bricks. . . . Rightly or wrongly, bricks, felt, earth, and other
such materials were held to be adequate vehicles of a conjoint aesthetic ønd political
critique."163 As earþ as Battcock's introduction to his anthology Minirnøl Artinry68,
critics gestured to this art's relationship to the war. "Today, the artist is more imme-
diately involved in daily concerns. Vietnam, technological development, sociology,
and philosophy are all subjects of immediate importance."l6a
One writer asserted more forcefuþ in ry78, "Carl Andre's art is an art of protest.
It grew in America alongside the civil unrest that culminated in the campaign for the
withdrawal of the U.S. Army from Vietnam. Andre placed adverts in the New York
art press, personally congratulating the North Vietnamese on the liberation of their
people."16s The writer refers to a single ad, in the spring 1975 issue of Art-Ritemag-
azine, that was actuaþ sponsored by a group of eight people, including Lippard, An-
gelaWestwater, and Irving Petlin, butitis narratedhere as Andre's sole doing (Fig. z6).
In other words, just as Andre's work was seen as affirming the "establishment," it was
also viewed as "an art of protest." More recentl¡ art historians have taken up the case
for the politics of minimalism. Many claim that its progressive, democratic impulse
stems from the object's relationship to the viewer. Meyer additionally brings in the
notion of Adornian negativit¡ contending, "Much like the Beckett plays that Adorno
admired, minimalist work communicates precisely in its 'lack of communication.' "166

The muteness is directed, if paradoxical. Andre's art means to register as a protest

against current modes of making and work. His materials are in dialogue with in-
dustrial conditions, yet he also \Mants to engage in the handmaking of work-a kind
of bricklaying-to shore up his claim that as an artist he is at once blue-collar worker
 CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC I 79

FIGURE 26 Advertisement
congratulating "the people of Viet Nam,"
Arf-Rlfe, Spring 1975, 53.

and artisan. There is a romance about the industrial materials that he uses (the beauty
of elements mined in America's heartland) even if they might be produced by the
same company that makes napalm or might be imported from other countries. At
the same time, Andre's art maintains the illusion that there are materials separate from
trademarking or corporate capital. This wish could be termed his "industrial nostal-
gia," anditgoes alongwithhis desireforunalloyed-uncormpted, even-metals from
mill. In t97z Andre said that he preferred to utilize "the pure metals
a Pennsylvania

of commerce, as pure as they (None of the metals Andre uses are in fact
^t..n1'67
"pt7re," as he well knows, but rather are alloys of some kind. Unadulterated elemental
metals are nearly impossible to come by, since they lack any commercial or indus-
trial applications.) The readymade model has encouraged this veiling; Andre relies
on his materials' "ordinariness" when their actual origins are extraordinarily com-
plicated. While we are welcome to walk on his metal squares, they are not meant to
be turned over.
Noting that Andre used Dow-produced magnesium is not simply crying hypocrisy,
but it is challenging Andre's own claims that his work is "innocent"; as he stated in
1978, "Perhaps one thing my work is about is the fundamental innocence of matter.
I don't think matter is guilty of all the transgressions of which we are accusing
it.'16s Yet connections between military hardware and consumer goods were being
made by the AWC at this time, even though some saw this as reductive and sim-
plistic. Donald fudd posited ín ry75 that "Flavin was scolded by the Art Workers'
Coalition a few years back because the fluorescent tubes he used were made by a
company that made something for the Vietnam war. It all gets silly. Flavin pointed
out that the most common toilet was made by a company that also supplied some-
 8O I CAHL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

thing for the War.'16e Andre did not address this complicit¡ instead generating an
impossible binary between production (the "innocence" of materials) and con-
sumption (museums'use of his art as "slave practice").
There is a more generous reading of Andre's work. He dreams of an art that can
recalibrate worth and work and sees himself recirculating these charged materials,
defusing them by taking them out of the economy of war and redirecting them to
the realm of aesthetic contemplation. As Charles Harrison wrote in 1969, "In a cul-
ture where materials are assessed according to their scarcity in relation to their use-
fulness for economic,trrllitary, or propaganda purposes, Carl Andre's series of sculp-
tures involving different metals in identical configurations acts powerfully to redress
the balance."l7O In showing how matter matters, then, Andre alludes to-but does
not directly figure-the larger systems of how resources are valued and exchanged.
In a similar vein, in 1967 Robert Morris envisioned using war materials in a project
that would be, as he puts it, "interruptive." Although it is unclear if this project ever
came to fruition, Morris said, "I'm really concerned to subvert the particular tech-
nology that I've gotten my hands on; which is strictly a war technology that I'm using.
I'm using a company that makes, ah . . . services, missiles.'rul \{e11ls believes that
contracting with the military-industrial complex is one way to subvert it. A similar
conclusion might be drawn about Andre, whose art, after all, was embraced because
it offered a way to deploy materials that would oppose their use by the "establish-
ment." Think of his Gold. Field andhis idea that the large-scale recirculating of gold
could make or break the "whole Western capitalist system." Andre recentþ stated
that his work is, at its core, an attempt to "find the most just way of putting particles
togelhey."l7z This idea of justice might find its outlet in shifting the value of metals
from militaristic commerce toward a glittering, gridded space of aesthetic order, equiv-
alence, and texture.
"There is no symbolic content to my work," Andre says.173 It is a modernist move
for an artist to claim that his matter lacks syrnbolic reference. He wants to be a reølíst-
this turns his industrial nostalgia into a profound nostalgia, as well, for modernism.
This is not the literalism of Michael Fried but rather that of Philip Leider when he
writes that Andre's work is "a literalism, first andforemost, of materials." Leider main-
tains that Andre's materials "introduce into art a new kind of truth, a new source, so
to speak, of believabilit¡ a tmth based so nakedly and explicitly on the facts of the
real world as to suggest a revitalized and wholly different 'realisrn.'"174 These "facts
of the real world' are the elemental forces of, sa¡ gravity, which Andre's sculptures
do not contest; they are not the facts of postindustrial metal production.
 CARL ANDHE'S WORK ETHIC I 81

Moralism underlies many descriptions of Andre's minimalism. Leider's reading

makes Andre's art a clarion call to "tmth" and "believability" in a time of uncertainty
and doubt. His view is syrnpathetic to Andre's own vision; his insistence that the ma-
terials simply are what they present themselves to be removes them from any asso-
ciation with a world or economy beyond the fact of their obdurate gravity on the gallery
floor. For Andre metals do not have much outside reference beyond the industrial
and modernist nostalgia with which he imbues them. In other words, it is a willful
oversight more than gross negligence, a determination to see the surface of the metal
but not its underside. How could they signify the war when for him they are selÊ
contained as sensuous, precious, and without funç¡isn-ç6nsciously removed from
functionality-in a global marketplacel

This self-containment does not, however, describe the experience of the art, which
potentially carves out a horizontal, spatial field of "equivalence," Marcuse's "dimen-
sion of possible liberation." Andre's minimalism moves the meaning of art awayfrom
internal individual experience out onto a field of social relations-into what Krauss
rightþ calls "cultural space."17s His art, with its platforms for interaction and bodiþ
awareness, tries to create a place-perhaps even a utopian site-where meaning can
be reconstituted or leveled, both literally and figuratively justified. Cruciaþ Andre's
minimalism also activates a different set of bodies-just outside his vision are the
displaced bodies of workers in mills, in mines, and on shop floors. Andre's romance
of the artisanal does not allow him to see these workers; like the hidden Dow chem-
ical imprint, they are the underside of his art. In the Vietnam'War era, he did not
fully think through the ideology of materials and connect them systemically to the
war and political economies, an examination pursued by others in the AWC.
For Andre, sculpture has everything to do with location, as is summarized by
his formulation "sculpture as place."176 The "hereness" of his sculpture also points
away from itself to a "thereness"-the complex zones of imports, exports, and global
markets. The materials Andre uses manifestþ did not appear within the museum
as readymades scavenged offthe street; they had a prehistory in factories, shops, mines
overseas, and chemical companies. These origins are the defining preconditions of
industrially fabricated art, which during the apex of Andre's production was increas-
ingly reliant upon postindustrial manufacturing conditions and the opening of world
markets. With their insistent veiling, Andre's works both refuse to figure the Viet-
nam War and gesture toward a wider political site of which the war was but one part.
Andre has talked of his "ideal piece of sculphffe" as a road.177 This road, paved with
contradictions, leads out of the museum and into the world.
 Robert Morris's Art Strike

Exhibition as Work

For his r97o solo exhibition at the.Whitney Museum of American Arl, Robert Morrís:
Recent Works, Robert Morris created process pieces-"spil1s" of concrete, timber, and

steel-that filled the entire third floor of the museum (Fig. zn. These constructions,
including a ninety-six-footJong installation that spanned the length of the room, were
the largest pieces the Whitney had ever exhibited (Plate 7). Assembled over the space
of ten days, the installations were built with the help of a team of more than thirty
forklift drivers, crane operators, and building engineers, as well as a small army of
professional art fabricators (Fig. z8).1 An article in Timernagazine observed, 'As work-
men moved in with gantries, forklifts, and hydraulic jacks to help Morris do his thing,
the museum took on the look of a midtown construction site."2 To accommodate the
massive installations, the walls in the gallery space were removed, and there was con-
cern that the floor might not be able to support their weight. Instead of a traditional
opening, viewers were invited to watch the labor progress day after da¡ although this
component of the show ended after an iniury pinned an art installer under a steel
plate as a result of faulty ngging.3
Using machinery and multþle assistants to create large artworks was standard prac-
tice by r97o, and contemporaneous outdoor projects by Richard Serra (Shifi,rg7o-
7z) and Robert Smithson (SpirøI Jefiy, r97o) dwarf Morris's Whitney exhibition in
terms of sheer grandiosity. While most artworks of this scale require help from

83
FlcuRE2T lnstallationshololRobertMorris: RecentWorksallheWhitneyMuseumofAmericanArt,New
York, 1970, featuring Untitled [Concrete, Steel,Timbers], approx. 6 x 16 x g6 ft. Destroyed. Photograph by Rudy
Burckhardt O 2009 Estate of Rudy Burckhardt/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art O 2009 Robert
Monis/Artists R¡ghts Society (ARS), New York.

FlcURE2a Workersinstall Morris'sWhitneyexhibition, l9T0.PhotographbyRoxanneEverett,OLippincott

lnc. Courtesy of the Lippincott Inc. photography collection, 1968-77, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
lnstitution.
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 85

studio apprentices or installers, this orhibit uniquely theatricalized these workers'

bodily involvement at the same time that it proposed an uneasy equality between artist
and assistant. The pieces were made partially by chance-the workers rolled, scat-
tered, and dropped concrete blocks and timbers, then left them to lie as they fell. In
thus relinquishing compositional control, Morris insisted on an unprecedented degree
of collaboration between himself and the workers who installed the show. He the-
matized the literal materials and means of construction work, and he enacted a work
stoppage-an art strike-by shutting this show down earþ By circumventing the
studio and fabricating the work wholly on the floor of the museum, Morris figured
the art itself as a specific kind of work, performed at a specific kind of work site.
The r97o V/hitney show was initially intended by curator Marcia Tucker as a com-
prehensive midcareer survey that would complement the artist's recent solo exhibi
tions at the Corcoran Gallery and the Detroit Institute of Arts in late 1969. fust be-
fore it opened, |ack Burnham laid out the expectations for the upcoming Whitney
show: "The Washington and Detroit shows have presented aspects of Morris's work
during the past ten years; most probably the V/hitney will touch on all periods of the
sculptor's development in a more complete way."4 Both Tucker and Morris agreed
until late 1969 to exhibit some of his earlier, well-known pieces alongside a small
number of previously unseen, new works. But by mid-December, Morris turned away
from this idea, writing to Tucker, "I do not wish to show old work."s As he elaborated
in a letter a few weeks later: "I feel a separate room of older objects shown some-
where off the third floor is antithetical to the position I take with respect to this show
and the point I want to make about a redefinition of the possibilities for one-man
shows in contemporary museums of art. . . . My hope is that the museum can sup-
port a showing situation which allows the artist an engagement rather than a regur-
gitation: a situation of challenge for the public and risk for the artist."6 By trying to
"redefine" conventional retrospectives, Morris sought nothing less than a total ren-
ovation of the ideas of the solo show one that entailed both "challenge" and "risk."
He wanted to use his exhibition, not to solidify or historicize his reputation, but to
push a political and aesthetic agenda. This was news to the curator, who had been
proceeding with a catalog for a very different kind of show.7
Morris tinkered with plans for the exhibition right up until its first day. In the end,
he decided to show only six pieces: four steel-plate sculptures and two new site-specific
installations in which he subjected unrefined industrial components to a series of
actions in which chance played a role. Tucker later recalled that the show recluired
"more machinery" to install than she had ever used and that for the museum as well
 86 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

as for the artist, "it was an absolutely phenomenal amount of work."8 By filling the
gallery space with raw materials that had been jostled, pulled, rigged, and dropped,
Morris went to great lengths to ernphøsize e{íort while simultaneously denying con-
ventional notions of specialized artistic skill, a denial that provoked comment in the
press at the time. "V7hat team of corduroy road-builders went berserk herel" one re-
viewer asked.e
Within the discipline of art histor¡ the phrase most frequentþ employed to de-
scribe the making of art is arlrslícprocess. Process encompasses the full range of artis-
tic activity, from concepAtalizingthe work, to drawing in preparatory notebooks, to
applFng the paintbrush. Most generaþ it refers to solitary studio practices. In the
late r96os, however, in concert with the radicalization of artistic labor as a form of
work, processtook on a more precise meaning and was applied to art that emphasized
the procedures of its own construction: that is, work that highlighted the performa-
tive act of making rather than presenting itself as a finished object. This redefinition
relocated artistic activities beyond the traditional site of the studio and moved art mak-
ing into other contexts-galleries and museums, primaril¡ but also outdoor sites such
as streets, parks, or remote landscapes. Such "process art" straddled the lines between
performance, sculpture, and installation and did not usuaþ result in a "final" object.
In the late r96os and earþ Ig7os, artists increasingly challenged art's commodity
status, seeking to remove it from marketability as a distinct and salable product-
art was, famously, "dematerialized." The work of art, seen as increasingly irrelevant
as a noun, evolved into an active verb, as was best characterizedby Richard Serra's

Verb Líst9967-68).In this work, Seffa presents a list of infinitives that function to
generate his process-based art: "to roll, to clease, to fold. . . to bundle, to heap, to
gather." Process art's emphasis on simple "workmanlike" actions has as one of its
sources the task-based dance ofthe network ofchoreographers and dancers who were
affiliated with performances at fudson Memorial Church, such as Yvonne Rainer.lo
Like conceptual art, process art was viewed as resisting conventional ideas of artis-
tic labor, not least because it questioned the status of the product.
Maurice Berger has importantly theorized how p rocesswas a key word in New Left

thinking as well as in the new art of the late r96os.11 This semantic parallel activates
an understanding of both process art and the New Left as aligned with democratic
ideals of open debate and interactivity. As Stanley Aronowitz \4/rote, "The nature of
the New Left, summalizedinasingle word, . . . was process."12 However, procøss does
not adequately describe these artists' political understanding of their own modes of
production. Artists such as Morris were starting to see their activities not only as
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I A7

FIGURE 29 Robert
Morris drives a forklift
as he installs his
Whitney exhibition,
1 970. Photograph
@ Gianfranco
Gorgoni/Contact
Press lmages.

process but also, polemicaþ as work. Morris's exhibition rehearsed and spectacu-
larizedthis move to make process wofk and to make work process and in so doing
made clear the stakes of aligning radical art, artistic activism, and artistic labor.
Morris's r97o Whitney \Morks are accessible today only as photographs, drawings,
and written and verbal descriptions.l3 Even though the exhibit genefated a volumi-
nous amount of documentation (photographic and filmic), a series of Gianfranco
Gorgoni photographs, published int97z, for decades constituted its primary public
archive.la Beyond documenting the exhibit, these photographs contribute to its dis-
cursive framing; in them, Morris is repeatedly depicted at work-gloves on, shirt
stained with perspiration and dirt. In one image, for example, Morris drives a fork-
lift, a cigar planted firmly in his mouth (Fig. z9). Gorgoni places the viewer down on
the street as he captures Morris hauling large timbers through the Whitney's load-
ing entrance. A man is removing the doþ from under the lift. His frame is contorted
as he crouches below the wood, and the beams loom above his doubled-over body.
Artists rarely drive their own materials in through museums' delivery doors, but the
photograph produces evidence that Morris is adept at working with machinery and
the matters of construction, a point reiterated in a r97o interview when he stated
that "a fork-lift truck works fine" as a tool for heavy lifting.ls In another image, the
artist braces himself against a large wooden beam as three men scramble above him
(Fig. 3o). The faceless workers appear as dark silhouettes against the white museum
wall, while Morris, smoking a justJit cigar, is carefirlly framed by a large blod< behind
his head. The depiction of the artist's manual and mechanical effort actively promotes
the sense that he has become, as one review remarked, a "construction man."16
 88 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKÊ

FtcuRE 30 Robert lvlorris

and workers assemble
U ntitled [Concrete, T ¡ mbers,
Sfee4 1970. Photograph @
Gianfranco Gorgoni/Contact
Press lmages.

Morris's Whitney installatio ns-Un¡itled. [Timbers] and rJnütled [Concrete, Tin'tbers,

Steell-rnadeextensive use of building materials. ln Untítled [Timbers] (PlaIe 8), placed
close to the stairs and elevators, wood beams from twelve to sixteen feet long were
stacked in a grouping that rose seven feet high and extended almost fifty-five feet

down the length of the room. Single timbers jutted out diagonally at about eye level
at either end, wedged undeÍ some of the beams to hoist them offthe floor. Buttressed
by a few smaller slats so that they pointed at a nearly direct forty-five-degree angle,
they were provocative, resembling fulcrums oI leveÍs awaiting the viewer's pumping
hand. At one end, the pile cascaded down in a great tumble, fanning out along the
floor. So precarious were the timbers that the museum installed signs warning visi-
tors not to touch them.
Other gallery spaces besides the Whitney were overflowing with lumber around
r97o. Richard Serra, in a show at the Pasadena Art Museum, placed twelve red and
white fir logs, each sawed into three parts, in rows on a large concrete slab (Fig. 3I).

To align the logs, each four feet in diameter and more than twenty feet long, required
cranes, pulleys, and a sizable crew of hired workers. Serra wanted to build a viewing
platform to give visitors a better perspective on the enorrnous geometry of the work'
Such installations, using the raw materials of construction and depending on teams
of wage laborers, took the measufe of the artist's own investment--economic out-
lay, man-hours, rented equipment, and bodiþ effort.
This bodiþ effort was emphatically gendered. As Peter Plagens, writing about
Serra's Søwíngas well as an earlier lumber work of Morris's, maintained:

The museum functions as a vagina, the invited artist as a penis. The museum, a pam-
pered spinster by breeding, has discovered the thrill of getting herselfroughed up in fleet-
 FOBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 89

FlcuRE 3r Richard Serra, Sawing: Base Plate Measure (12 FirTrees), installation piece for the
Pasadena Art Museum, 1969. Wood, 35 50 * 60 ft. O 2009 Richard Serra/Arlists Rìghts Society
"
(ARS), New York.

ing encounters with difficult artists. . . . The more difficult the posture (outsize logs in a

cul-de-søcl, the greater the burden (tons of material), the more critical the inconvenience
(demands of manpower), the greater the titillation.17

Such an astonishing assertion rirakes clear how art making performed on an outsize
scale using heavy industrial materials was understood as the domain of men. This
association went beyond the sphere of art making, as blue-collar labor like con-
struction and steel work was steeped in a rhetoric of masculinity. The construction
worker, or "hard hat," was seen as paradigmatic of both the "working class" and un-
bridled manliness.l8 Plagens's comment, even as it means to deflate the grandstanding
of massive art projects, reinforces overblown claims about large-scale arrworks and
the artists who made them. It ignores the many female artists making big art, while
it also reductively figures the museum as feminine, its interior space a penetrated
orifice "roughed uf'by invited artists.
Morris himself has recently looked back at this moment, admitting the sexism im-
plicit in the equating of outsize sculpture, heavy labor, and masculinity: "The mini-
mal artists of the sixties were like industrial frontiersmen exploring the factories and
the steel mills. The artwork must carry the stamp of work-Iha|is to say, men's work,
the only possible serious work, brought back still glowing from the foundries and
mills without a drop of irony to put a sag in its erect heroism. And this men's work
is big, foursquare, no nonsense, a priori."le The use of industrial procedures, or
"men's work," cements Morris's repeated solicitation of an alliance or an afÊliation
with working-class culture, which is implicitþ gendered male (and-the worker un-
der M orris's forldift notwithstanding- raciaþ coded white). 20

Even before the Whitney works, Morris manifested an interest in how the making
 9O I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

FtcuRE 32 Robert Morrìs,

Box with the Sound of lts Own
Making, 1961. Wood and
recording device, I x 9 " 9 in.
@ 2009 Robert Morris/Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York.

of simple cubes could reflect on questions of labor; take, for instance, Box with the
Sound of lts Own Møkingfrom 196r (Fig.3z).In this piece, Morris built a small wal-
nut box, recording the noises of this activity: sawing, drilling, and nailing. The process
took over three hours, and the audiotape of Morrisk work was then played from in-
side the finished box. This in effect absents the body of the maker, leaving only an
aural ïecord of his actions. With the Whitney pieces, almost a decade later, Morris
exploded the little box, increasing the scale of his materials, and with this increase
came vastly augmented effort, a laboring intentionally, even arxiously, made visualþ
available for the public and press to witness. As crews of workmen and construction
equipment replaced Morris's modest saw and hammer, Box's simple record of mak-
ing was transformed into a stage set with elaborately orchestrated demonstrations of
physical work.
Likewise, Morris's Site of 1964 pointedly delineated the bodily politics of con-
struction and minimal form. In this perfoïmance, Morris, wearing heavy-duty gloves
and a mask of his own face, dismantled and reassembled a large plywood box. A
soundtrack of jackhammers and drills accompanied his actions, audibly linking art
making to construction, even if Morris's "work" here consisted not of building but
of complex reananging. As he removed the sides of the box, artist Carolee Schnee-
mann was revealed inside, (un)dressed and posing as the reclining figure in Edouard
Manet's painting Olyrnpiø.
Berger cogently contends that Siteputs two forms of labor (sex work and art mak-
ing) into relalion.2l If, in Plagens's vieq the "white cube" of the museum is gendered
female, Sitelhefeminized component of the cube of minimalist sculpture is sim-
in
ilarly revealed-even though, with its exaggerated role playing, that feminization is
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 9I

FIGURE 33 Workers install

Morris's Unfltled [Concrete,
Ttmbers, Stee{, 1970.
Photograph @ Gianfranco
Gorgoni/Contact Press
lmages.

païtial and compromised. Richard Meyer suggests that "while Morris's Site might
seem to cnttcize the sexual economy of modernist art-making, it also simulates it,
and that simulation bears significant traces of its sources, traces of domination, bra-
vado, and inequity."22 In other words, insofar as Site is about the gendering of la-
bor, it asks what kinds of bodily labor occupy the museum and gallery. In the Whit-
ney show with its all-male crew of haulers and installers, those laboring bodies are
distinctly, even excessively, coded as masculine. (This exaggeration opens into more
complicated questions of Morris and camp, which I have taken up elsewhere.)23

The Value of Scale

While the elements in Tirnbers were importantly hefty-they weighed as much as

r,5oo pounds each-the second installation at the Whitney was truly, impressively,
gigantic. LJntitled [Concrete, Tirnbers, Steel]was made by pushing concrete blocks on
steel rods down two parallel rows of timbers until they tipped and toppled in random
patterns along the steel rollers. A Gorgoni photograph records this process (Fig.33\;
in it, four men pull with all their might, muscles bulging with the strain. The men
stand between two parallel tracks of wooden beams and lean back with the eflort re-
quired to tug the concrete. fust out of the frame of the picture is the concrete block
they are hauling. 'We see mostly a chain of hands and arms grasping at the ropes-
the camera focuses on the effort rather than the object. (Gorgoni's shot also captures
a fellow cameraperson, seen at the right of the frame.)
The blocks were in fact a compromise: Morris wanted to use blocks of rough-quarried
 92 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

granite, but engineers warned that the floor was likely to collapse under the weight,
so he replaced them with concrete cubes. The l¡locks, fabricated by Lippincott Inc.,
had cores of plywood and were therefore much lighter than the planned quarried
stone. At Morris's insistence, the wall text included the following caveat: "The lim-
itations of the building-floor loads, entrances and elevator capacity-forced mod-
ifications to be made on all works shown. The timber stack was to have been longer.
The workwith concrete blocks was to have been considerablywider and rough quar-
ried, irregular granite blocks oflarger sizes were to be used instead ofconcrete. . . .
Thickness on all steel was to have been greater. My objections to the design of many
aspects of the building are strong."2a The blocks, supported by cross-beams, were
pushed along the tracks until they reached an unsupported area and caved in, tilting
the beams up around them with some of the steel poles crowded alongside the cube's
wooden cradle. At one end the blocks crashed all the way to the floor.
The work's very composition (or lack thereof)-unstable, loosely arranged,
contingent-was meant to have a political significance; as Morris commented in a

r967 essay, "Openness, extendibility, accessibility, publicness, repeatability, equa-

nimity, directness, and immediacy. . .have a few social implications, and none of
them are negative."2s This essay, penned some three years before the Whitney show,
provides a template for Morris's process work of the late r96os, including his con-
temporaneous felt works. At this time, he was deeply interested in the properties of
chance and gravity-the component parts of what was called antiform.26 Of all his
art, the Whitney works go the furthest in demonstrating how, for Morris, this "pub-
licness" and "openness" have positive social implications-ones that rest on notions
of labor. As he wrote in an essay published just as the Whitney show was opening:
"Ëmploying chance in an endless number of ways to structLrre relationships, con-
structing rather than arranging, allowing gravity to shape or complete some phase
of the work-all such diverse methods involve what can only be called automation
and imply the process of making back from the finished work. . . . At those points
where automation is substituted for a previous 'all made by hand homologous set
of steps, the artist has stepped aside for more of the world to enter into the art."27
Morris has aligned chance and automation because they both deemphasize the
artist's hand. This is an analogical model of argument: if his process is like work, it
becomes work. Analogical and metaphoric thinking of this kind grew to be critically
important as leftist artists like Morris sought to refashion themselves as art workers.
They were økin to workers, and this likeness was meant to register their work's po-
litical claims. For Morris, relinquishing control in his process works expressed a de-
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 93

sire to have his art take place in an arena of social and political relevance, to have
"more of the world' enter in. Morris's repeated use of the word øutomøtíon is also
significant for its registration of a turn to deskilling and machinic factory fabrication.
Many saw the Whitney works as ideal instances of "antiform," a term that was it-
self ideologically loaded. Berger's work on this subject describes how forunwas a key
word in Herbert Marcuse's widely circulated writings on progressive aesthetics.2s In
1967 Marcuse gave a lecture at the New York School of Visual Arts, subsequently
reprinted in A rts Møgøzine, in which he spoke of art's need to find a new way to model
relations to the world. Marcuse did not prescribe what such revolutionary art prac-
tice, or form, would look (or sound) like.2e He stressed, though, that all modes of pro-
duction, including art making, needed new collaborative conditions of labor, stating
that "the social expression of the liberated work instinct is cooperation, which,
grounded in solidarity, directs the organization of the realm of necessity and the de-
velopment of the realm of freedom."3O Morris attempted to demonstrate these les-
sons in the Whitney show by seeking to initiate a type of meaningfirl artistic labor
in concert with "real" workers.
The materials he used were likewise meant to have literal rather than symbolic
value. Morris stipulated that all the materials he used for the Whitney show be ac-
quired "on loan," that is, cycled back into the economy of construction after the ex-
hibit was taken down. The steel was ideally to be sent back to its manufacturer, the
timbers to their mill, and the granite blocks to their quarry. Substituting concrete
blocks, which had to be specially made, for the proposed granite threw a kink into
this planned closed circuit. Donald Lippincott remembers that the timber was sold
back to the mill in Connecticuq he recalls that his fabrication firm kept the steel for
future projects.3l Assembled rather than transformed, the materials for the Whitney
show underwent no physical changes that would compromise them in future build-
ing projects. (Likewise, for his show at the Tate Gallery in rg7r, Morris used plywood
that he hoped would be recycled "for something I feel good about . . . given to artists,
used for necessary housing.")3z The museum was transformed into a way station on

the trip from mill to skyscraper or apartment complex. Morris further insisted that
the economic value of the show be no more than the cost of the materials and the
hours of labor paid to himself and the installers.33 Since these works were never for
sale, for whom was this "value" calculatedl It is unclear how this gesture functioned
aside from its symbolism. The works were designed to be temporary, thereby enact-
ing a resistance to the commodity nature of the art object familiar during the late
r96os and early rg1os, a resistance taken up and extended by the "dematerialized"
 94 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

nature of artistic practices produced alongside Marcuse's call for new forms of aes-
thetic relations.3a To call Morris's Whitney show a simple instance of dematerializa-
tion, however, misses the artist's insistence on both raw, massive materiality and its
"rented, " transitory nature. The Whitney show was a concrete, even monumental en-
deavor, and hence of a diflerent nature than "dematerialized' linguistic conceptual
art, with its attempts to banish the object by turning art into utterance (attempts that
were thwarted by the eventual institutional absorption of conceptual magazine
pages, postcards, and so on).
Moreover, the word dernateriølizøtion was not limited to conceptual art practices
and to the commodity character of art. It also pertained to the changing conditions
of work in late capitalism. Marcuse used the word in his 1969 Essøy on Liberøtion,
argaingthat advanced industrialism is marked by "the growing technological char-
acter of the process of production, with the reduction of the recluired physical en-
ergy and its replacement by mental energy-dematerialization of labor."3s Thus the
term itself marks a shift from manual to intellechral labor. In the Whitney show, these
, paired dematerializations-one of the art object, one of the emergent conditions of
Jabor-inform each other, particularþ around the question of value.
Part of Morris's political project in r97o consisted of an attempt to liquidate the
work of art's special commodity character øs ørtby insisting that the only "value" of
his pieces was the sum of their materials' exchange value.36 Morris treated his ma-
terials as if they had no symbolic value; he wanted them to function in the realms of
industry and construction (where they went back to be reused) rather than to merely
metaphorize such uses. Only by materializing the labor of the artist, Morris seemed
to say, can the object be properly dematerialized. He wanted his labor's value to be
equivalent to that of the riggers and installers; thus he did not transform the mate-
rials into high-priced collectibles. The timbers, steel, and concrete would bear no trace
of his hand; returned back to the factories, they would resist even the artistic aura of
a readymade in a gallery. Nonetheless, these now-destroyed, "uncommodifiable" in-
stallations do circulate as photos; mole to the point, following Pierre Bourdieu, the
museum show itself increased Morris's own cultural value and is inexorably inter-
twined with the market.37 As he performed this manual work, his "mental energy"
and his status as an artist also fueled the economy of worth.
The Whitney show represents Morris's best effort to find new models of making
and displaying art, and he hoped these models would defeat both the co-optation of
artistic labor and the commodity logic of the object. The artist wants to reject fetishism
outright (even as the process of making itself becomes somewhat fetishized). With .
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 95

their careful, public deplopnent of physical work, the installations endeavored to

retain-to depict and inscribe-the labor po\Mer that went into their construction.
Much of this inscription was achieved by the art's sheer scale as it specifically impli-
cated the space of the Whitney as a work site. As Annette Michelson put it in her

ry7o Artforum revtew, "The multiplicity and strenuousness of action, the series of
pragmatic re-calculations and adjustments . . . the hoisting, toppling, hammering,
rolling of great weights and volumes produced a spectacle, framed, intensified, by
the low-ceilinged, rectangular space of the galleries, animated by the sounds of ham-
mer upon steel and wood, of chains and pulleys and the cries of crewmen calling to
one another."3s Artistic work as "hard labor" reached an apex of visibility with the
V/hitney shoW and the fiame of the museum walls, its very institutionality, proved
integral to this spectacularization.
Although the two large process pieces formed the centerpieces of Morris's Whit-
ney show, he also displayed four steel sculptures, three of which-the Steel Pløte
suitø-were set alongside the back wall of the gallery (Fig. y).The works in this
suite were made of two-inch-thick steel plates assembled with brackets speciaþ de-
signed by Morris and slotted into different geometric configurations (rectangle, tri-
angle, I-shape). The brackets held the plates together without screws or drilling; thus
undamaged, the plates could be recycled. The fourth work consisted of two steel plates
lying at a slant on a low, polished stone column (Fig.35). The Suite (in distinction to
the chance-oriented, process pieces) was based on drawings, and a version ofthis
series had been shown at the Corcoran in 1969; it was hence not uniquely "per-
formed' as the other works were. Further, because the steel was "rented' from diÊ
ferent local mills for both the Corcoran and the Whitney, the plates themselves were
subtþ distinct in each show. As Morris pointed out, "Steel doesn t come the same
twice from the mill. . . . I like that kind of difference."3e The name of Morris's fabri
cation company, Lippincott, was visibly scrawled in chalk on some edges like an au-
thor's signature. Although simply slotted together, the steel plates were also conceived
to make labor evident, as they required gantries and clanes to rig them and hands to
assemble them (Fig. 36).
Contemporary reviewers of the Whitney show wele a\¡/estruck by aspects of the
colossal; they mentioned the sheer mass of the shoW the numbers of workers, the
heaviness of the elements. Statistics piled up like so many rough-edged timbers.
Michelson highlighted the magnitude of the steel and marble piece: "The weight of
the steel in this piece was rz,ooo pounds."4o According to Cindy Nemser, the Whit-
ney show cost the museum "an unprecedented amount of money to install."al The
 96 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

FtcuRE34 RobertMorris,Sfee/P/afeSulte, l970.Eachplate2x60x12Oin.Destroyed.

Photograph by Peter Moore. Art @ 2009 Roberl Monis/Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York.

exhibition was framed as a Herculean expenditure of labor power and capital, and
the installations' rugged monumentality-their spills, valleys, and peaks-lent them-
selves to classicaþ American metaphors. For example, Untítled [Timbers]was referred

to as "a great mass of the biggest timbers this side of the V/ild West."a2
More minimal in style than the large process installations, the steel plate works
received little attention, except for a hand-wringing notice from a reviewer at ART-
News. "Though these works obviously required machine labor to assemble, they are

more dangerous than huge; they're on a human scale which places the slabs rusted
edges right where they could do the most damage to a careless viewer's forehead or
shinbone."a3 What is striking about this review is how it recapitulates the emphasis
on art's relation to the spectator's body (a relation at the forefront ofthe critical lit-
erature on minimalism) and recasts it in the most negative light possible. By mov-
ing the confroniation between object and viewer into the realm of physical harm,
this review makes overt the fear latent in Michael Fried s influential account of how
minimalism's "aggressive" theatricality is an explicit result of its corporeal scale.aa

Scale became for Morris not only a function of perception but also a measure of
bodily effort. E. C. Goossen pressed this issue in a r97o interview with Morris:

ECG: It's interesting that most of what we call architectural standards, like 4 x 8' ply-
wood . . . are realþ related to arm length . . . to what a man can carr¡ what a car-
penter can handle. . . . But there are new units now being built which are much
FlcURES5 RobertMorls,Untitled, 1970.Steel andmarble.Destroyed.PhotographbyRudy
Burckhardl O 2009 Estate of Rudy Burckhardt/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art @ 2009
Robert lvlorris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

FlcuRÊ 36 Museum vis¡tors watch installers use gantries to assemble Morris's Sfee/ P/ate
Sulte, 1 970. Photograph by Roxanne Everett, O Lippincott lnc. Courtesy of the Lippincott lnc
photography collection, 1968-77, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian lnstitution.
 98 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

too heavy to be handled even by a number of men because they're geared for fork
lifts and cranes and other systems
RM: Yes.as

Minimalism is often said to have "activated' the body-the body of the viewer, that
is-but this cluote points to the ways it also activatedthebody ofthernøker as aworker.
Scale, in other words, became a measure of how much work was done and whether
the body, alone and unaided, could do the job. The larger the art object, the more
work was needed-whether from machines or teams of workers.
Scale was central to the reception of Morris's Whitney exhibition. As Michelson
put it: "No consideration of this exhibition can do without some mention, some sense
of these dimensions and of the demands madeby scale andweight of materials upon
the resources of the Museum's space, its circulation potential."a6 Michelson com-
prehends the way in which Morris's scale entails an institutional component: that is,
how scale seeks to put pressure on the museum's very limits of feasibility. What can
the museum hold, how much can it support, how much flexibility does it allow its
artists and its audiencesl
Morris addressed these questions in literal and symbolic terms. First, he compro-
mised on his materials because of fears that the Whitney floor would not bear the
weight of his sculptures. Second, when he rejected a retrospective and instead used
the exhibition as a showcase for collective, public physical effort, his show raised in-
stitutional issues about the kind of artistic labor usually represented in museum shows
(needless to sa¡ primarily singular and private). These ideas \ryere crucial for Morris
in the earþ rg7os, as he aimed to "go beyond the making, selling, collecting, and
looking at kind of art, and propose a new role ofthe artist in relation to society."aT
Morris's exhibition took place at an especially charged moment in American
history-late winter and spring of ry7o-that must be tracked to fuþ understand
what happened in the aftermath of his Whitney opening. During these months the
AV/C reached the height of its activity and influence, including its successful pres-
suringof MoMAtoimplementafreedayin February. Abrief politicaltimeline, chart-
ing a span of six tumultuous weeks from April to mid-May of t97o, further fills in
the contested circumstances of Morris's show: the Whitney show opened (April 9),
the United States bombed Cambodia (April z9), the National Guard shot and killed
four students at Kent State (May 4), and, in a highly publicized confrontation, New
York City construction workers attacked antiwar protesters (May 8). On May r5, Mor-
ris decided to shut down his show two weeks earþ in a selÊdeclared strike-a vexed
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 99

gesture that stemmed from, and was implicated in, debates about labor and laborers
in the United States. With this gesture, he became central to the AWC offshoot called
the New York Art Strike Against Racism, war, and Repression that did in fact pro-
pose for artists a "new role . . . in relation to society": the role ofthe artworker.

Artists and Workers/Art¡sts as Workers

"Ar3oi' writes Morris, "I had my alienation, my Skilsaw, and my Plywood."+e A dou-
ble meaning is implicit in this quote, which equally invokes art and the characteris-
ticaþ "alienated" condition of modern labor. Morris claims his alienation with some
pride, treating it as another aspect of minimal art making, one that goes hand in hand
with the tools and materials of construction-construction increasingly done with
the help of manufacturing plants.
In the late r96os and early rgTos,the art press and artists alike were fascinated by
the use of factory fabrication, and accounts of successful working partnerships be-
tween artist and manufacturers were reported in great detail.4e Finding appropriate
fabricators was challenging for those r96os artists, from the minimalists to an artist
like Claes Oldenburg who wanted large-scale works. Contrary to the argument that
much factory fabrication entailed giving up artistic control, many artists required de-
tailed oversight of their works. Even as they were barred, in some instances, from
shop floors because of union regulations, they wanted to monitor and in some cases
participate in every aspect of their works' fabrication. Because union shops followed
stringent protocol about who could operate machinery and handle materials, this was
seen as a hindrance to those sculptors who wanted to step in and get their hands dirty
during their art's manufacture.so The dilemma of artist-specific fabrication needs was
partially remedied in 1967 by the opening of Lippincott Inc., the first large-scale firm
to utilize industrial worhng procedures in North America devoted exclusively to mak-
ing sculpture. Advertisements placed in major attrnagazines announced Lippin-
cott's services and showcased some of its completed works. Other firms joined the
burgeoning ranks of those that manufactured sculpture, a potentiaþ promising area
of growth for industrial plants otherwise in danger of becoming obsolete, such as
Treitl-Graz and Milgo Industrial, Inc.sl
overseen by Donald Lippincott and occupying ten acres in North Haven, con-
necticut, Lippincott Inc. encouraged artists to build their works "a11 at once": that is,
to work directly with the materials full scale rather than first perfecting the design
 1OO I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

with a sma1l model and then enlarging it. In a laudatory article in Art in Arnencø,
Barbara Rose pointed to the unique situation initiated by Lippincott, in which "artists
were encouraged to work on the spot, directþ assisting the welders and joiners and
making alterations as they work."sz (Here the ørtisls assiste dlhe workers, rather than
the other way around.) The firm became the manufacturer of choice for Robert Mur-
ra¡ Oldenburg, Barneü Newman, and Morris, and artists raved about what Rose called
"the humanized environment of the 'fachory.'"s3 The scare quotes around "factory"
matter; because of its highly specialized focus on art only, Lippincott rvas never con-
sidered a true manufacturing plant. Although it often made editions of works (such
as the multiple versions of Newman s Broken Obelßk), it was by no means an indus-
trial setup primed to pump out identical objects ad infinitum. An exhibition, Afüst
ønd Føbncøtor, held in 1975 althe University of Massachusetts, Amherst, celebrated
the close cooperative relationship between Lippincott Inc. and artists and repeatedly
emphasized the firm's investment in craftsmanship rather than manufacture; it was
"more a communal studio than a factory."sa While the lines between artist and worker
might not have always been clear with some large-scale fabricators, since young artists
often work or apprentice in shops, the Lippincotts had a policy against hiring artists,
maintaining a stricter division.
Although Lippincott allowed artists a unique amount of control over the pro-
duction of their works, many chose to continue to work with traditional factories
such as Arko Metal and Bethlehem Steel, preferring an "authentic" industrial en-
vironment. Not everyone was sanguine about the successful collaboration between
artist and blue-collar factory worker, however. Some saw it as an undermining of
"real" artisticwork. As Dore Ashtonwrote in ry67,"Thebeaming solidarityof work-
ers and sculptors is certainly pleasant to encounter in the rash of machine-shop pho-
tographs used to illustrate articles on the new'movement.' But it is a feature-story
writer's fabrication, designed to elevate fabrication itself into artistic virtue."ss Yet
factory fabrication was increasingly validated as part ofthe sculptural process, even
as the fabricators were marshaled into identities other than that of simple workers-
that is, artisanal assistants.
The separation between artist and assistant was often blurred. Take the ad for
the Lippincott factory published in the fall r97o edition of Avølønche (Fig. 37). Here,
again, Morris drives a forklift-a further demonstration that the work, while machine-
manufactured in a quasi-industrial factory, still had some sort of a relation to the artist's
laboring body. This photograph presents a nostalgic view of the kind of honest toil
that was amply on display in the V/hitney show and offers it up to prospective clients
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 101

IEÑEEI¡¡ FrrrçEwq.¡mpr:æEE'!

Ì{ g t
*{

FIGURE 37
Advertisement for
Lippincott Inc., featuring
Robert Morris on a
forklift, originally
published in Avalanche,
Fall 1970. Photograph
@ Lippincott lnc.

of Lippincott, suggesting that they, too, can participate in the evidently "hands-off"
yet participatory procedures of factory fabrication. The ad is selling not the final
product-Morris's sculpture-but a fantasy about inhabiting the position of the la-
borer. It is also an image that wants to extend the boundaries of the artwork; art is a

process, it implies, that takes place on *re streets as much as in museums, although
the presence of the woman in the photograph codes it more as "art" than as the male
domain of "work."
If the artist was authorized to slip into the role of the laborer on the shop floors of
Milgo and Lippincott, were the workers, in a reciprocal move, allowed to inhabit the
role of the artist I Robert Murray, who contracted with Bethlehem Steel to make some
of his steel-plate sculptures and is seen in Figure 38 wearing a hard hat alongside a
machinist, reported that at the end of making his work Duet,the shop crew gave the
foreman the gift of a beret with a card that read, "Trade in your hard hat."s6 The beret
is, of course, meant as a joke, and a good-natured one at that; it is a marker of bo-
hemia, if not slightly foppish effeminization. The punch line of the hat swap actu-
aþ underscores the distinction between the artist and the foreman and demonstrates
that when the artist becomes a "worker" it is ultimately at the level of the engineer,
manager, oï ovefseer.
In the late r96os and early r97os, there were two sepalate but intertwined dis-
 102 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

FIGURE 38 Robert
N/urray (left) works on
his sculplure DueÍ at
Bethlehem Steel Shipyard,
1965. @ Robert Murray.
Photograph by Baylis
Glascock/ Robeft Snyder.

courses regarding large-scale sculpture and its fabrícation. On the one hand, artists
dissociated themselves totally from production, thereby claiming for the work the sta-
tus of a manufactured object like any other; on the other hand, artists insisted that
they were factory producers, with as much claim to the shop floor as the products
themselves. Morris veered back and forth between these paradigms; in his "Notes
on Sculpture,Pafi3," he extols "repetition and division of labor, standardization and
specialization," but then, in the same essay, he asserts that "specialized factories and
shops are used-much the same as sculpture has always utilized special craftsmen
and processes."sz Did artists understand this new way of working as a deskilling of
art or as a revival of the old-fashionedworkshopl Orwere Morris's contradictory claims
an attempt to reassert specialized "artistic" skills in the face of the alleged erasure of
the hands-on touchl
"Deskilling" was itself implicated in wider debates about the beginnings of the
post-Fordist, postindustrial age, which saw the decline of skilled manual work in the
early r96os (although deskilling had been a main feature of the division of labor in
classic industrial capitalism as well). Harry Braverman put the term deskillinginto
wide circulation in his ry74book Løbor ønd Monopoly Cøpitøl: The Degrødøtion ofWork
in the Twentieth Century.ss In what is now termed deindustrialization, the early to mid-
r96os saw a precipitous decline in blue-collar facrory jobs in the United States (a
loss of almost a million jobs between ry53 and r96j\, while simultaneously mark-
ing a rise in white-collar employment; this wholesale transformation marks the shift
to the postindustrial age. Precisely at this moment artists became interested in fac-
tory work themselves.
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 103

Process

Rather than viewing factory fabrication of artwork as indicative of the general shifts
in the economy, some arfists-Morris among them-saw it as part of a wider, selÊ
conscious attempt to expand tt g{ g! ill" tne g9t1tl4 !*Phele As noted,
-qgh
pïocess became a central concept for this expansion. Morris stated, 'As process be-
comes a part of the work instead of prior to it, one is enabled to engage more directþ
with the world in art making because forming is moved further into presentation. "59

In other words, art goes from the realm of the individual to that of the political whenl
the process-the effort, the labor-becomes the art itself. Morris move s to rnake work
I

the work of art. Like conceptual art, process art was viewed as resisting conventional
ideas of artistic labor. As f oseph l(osuth explained, "The øctivity was the art, not the'
residue. But what can this society do with Øctivity? Activity must mean labor. And :

labor must give you a service or a product."60 Wel1, not really: audiences and art spaces ,

alike cluickly found use for artists' objectless process works. Process as a distinct artis-
tic category became increasingly institutionalized with exhibitions such as the 1969
Edmonton Art Gallery's Pløce ønd Process, which featured, among other works, Mor-
ris riding quarter horses.61
In her New York Tirnes review of Morris's r97o Whitney exhibition, "Process Art
and the New Disorder," Grace Glueck commented, "The process, to paraphrase
Mcluhan, is also the product."62 Glueck's formulation keeps alive the notion that in
process art some remainder of the action might still be bought and sold. Clearþ the
photographs are one such product; as mentioned, a prodigious number of images
were taken of this exhibit, indicating that this might have been an event as much to
be recorded as seen live.
For his part, Morris attempted to lay bare the constructedness of his sculptures
within the museum. The artist put his own labor on display to demonstrate how the
physical work of the artist becomes reified. To quote a relevant passage from Karl
Marx, "Labour produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as

a commodity. "63 Process does not by itself adequately describe Morris's exhibition of
his own modes of production-he presents it as work and himself as the commod-

ified object of that work. As Morris mused later that fall, "The artist today has al-
lowed himself his personality and style, to be used as a commodity of cultural ex-
change.His'professionalself isboughtandsold."6aNotthatthisworkwasuniversaþ
read as honest labor; in fact, the Whitney show had mixed, if voluminous, critical re-
sponses. Some reacted cluite negativel¡ particularþ to its heralded move toward viewer
 1O4 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

interactivity. Invoking what he called Morris's "severely limited imagination," Carter

Ratcliff in Arf lnternøtionølasserted that "Morris's productions establish a static, halÊ

dead condition for themselves and for the viewer."65 ARTNews erroneously reported
that one of the installations had been removed from the exhibition because "it got
too dangerous for spectators."66 The mistake is telling because it demonstrates that
Morris's decision to make his retrospective a situation of "risk" for himself was
promptþ perceived as one of threat to the audience.

The works do seem to invite physical interaction, even as their tenuous construc-
tion makes that interaction perilous. Increasingly, Morris evinced a fascination with
the risþ elements of interactive art, declaring in ryV,"I'drulherbreakmy arm falling
offa platform than spend an hour in detached contemplation of a Matisse. We've be-
come blind from too much seeing."6zWith this purposefuþ contentious statement,
does Morris mean to imply that violence is the only "real" or appropriate relationship
one might have with artl Of course, he had no interest in actually injuring his audi-
ence; rather, his comment reveals his intense uncertainty about the value of aesthetic
objects at a time when passive spectatorship was aligned with regressive politics.Gs
For Morris, the way out of such "detached contemplation' was art that actively
courted the audience's participation. As political theorist Carole Pateman argued in
tgTo,parncipation became a stand-in for "democracy," particularly in industrial work
contexts;6e likewise, artists felt that the more they could do to recruit the viewer into
the work, the more egalitarian the workk ideological import. Moreover, Morris's state-
ment places participation in the realm of (potentially confrontational) physical in-
teraction. Obsewing art from a distance is safe; for it to have any impact, one needs
to be thrust into the middle of it, and at times the stakes of participatory art are ratch-
eted up to court bodily harm.
One year afÌer the Whitney show, Morris turned his r97r Tate Gallery retrospec-
tive into an audience-interaction obstacle course.70 In this show he invited viewers
to perform tasldike activities-dragging rocks along on ropes, pushing small weights,
climbing up sloping plywood inclines, and walking along low tightropes. The show
was closed five days after it opened because, in the course of "participating" in his
rickety jungle gym, visitors inadvertently sustained sprains, gashes, and bruises.7l
The Whitney show, with its cautions against touching, prohibited this kind of inter-
action; even as critics wrote that the public "participat[ed] in the action," its only in-
volvement was to spectate.Tz
Some reviewers saw the Whitney works as aesthetic failures-unsuccessful mar-
riages of compositional chaos an<l control. One review criticized the neat patterns
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 105

that ensued after such an ostensibly disordered process: "The untitled amalgam of
things looks . . . as though a bomb had hit some huge structure and the debris had
been knocked over and fallen in an unaccountable straight 7ine."73 Morris himself
recalls being somewhat disappointed with how ordered the works turned out.74 And
their composition does appear rather carefully woven even though they were made
in large part by chance. In Untitled [Timbers],the contingency of the spilled end beams
does not detract from so much as underscore the alignment of the rest of the stack.
ln Untitled [Concrete, Tirnbers, Steel], the round ends of the steel poles punctuate the
phrasing of the solid tipped blocks with a series of holes (Plate g). The different el-
ements provide a study of textural contrasts: the relatively smooth, light gray surfaces
of the concrete top the dense, dark lumber track. There is a regularized rh¡hm to
the work, which places block aÍter block in a linear configuration like units rolling
down an assembly line. Despite Morris's wish to break with conventional sculpture,
one commentator observed the "almost-sFnmetry and almost-balance and almost-
phrasing in this piece that puts it very nearly into the orthodox sculptural context."Ts
It is perhaps becøusethe installations were unplanned that they became so repetitive

and, hence, composed.

How does one manage a crew of thirty to forty workers with so few plans and pre-
liminary drawingsl As Morris wrote to Tucker when the show was in its develop-
mental stages, "I'm planningalarge timber piece that I have never tried-it involves
tz' xt2'timbers falling down in a particular way. .. . Cant draw this since I dont
know what it will look like."76 one drawing that resembles the Whitney works harks
backtoSerra's VerbList:irdetailsactions-"dragged,fell,tipped"-donetounspecified
materials as directional aÍrows indicate blocks and rollers in motion (Fig. 39). The
single extant plan Morris did for these works appears grossly insufficient for the task
of coordinating this team and the materials for the process installations (Fig. 4o),
even as it is wrought on the official, to-scale museum floor p1an. A Gorgoni pho-
tograph shows Morris crouching on the ground consulting this plan, and while he
examines it with due intensity, it merely indicates the eventual placement of the
sculptures-as in the small drawings of the steel-plate works-not the layout of their
parts or their overall contours (Fig. ar). In the picture, he resembles a foreman with
his blueprint, wielding a pencil with precision with one hand as he clutches a stumpy
cigar with the other. The sleeves of his work shirt are rolled up; like his posture, this
sartorial detail indicates that he is getting down to business. The vein in his forehead
bulges with effort and concentration. Behind him, just barely visible, is a roll of white
tape, used for marking the floor of the museum. The delicacy of the well-sharpened
 Å"re * ,\"ç1*l
.{"-rf .fr*t-;" ft,rfi

1.,'^':'.¡
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¡r"i.i
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FlcuRE 39 Robert Morrls, Act-Move, ca. 1970. Pencil on

paper, B1/z 11. Art O 2009 Robert Morris/Artists Rights
'
Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by the author.

FlcuRE 40 To-scale floor plan of the third floor of the Whitney'

with lVlorris's drawings and notations, 1970. Pencil on paper,
11 x 17 in. Art O 2009 Robert Morris/Artists Fights Society
(ARS), New York. Photograph by the author.

FIcURE 41 Morris consults his floor plan drawing, 1970

Photograph @ Gianfranco Gorgoni/Contact Press lmages
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 107

FIGURE 42 Robert
\Aorris, Untitled [5
Studles Using S¿ee/
Plates, Timbers,
Granite, and Stonesl,
1 969. Pencil on

pape¡ 42 x 59 in.
Art @ 2009 Robert
lVorris/Artisls Rights
Society (ARS), New
York. Photograph by
the author.

pencil with its refined point contrasts with the gnawed and burnt ends of the thick
cigar.
Given the absence of a real blueprint, most likely the crew figured out a way to roll
the concrete along the timber and then repeated that process with each block multi-
ple times along the stretch of the piece-although it was supposed to communicate
disarray, it came out ordered. Another preparatory drawing in the same vein reveals
Morris's interest in much looser heaps of materials (Fig. 42,).The works' final regu-
larity no doubt results in large part from the collaborative aspect that Morris was so
invested in. The hired hands that worked to assemble these pieces did what workers
are trained to do and rewarded for doing: they executed their task efficientþ with as
little wasted time and motion as possible, rolling blocks down the tracks in the same
manner over and over. (It is curious that Morris anticipated chaos to ensue from tvvo
parallel tracks and neat, identical squares of concrete-compositional elements that
severely curtail pos sibilities for asyrnmetry.)
Despite the various appraisals of the Whitney show, the press was unified on one
theme: Morris's public installations eflectively merged, or at least destal¡ilized, the
positions of laborer and artist. In interviews during this time, Morris often mentioned
his worhng-class origins and his persistent work ethic; the show went even further
to secure this affi1iation.77 Here the vital, active participants v/ere not the audience
but the workers, and their exceptional visibility within the museum made it look "as
if Uris Brothers had moved in with a load of raw materials for a construction project."78
The trade that Morris inhabited was clearþ specified: construction, which was in r97o
a tendentious and politically besieged identity.
 Â"rf"* ú\*$.^.{.'
ul1 trr''rr'!;rir'i'r, }f"'{;
"6*:l {tt"*t-'*, #^tt{

f.,vr,1r "i¡.1
'l f

*r.1.í
*r1 J

¡r¡ø'r
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&"þ"*r fâ I
j -" '
¡ïr\r'
Itr¿.,ffì¡vr r"'J ^¡* ri ^:'lr

FtcuRE 39 Roblert Morris, Act-Move, ca. 1970. Pencil on

paper,81/z x 11. Art @ 2009 Robert Morris/Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York, Photograph by the author.

FIGURE 40 To-scale floor plan of lhe third floor of the Whitney,

with Morris's drawings and notations, 1970. Pencil on paper,
11 x 17 in. Art @ 2009 Robert Morris/Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York. Photograph by the author.

FlcuRE 41 lvlorris consults his floor plan drawing, 1970

Photograph @ Gianfranco Gorgoni/Contact Press lmages
 ROBÊRT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 107

FIGURE 42 Robert
Morris, Untitled [5
Sfud/es Usmg Stee/
Plates, Timbers,
Granite, and Stonesl,
1969. Pencil on
paper, 42 x 59 in.
Art O 2009 Robert
Morris/Artists Rìghts
Society (ARS), New
York. Photograph by
the author

pencil with its refined point contrasts with the gnawed and burnt ends of the thick
cigar.
Given the absence of a real bluepdnt, most likely the crew figured out a way to roll
the concrete along the timber and then repeated that process with each block multi-
ple times along the stretch of the piece-although it was supposed to communicate
disarra¡ it came out ordered. Another preparatory drawing in the same vein reveals
Morris's interest in much looser heaps of materials (Fig. 4z). The works' final regu-
larity no doubt results in large part from the collaborative aspect that Morris was so
invested in. The hired hands that worked to assemble these pieces did what workers
are trained to do and rewarded for doing: they executed their task efficiently, with as
little wasted time and motion as possible, rolling blocks down the tracks in the same
manner over and over. (It is curious that Morris anticipated chaos to ensue from tvvo
parallel tracks and neat, identical squares of concrete-compositional elements that
severely curtail po s sibilities for asymmetry. )

Despite the various appraisals of the Whitney show, the press was unified on one
theme: Morris's public installations effectively merged, or at least destabilized, the
positions of laborer and artist. In interviews during this time, Morris often mentioned
his working-class origins and his persistent work ethic; the show went even further
to secure this affiliation.77 Here the vital, active participants were not the audience
but the workers, and their exceptional visibility within the museum made it look "as
if Uris Brothers had moved in with a load of raw materials for a construction project."78
The trade that Morris inhabited was clearly specified: construction, which was in r97o
a tendentious and politically besieged identity.
 108 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

Detroit and Hard Hats

A few months before the Whitney show, Morris produced a work outside the Detroit
Institute of Arts that formaþ foreshadowed his Whitney installations (Fig. 43). Near
the colossal scale of the Whitney pieces, it relied upon a similar process of collective
construction. Composed in part out of chunks of the demolished I-94 overpass that
Morris had spotted when driving from the Detroit airport, this found-object work was
for him an instance of bricolage. He employed forty-ton industrial derricks to move
the concrete, railroad ties, timbers, and scrap metal. Then, with the help of the Sug-
den Company construction crew, Morris installed his work on the north lawn of the
Detroit Institute; the materials were roughly piled into a long, overlapping stack that
resembled a toppled or destroyed structure.
Interestingly, some in the Detroit press focused less on Morris's art than on the
actual laborers who helped to assemble these pieces. A reporter for the Detroit Free
Press even interviewed the crane operator, Bob Hutchinson, who commented with
evident satisfaction, "Only in America can a man awake a crane operator and go to
sleep an artist."Te (Although referred to as a "semi-sculptor" in the article, Hutchin-
son, it was revealed, had not been invited to the show's opening.) Not everyone was
so pleased with this vaunted collaboration; Otto Backer, the construction foreman
(also called, with some sarcasm, a "co-creator" of the art), complained that the work
was "a mess" that might invite citations for zoning violations. Backer was especially
unhappy about the prospect of removing the broken bridge abutment when the show
was over; Morris did not stay to assist with the work's dismantling.
In the outdoor Detroit piece, as in the Whitney works, Morris invested in the mon-
umental as a way to make labor visible. As he elucidated in his retrospective look at
this decade, "The great arxiety of this enterprise-the fall into the decorative, the
feminine, the beautiful, in short, the minor-could only be assuaged by the big and
heavy."80 Slipping into the realm of decor-problematicaþ coded female and hence
frivolous-would belittle Morris's enterprise to reestablish art's cultural necessity. That
necessity can be located in the "risk" he mentioned to Tucker: not just challenge for
the viewers but also the risk he took regardinghis work's market value, given its in-
creasing massiveness. fack Burnham perceived the institutional impossibility of the
Detroit outdoor work in terms of Morris's resistance to its commodification: "Last
year Morris mentioned some of the problems connectedwith storing, paying foa and
selling these goliaths. 'What do you do if they dont selll'I asked. 'Makethemlarger,'
he replied."81
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 109

FTGURE 43 Robert
Moftis, Untitled, 1970,
installation piece for the
Detroit lnstitute of Arts,
Scavenged concrete,
steel, and timbers, 16 x
25 x 40 ft. Destroyed,
@ 2009 Robert Morris/
Artìsts Rights Society
(ARS), New York.

In fact, these works were to Morris mere rehearsals for much more ambitiously
sized projects. As he proposed to curator Sam Wagstaff a few months after his De-
troit Institute show, "I have a work in mind that is better, far better, than the one we
did last winter and no more expensive. . . . Get one of those stingy steel merchants
and crooked highway contractors to throw in a few tons of metal and a few tons of
wet concrete and I'11 make a work that will make Ihe Monurnentto theThird Intemø-
tionøllooklike a wine rack at Hammacher Schlemmer."82 The proposition casually

distanced Morris from the overseers of manual work, with its mentions of "stingy
merchants" and "crooked contractors." At once recognízing the political import of
Vladimir Tatlin's Monurnent while also denigrating it, Morris, with his swaggering
claim, implied that his arrwork would assert its political significance in a way that
Tatlin's maquette could not, primarily at the level of scale. (This is scarcely fair; Tatlin's
piece was, after all, a rnod.el.) Here Morris measured his work's importance against
smallness-such as an upscale wine rack-and asserted that his gritty, monumen-
tally sized construction materials would leave the realm of eflete decoration behind.
Possibly because of the press about the participation of a construction crew the Mor-
ris show in Detroit was viewed as ataÍe art show that had cross-class appeal. Enthused
one supporter to Wagstaff; "Don t know how you do it-but you ve brought in a whole
new audience to art-hard hats!-and made everyone stop and ask that crucial ques-
tion (again); what is art 1"83 The recruitment of hard hats both as art makers (the crane
operator) and as a newfound audience for art would take on special significance for
 110 I ROBER'I' MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

Morris's Whitney show. Who were these workers that were summoned both as the
makers and as the improbable spectators of postminimalist sculpturel
ln r97o hard hats served as the paradigmatic emblem of blue-collar culture. Ac-
cording to historian f oshua Freeman, "By the rg7os, the hardhat itself became the
central symbol of American labor, a role earlier filled by the leather apron, the lunch
pail, and the worker's cap. . . . The multiple symbolic meanings of the hardhat were
intensely gendered."sa The hat itself functioned almost as a symbolic totem that con-
ferred on its wearer associative powers of working-class masculinity. This was more
than a matter of symbols; statistically speaking, tvomen had virhlaly no representa-
tion in the construction industry before 1978, when the government began requiring
construction companies to employ afErmative action policies along gender lines. A
decade later, women still made up only z percentof the buildingfabricationworkforce.ss

Aside from invoking clearly gendered resonances, recruiting hard hats as partici-
pants in the making or viewing of art also reflected a brand of antielitism familiar to
leftist ideologies. Within the AWC, organizing as workers provided a certain lever-
age, since, as artists attempted to model themselves on other trade unions, moments

of actual association with hard-hat culture were perhaps understood to literalize or

bolster their claims to this ideniity. The crane operator's fantasy of class mobility was
inverted in the of the art worker: only in America, one could say, could
d.écløssement

one go to sleep an artist and wake up a worker. In the context of the Vietnam War,
this alliance between hard hats and artists proved, not surprisingly, untenable. It un-
raveled precisely around the Whitney show even as Morris explicitly invoked con-
struction and manufacture as the basis for art's formal means.
On May 8, r97o, a few weeks aÍïer Morris's show opened, several hundred prowar
construction workers lashed out at students who had gathered in lower Manhattan
to protest the bombing of Cambodia. "War Foes Here Attad<ed by Construction Work-

ers" read the front-page headlinein the New York Tirnes.86 Seventy people were in-
jured as construction workers, "most of them wearing brown overalls and orange
and yellow hard hats, descended on V/all Street from four directions."8T The workers
proceeded to storm City Hall and forced officials to raise the American flag that had
been lowered to halÊmast to honor the four students shot dead by the National Guard
at IGnt State on May 4.
Now known as the hard-hat riots, the incident received widespread media cover-
age at the time andhas become a flash point in discussions of alliances betweenblue-

collar workers and the New Left during the Vietnam.War. Some have used the as-
saults to validate the viewpoint that the American working class was a conservative,
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 11I

F¡cuRE 44 "Hard-hatted construction workers breaking up an antiwar rally at the Subtreasury Buildìng," lVew
YorkTimes, N/ay 9, 1 970, 1 . Photograph @ Carl T Gosset, Jr./The New York Times.

prowar force; others have asserted that the workers on May 8 were instigated by un-
known forces, "managed" in some way by dark-suited bosses.88 In any case, their iden-
tification as hard hats-in some way metonpnic of a mainstream "American public"-
was central. In the words of one construction worker who participated in the May 8
riot, "The construction worker is only an image that's being used. The hard hat is be-

ing used to represent all of the silent majority."se More than any other single event,
the hard-hat riots served to redefine publicly the position of the laborer as politically
conservative.
A news photograph of the riot depicts crowds of white men-not all of them in
hard hats-massing together with American flags and hand-lettered "USA' signs held
aloft (Fig. 44). This counterdemonstration was taken as proof that the working class-
which, after all, was drafted into the armed forces in disproportionate numbers-
was finally having its say about the war.eO The building trades were facing one of their
slowest times in the early rg7os, a factor that may have contributed to these work-
ers' anger; many blue-collar workers were in ApÁl ry7 o on the verge of a major work
shutdown.el Some at the time viewed the riots not as a bullying display of prowar
sentiment but as a discharge of political rage due to a loss of economic power; as one
proclamation put it in r97r, "The link between declining jobs in the construction
 112 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

industry-as a result of Nixon's high interest-rate policies that make construction

money scarce-and the hard-hat demonstrations should be obvious."e2
The May riots irrevocably colored the symbolism of construction workers. Hard
hats became strongly linked to hawkish, prowar positions, an association that lin-
gered even as labor increasingly turned against the war in the earþ rg7os, a move
that was arguably crucial to the ultimate end of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.e3
Construction workers in particular became known as militantly conservative, and as
photographs of prowar hard hats continued to circulate in the press and the art world,
the hard hat itself became a marker of aggressive patriotism. For example, in a by-
now familiar campaign strategy designed to show the honest, plain-folks side of the
politician, Richard Nixon was presented with a hard hat by a coalition of union pres-
idents on l|l4ay 26, r97o. Although he was photographed wearing the hat, he refused
to let the photograph be published because of the hat's negative associations with the
worst kind of prowar brutishness. "shrinks with horror at idea of hard hat," explained
one Nixon official in an internal memo, "nohørd,høt . . . would never live it down."ea

Strike

The hard-hat riots were but one instance in an inflammatory period in r97o that en-
compassed an unprecedented amount of protest and demonstration throughout the
United States. In April and May rgTo,Ihe bombing of Cambodia and the killings at
Kent State and fackson State, Florida, propelled the antiwar movement to a new level
of vigor. Even the Nixon administration perceived the diflerence in degree of radical
resistance spreading through the streets, in workplaces, and on campuses: worried
one official, "'We are facing the most severe internal security threat this country has
seen since the Depression."es These antiwar disruptions dovetailed with a surge of
labor unrest. ln r97o the number of strikes by union workers had reached a post-
war high; as labor historians have documented, "Large strikes were more important
in r97o-72 than at any time during the r93os, and the proportion of workers in-
volved in them was surpassed only inry46-49."e6 As part of what has been termed
"the Vietnam era labor revolt," a postal wildcat strike in March of t97o halted the
U.S. mail in fi{leen states, and record numbers of wildcat strikes by autoworkers shut
down plants in the Midwest.eT High-profile strikes such as the 1968 Memphis sani-
tation workers' strike, the United Farm Workers' strike of ry73, t}re t97z longshore-
men's strike, the 1968 New York City teachers' strike, and late r96os wildcat strikes
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 113

in the auto industry led some union leaders to coin this phrase. And in
Apnl ry7o,
the Teamsters, air traffic controllers, steelworkers, various teachers' unions, and work-
ers for New York newspapers held strikes.es
Not included in this statistic are the vast strikes called against the Vietnam.War,
such as student walkouts (which climaxed the week of May 8 and virtuaþ paralyzed
the nations institutes of higher learning, with more than 8o percent of universities
closing), nonunion work stoppages to protest the war (such as those enacted by the
fi1m industry in May r97o), and the ongoing Women Strike for Peace campaign. As
the Wøshínglon Post observed on May 6, ry7o, "The nation is witnessing what
amounts to a virtual general and uncoordinated strike."ee In his comprehensive ac-
count of the antiwar movement, Tom Wells contended that in l;/.ay ry7o "the anti-
war movement was alive as never before. The political possibilities seemed stu-
pendous. A truly general strike against the war was not inconceivable-just shut
the whole country down."19o
Artists were swept up by the promise of work stoppages, walkouts, and boycotts
as well. On May 13, in New York, the artists in the fewish Museum group show Us-

ingWøllsvoted to close the show to protest the U.S. government's escalating violence
in Southeast Asia and on campuses.1Ol Morris participated in this show and the sub-
sequent shutdown; inspired by the forceful message of artistic blackout, he decided
to dismantle his Whitney show several weeks earþ As a prominent artist who had
just launched a major solo show that mimed the procedures of construction and hence
provided fresh evidence for the art worker's selfldescriptor, Morris was uniquely po-
sitioned to capitalize on the ethics of mass shutdown. On May 15 he sent a notice to
theWhitney Museum demandingthathis showbe ended immediatel¡ stating, "This
act of closing . . . a cultural institution is intended to underscore the need I and others

feel to shift priorities at this time from art making and viewing to unified action within
the art community against the intensifying conditions of repression, war and racism
in this country."1o2 He declared himself "on strike" against the art system and fur-
ther demanded that the Whitney close for two weeks to hold meetings for the aÍt com-
munity, to address both the war and a general dissatisfaction with the art museum
as an agent of power. In Morris's view, 'A reassessment of the art structure itself seems
timely-its values, its policies, its modes of control, its economic presumptions, its
hierarchy of existing power and administration. " The V/hitney administration at first
refused his request, but after Morris threatened to use the museum as a site for a
massive sit-in, it acquiesced and closed the show on May 17.

Morris's demand was a stunning instance of an artist using the polemical language
 114 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

of the strike for political purposes. While it echoed the ry37 Artists' Union strike,
Morris's strike was not a campaign about wages or working conditions.lo3 Although
not involved with the AWC, Morris was propelled to the forefront of New York artis-
tic activist circles when he shut down his Whitney retrospective. The day after his
show was closed, concerned artists held a meeting at New York University's Loe'b Cen-
ter to discuss what they could do to protest the bombings of Cambodia. Over one
thousand people attended, and "Robert Morris, Robert Morris, Robert Morris was
the name on everyone's 1ips."10a He was elected chairman of an offshoot of the AWC
known asthe NewYork Art Strike against Racism, War, and Repression. (Poppy John-
son, in a gesture of gender conciliation, was elected co-chair.)10s
The Art Strike was by no means unified about its overall strategy or how over-
arching artists' withdrawal should be. Some pressed for the cessation of all art ex-
cept antiwar protest art-a surprisingly popular view and one Morris evidently en-
dorsed as he asserted that abstract art was racist and bourgeois and should possibly
be stopped.106 "If art can t help the revolution, get rid of it," proclaimed one anony-
mous poster created during the Art Strike.107 Some articulated the belief that art mak-
ing should be stopped in favor of reaching out to the proletariat. As Nemser reported,
some artists (she does not name them) "demanded that artists make works that could
be used as propaganda to unite the artists with the workers."1o8 This proposal, seen
as a call for old-fashioned social realism, was roundly rejected, and not only because
artists were looking for wholly unprecedented aesthetic models for political artistic
practice. The invocation of "the workers" was also challenged: "Mention of the work-
ers had driven a frantic Ivan Karp to the podium. Wringing his hands, he reminded
the hotheads of what the construction men had done to the students only a week be-
fore. 'Remember who your enemies really are,'he implored."10e In short, hard hats
had gone, in the space of a few weeks, from idealized participants in artists' efforts
to democratize their practices to a force aligned with their enemies.
Artists at the meeting ratified a motion about the efficacy of an art strike. They de-
manded that New York museums shut down on May zz, seeking to stop business as
usual for one day as a gesture of protest against U.S. military involvement in Viet-
nam. Some museums and galleries agreed to close their doors. The Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art, which failed to do so, was picketed by a group of several hundred artists,
led by Morris and fohnson, who acted as spokespeople for the event (Fig. 45). At its
peak, its ranks swelled to over five hundred artists who remained on the picket line
for hours in defiance of the Metropolitan s contrary decision to stay open late.
Photos of the Art Strike, taken by |an van Raay, depict the steps of the Metropol,
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 115

FTGURE 45 Robert MorrÌs cups his hands around hìs mouth to be heard as he is handed a bullhorn on the
steps of the Metropolitan Museum during the Vtay 22, 1970, New York Art Strike Against Racism, War, and
Repression. Poppy Johnson stands beside him, Photograph @ Jan van Raay.

itan Museum thick with protesting artists, their black-and-white posters lined up
like shields (Fig. a6). With its unified, monochromatic, text-only graphics-recalling
the pared-down aesthetics of conceptualism and invoking a I(osuth language
piece-the Art Strike seemed to one observer to be "put into action like a new kind
of ARTFORM."11O Many of the images position Morris at the center of the event-
pointing accusingly at the museum, for instance, or addressing the crowd and being
handed a makeshift bullhorn as |ohnson flanks him. In other photos, however, diÊ
ferent characters are foregrounded. For instance, artist Art Coppedge raises a revo-
lutionary fist as he stands next to assistant director f oseph Noble, whose suit and bit-
ter expression mark him immediately as the "establishment" antagonist (Fig. +Z).
Coppedge was an active member in the branch of the AWC that sought ec1ual rep-
resentation in museums for black and Puerto Rican artists, and his strident gesture
is an active reminder that in fact the Art Strike put "racisrn'before "war" in its title.
The strike's confrontational attitude was not just with the museum power elite; as

Therese Schwartz and gill Amidon reported, "One smiling, amiable construction
worker talked to two artists. He remained unconvinced, defended his prosperity
and good job, saying that he wasn't being persecuted. More construction workers
who worked in the museum were allowed in, followed by the chant'construction
FTGURE 46 on the steps
of the lvlet, uniform text-only
posters are w¡elded by
protesters at the Art Strike,
'1970. Photograph @ Jan
van Raay.

FIcURE 47 Art Striker Art

Coppedge raises a defiant
fist as he stands next to
lvletropolitan [/]useum
administrator Joseph Vleach
Noble, May 22, 1970.
Photograph @ Jan van Raay.
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 117

workers, join us!'"ttt This hopeful chant of solidarity fell on deaf ears; still, Andre,
in his worker's coveralls, swept the stairs with satisfaction when the event was de-
clared over, and the strike was deemed a success.
Throughout this spring, strike sentiment among artists gained momentum. The
Intemational Cultural Revolutionary Forces (consistingof GAAG founders Hendricks
and Toche, along with occasional others) took the notion of a strike quite literaþ
calling for "all artists to stop producing art, andbecome political and social activists."112
(At an earlier meeting of the AWC inry69, Lee Lozano, foreshadowing the language

of the Art Strike, launched her "General Strike Piece" by declaring her withdrawal
from all art world functions in order to undergo total "personal revolution.") Artist
and critic Irving Petlin declared that artists should participate in the "waves of strikes,
calls, interruptions, demands, non-cooperation, sabotage, resistance, by no business
as usual anywhere." He called on artists to "\Mithhold their work, deny its use to a

government arxious to signal to the world that it represents a civilized, culturally-

centered society while melting babies in Vietnam. No. '113 While artists as image mak-
ers \Mere positioned take an active part in the battle of images being fought about the
popularity of the war, many chose instead to stop showing their work. f o Baer and
Robert Mangold removed the works they had on view at the MoMA for the month of
May to protest the Cambodia bombings, and Frank Stella closed his MoMA solo ex-
hibition for the day of the Art Strike.
Those taking part in the strike went under the assumption that aesthetic practices
werc prod.uctive and that their stoppage would interrupt the functions of economic
or social life in some crucial way. The Art Strike, reliant upon the space of the art
institution, is a sign of how the art workers had moved from thinking that "work"
consisted of physical making in the studio to understanding that "work" occurred
when art was on display, in the realm of viewership. As much as the strike was a

rhetorical gesture, it was also meant to signal alliances with the conventional strikes
as well as the student strikes that were energizingthe antiwar movement. The Art
Strike raised significant questions about the viability of the "art worker" identity, given
that with art there is no consolidated employer, nor is there a factory line to halt. These
questions had serious implications as artists sought the most effective means to
enact reforms within their "work sites"-museums and galleries. Because it sought
to dissuade visitors from entering art institutions, the Art Strike might more accu-
rately be termed a boycott. Still, it drew on the rhetoric of the general strike and the
moratorium, which in their most radical forms went beyond protests of working con-
ditions to gestures that sought nothing less than revolution.
 118 I ROBERT I\iIORRIS,S ART STHIKE

It might be tempting to read the Art Strike as the culmination of a conceptual

strategy-the logical conclusion of Morris's "dematerialization." Such a reading ig-
nores the political context-the labor revolt-within which the Art Strike and the
closure of the Whitney show occurred. As part of the rising tide of strikes engulfing
the nation, the Art Strike used the motif of work stoppage as a galvanizing practice
to embrace a range of issues. Il in this sense, the Art Strike could be described as a
conceptual performance, it was at the same time a performative act aimed at politi
cal intervention.
Morris's tactic of withholding his artistic labor by shutting down his Whitney show
early could also be read as a form of aesthetic refusal much influenced by Marcuse's
theory of a "Great Refusal"-"the negation of the entire Establishment."lla The Great
Refusal, the possibility of imagining alternatives to the "massive exploitative power
of corporate capitalism,"lls was most expansively outlined in Marcuse's ry69 Essøy
on Liberøtion, a book that was highly influential for the New York art Left.116 In the
late r96os Marcuse saw hopeful indications that this refusal was undermining main-
stteam societ¡ especially in the widespread "collapse of work discipline, slowdown,
spread of disobedience to rules and regulations, wildcat strikes, boycotts, sabotage,
gratuitous acts of noncompliance."117 Morris took his theory of artistic negation di-
rectly from Marcuse's theories, as seen in the following statement made by Morris
about r97o: "My first principle for political action, as well as art action, is denial and
negation. One says no. It is enough at this point to begin by saying no."118
In t97o posters and antiwar art struck artists as less and less relevant, and with-
drawal-a refusal to lei things proceed as normal-took over as a popular protest
strategy. As Lucy Lippard put it, "It's how you give and withhold your art that is po-
litical.'11e But some criticized the Art Strike as flawed in design and motive and dis-
missed its calls for the withdrawal of art as ineffectual. In )une r97o a small group
of art strikers, including Morris, met with Senators facob Javits and Claiborne Pell
of the Senate Subcommittee on Arts and Humanities in \Vashington, D.C., to dis-
cuss the ramifications of removing art from state-sponsored exhibitions. The sena-
tors were unmoved and commented that if the strike had involved doctors or other
types of workers deemed "necessary" for society to function, their withholding of la-
bor wouid be a different matter.12o Others saw the strike as a threat. Said fohn High-
tower, then-director of MoMA, "The irony of conducting a strike against arts insti-
tutions is that it puts you in the same position of Hitler in the 3os and 4os, Stalin in
the 5os."rzt Hardly: the Art Strike did not advocate the complete closing of all mu-
seums but, along with the AWC, pushed to make museums more widely accessible.
pLATEl PanelsforthePeaceTower(detail),LosAngeles, 1966,N/lixedmedia.PhotographbyChafesBrittin
Charles Brittin Archive, Research Library, Getty Research lnstitute, Used w¡th permission (2005,|V.11)

pLATE 2 Adisls Poster Commitlee (Frazier Dougherty, Jon Hendricks, lrving Petlin), Q: And Babies? 1970.
Lithograph, 25 x 38 in. Courtesy of the Cenler for the Study of Polit¡cal Graphics, Photograph by Ron L,
Haebele
PLATE 3 Art Workers' Coalition,
At Attica and at the Modern,
Rockefeller Calls lhe Shots, 1971
Poste¡ silkscreen on paper. lmage

AT ATTIC A
counesy of the Lucy R. Lippard
Papers, ca 1 940-2006, Archives
of American Art, Smithsonian
lnstitution,

PLATE 4 Carl Andre, 37 Pieces

of Work, 1969, installation view,
Solomon R Guggenheim lvluseum,
New York. Aluminum, copper, ROCKEFELLIR
C¡ IL5 TNr >HOTS
steel, lead, magnesium, and zinc,
1,296 units (216 of each metal),
eacl't 12 x 12 x 3/e in ; overall
432 x 432 in, Art @ Carl Andre/
Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
,flc z
pLATEs Carl Andre,GoldField, 1966,Gold,3x3x%in.PhotographbyJeffreyPrice,courtesyofthePaula
Cooper Gallery, New York Art O Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

PLATE 6 Carl Andre, reverse side of magnesium plate from Magnesium-Zinc Plain, 1969,
with Dow imprint, Photograph by Pablo lvlason, Collection of lhe lvluseum of Contemporary
Ar1, San Diego Art @ Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
pLATE 7 lnstallalion shol of Robert Morris: Recent Works at the Whilney l\,4useunr of Anrerican Art, New York
1970 Photograph by Peter Moore. Art O 2009 Robed Morris/Arlists Rights Society (ARS), New York

PLATE a Robert f\,4orris, Ufttitled [Timbersj, 1970, installation piece for the Whilney show, Wood, approx,
12 ,,20 ,,50ft Destroyed Pholograph by Rudy Burckhardl @ 2009 Estate of Rudy Burckhardt/Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York Art O 2009 Robert Morris/Artists Righls Society (ARS), New York
pLATE 9Roberl Morris, IJntitlect [Concrete,Tin¡l:¡ers, Stee/i, cletail, 1970 Photograph by Rudy Burckhardt
@ 2OO9 Estate of Rr-rdy Burckharclt/Artists Rights Sociely (ARS), New York. Art O 2009 Robert Morris/Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York.
PLATE 1o Hans Hacke, /!etvs, 1970 lnstallation alSoftware exhibition, Jewish Museulr.r, NewYork MLrltrpe
telex nrachilres streanring news fronr around the worlcl Photograph by Hans Haacke O 2OOg Artists Righls
Sociely (AFS), New York/VG Brlcl Kunst, Bonn
 \ä------

,.__/:
-

t:l

PLATE 1l Hans Haacke, Gallery-Goers' Bitthplace and ResideDce Proftle, Part 7 (detail), 1969 lnleraciive
installalion at Howard Wise Gallery, New York; blue and red ¡rushpins on wall map Photograph by Hans
Haacl<e O 2009 Artisls Righls Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild Kunst, Bonn
 ()L r::;trr xr

Would the lacr that Governor Rockefeller

has not denounced President Nixon's
lndochina policy be a reason for you not
to vote for him in November 7

Ar,',wer

tf 'yes'
please into the left box;
if 'no'
into the

\,
r

pLATE l2 Hans H¿ì¿ìol(o, NíON|A Poll, olc¿rr ¡rlirsiio votinll lrores, tort 1r;rfel,
l97O ltìtoraolive irìstallation witlr
char lof Ìesuts, ¿tIlnfornatiot¡ exlribition, Museunr of [t4oderir Art, Ne\¡J Yorli Phoiogralrh lty l-1;rns Hiìaol(e, ()
2009 Art sts Rights Society (ARS), Neur \trrl</VG Bilcl l(unst, Bonn
 BOBERT MORRIS'S ART STHIKE I 119

Instead, as a letter back to Hightower emphasized, "You fail to understand the mean-
ing of symbolic denial (closing the museum for ONE DAY!) which speaks to the ac-

tnal denial oflife by forces ofviolence.'122

The conditions for an art strike lasted only a few months, as they were embedded
in the specific historical coincidence of the Vietnam'War, the large-scale strikes around
the countr¡ and the activities of the AWC. As early as September r97o, postmortems
for the Art Strike appeared in print: "Feelings among Strike activists range flom ap-
athy to suspicion to disgust. The protest, if not destroyed, is dormant. What hap-
penedì"r2r By November r97o, the Art Strike had birthed several related organiza-
tions, one of them the Emergency Cultural Government, an ad hoc group (including
Morris) that lobbied artists to withdraw from the American Pavilion at the r97o Venice
Biennale to protest U.S. military action in Vietnam and Cambodia.l2a
Whallød.happenedl The auswer lies, in part, in the growing feminist movement
and the defection of many women involved in the Art Strike to women's action groups,
which I discuss further in Chapter 4. And, despite the attention paid to the word røcísm
in the Art Strike, sorne artists of color felt that this was merely 1ip service.l2s The Art
Strike eventually was folded back into the AWC, and its activities tapered off by the
end of r97r, although it did help mobilize the museum staff as workers and was ac-
tively supportive of the union drive and strike of the Professional and Administra-
tive Staff Association of the Museum of Modern Art.
In a further resignifying of the potent symbol of the hard hat within the context
of a strike, one protest poster from the r97r PASTA MoMA strike appropriates the
Rembrandt-school painting MØ! in ø Golden Heln'¡et (Fig. aB). The sublect of this
canonical painting is made to speak, as a pasted-on word balloon saying "Strike" is-
sues forth from his closed lips. Many of the strategies used by the strikers in their
placards were art-historically salvy, with a similarly detoured Bruegel painting and
the familiar image of Uncle Sam. The Rembrandt-era work, perhaps chosen because
the helmet of the title was so prominent, was captioned "Even a fèw hard hats sup-
port PASTA MOMA," makiirg reference to the ostensibly conservative blue-collar
workforce so politically contested just one year before.
Every standard account of the closure of Morris's Whitney show puts it within the
context of the Art Strike. Was there, perhaps, another r-eason that Morris was so ea-
ger to shut down his Whitney show on May 15l In the aftermath of the hard-hat ri-
ots, construction was no longer a viable metaphor for the new relations between work,
labor, and politics that Morris sought inr97o. The intense ideological contradictions
that accompanied the yoking together of "arI" and "workers" were made starkl¡ and
 118 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

It might be tempting to read the Art Strike as the culmination of a conceptual

strategy-the logical conclusion of Morris's "dematerialization." Such a reading ig-
nores the political context-the labor revolt-within which the Art Strike and the
closure of the Whitney show occurred. As part of the rising tide of strikes engulfing
the nation, the Art Strike used the motif of work stoppage as a galvanizing practice
to embrace a range of issues. If, in this sense, the Art Strike could be described as a
conceptual performance, it was at the same time a performative act aimed at politi-
cal intervention.
Morris's tactic of withholding his artistic labor by shutting down his Whitney show
earþ could also be read as a form of aesthetic refusal much influenced by Marcuse's
theory of a "Great Refusal"-"the negation of the entire Establishment."lla The Great
Refusal, the possibility of imagining alternatives to the "massive exploitative power
of corporate capitalism,"lls was most expansively outlined in Marcuse's :1969 Essøy

on Liberøtion, a book that was highly influential for the New York art Left.116 In thè
late 196os Marcuse sawhopeful indications thatthis refusalwas underminingmain-
stream society, especially in the widespread "collapse of work discipline, slowdown,
spread of disobedience to rules and regulations, wildcat strikes, boycoüs, sabotage,
gratuitous acts of noncompliance."llT Morris took his theory of artistic negation di-
rectly from Marcuse's theories, as seen in the following statement made by Morris
aboul r97o: "My first principle for political action, as well as art action, is denial and
negation. One says no. It is enough at this point to begin by saying no."118
In r97o posters and antiwar art struck artists as less and less relevant, and with-
drawal-a refusal to let things proceed as normal-took over as a popular protest
strategy. As Lucy Lippard put it, "It's how you give and withhold your art that is po-
litical."11e But some criticized the Art Strike as flawed in design and motive and dis-
missed its ca1ls for the withdrawal of art as ineffectual. In |une r97o a small group
of art strikers, including Morris, met with Senators facob favits and Claiborne Pell
of the Senate Subcommittee on Arts and Humanities in Washington, D.C., to dis-
cuss the ramifications of removing art from state-sponsored exhibitions. The sena-
tors were unmoved and commented that if the strike had involved doctors or other
types of workers deemed "necessary" for society to function, their withholding of 1a-

bor would be a different matter.12O Others saw the strike as a threat. Said f ohn High-
toweç then-director of MoMA, "The irony of conducting a strike against arts insti-
tutions is that it puts you in the same position of Hitler in the 3os and 4os, Stalin in
the 5os."tzt Hardly: the Art Strike did not advocate the complete closing of all mu-
seums but, along with the AWC, pushed to make museums more widely accessible.
 pLATE I Panels for the PeaceTower (detail), Los Angeles, 1966. Mixed media. Photograph by Charles Brittin
Charles Brittin ArchÌve, Research Lìbrary, Getty Research lnstitute. Used with permiss¡on (2005.|V.11).

..:

nLATE 2 Artists Poster Commiltee (Frâzier Dougherty, Jon Hendricks, lrving Petlin), Q: And Babies? 1970.
Lithograph, 25 x 38 in. Courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics. Photograph by Ron L.
Haeberle.
 ft.¡esîi#t,

PLATE t2 Hans Flaacke, MOMA-Poil, 1970. lnteractive instaìlation with clear plastic voting boxes, text panel
chart of results, al lnformat¡on exhibition, lvluseum of l\,4odern Art, New York. Photograph by Hans Haacke. @
2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 119

Instead, as a letter back to Hightower emphasized, "You fail to understand the mean-
ing of symbolic denial (closing the museum for ONE DAY!) which speaks to the ac-
tual denial oflife by forces ofviolence."122
The conditions for an art strike lasted only a few months, as they were embedded
in the specific historical coincidence of the Vietnam War, the large-scale strikes around
the countr¡ and the activities of the AWC. As earþ as September r97o, postmortems
for the Art Strike appeared in print "Feelings among Strike activists range from ap-
atþ to suspicion to disgust. The protest, if not destroyed, is dormant. What hap-
penedl"123 By November rg7o, the Art Strike had birthed several related organiza-
tions, one of them the Emergency Cultural Government, an ad hoc group (including
Morris) that lobbied artists to withdraw from the American Pavilion at the r97o Venice
Biennale to protest U.S. military action in Vietnam and Cambodia.l2a
Whathødhappenedl The answer lies, in part, in the growing feminist movement
and the defection of many women involved in the Art Strike to women's action groups,
which I discuss further in Chapter 4. And,despite the attention paid to Ihewordrøcism
in the Art Strike, some artists of color felt that this was merely lip service.l2s The Art
Strike eventuaþ was folded back into the AWC, and its activities tapered offby the
end of r97r, although it did help mobilize the museum staffas workers and was ac-
tively supportive of the union drive and strike of the Professional and Administra-
tive Staff Association of the Museum of Modem Art.
In a further resignifying of the potent symbol of the hard hat within the context
of a strike, one protest poster from the r97r PASTA MoMA strike appropriates the
Rembrandt-school painting Mø? in ø Golden Helmet (Fig. a8). The subject of this
canonical painting is made to speak, as a pasted-on word l¡alloon saying "Strike" is-
sues forth from his closed lips. Many of the strategies used by the strikers in their
placards were art-historicaþ sawy, with a similarþ detoured Bruegel painting and
the familiar image of Uncle Sam. The Rembrandt-era work, perhaps chosen because
the helmet of the title was so prominent, was captioned "Ëven a few hard hats sup-
port PASTA MOMA," making reference to the ostensibly conservative blue-collar
workforce so politically contested iust one year before.
Every standard account of the closure of Morris's Whitney show puts it within the
context of the Art Strike. Was there, perhaps, another reason that Morris was so ea-
ger to shut down his Whitney show on May r5l In the aftermath of the hard-hat ri-
ots, construction was no longer a viable metaphor for the new relations between work,
labor, and politics that Morris sought in r97o. The intense ideological contradictions
that accompanied the yoking together of "art" and "workers" were made starkþ and
 120 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

FlcuRE 4a Professional and Administrative SlafiAssociation (PASTA) of the

Museum of Modern Art on strike, August 30, 1 971 , supported by the Art Workers'
Coalition. Photograph @ Jan van Raay,

uncomfortably, visible. The driving ideas behind the Whitney exhibition, with its am-
bitious, even wishful assertions of collaborative production, workers and artist work-
ing side by side, had soured. One writer described the following pervasive feeling in
the wake of the hard-hat riots: "The masses, those cabdrivers, beauticians, steel-work-
ers, ironworkers, and construction men so beautifully romanticized by generations
of dreamy socialists, are reaþ an ugly bunch of peop1e."126 After the hard-hat riots
in May r97o, Morris commented in the New York Posf, "Museums are ouÍ cam-
puses."127 This assertion draws a parallel between student strikes and the Art Strike,
solidifying the artists' affinity wirJt stud.ents rather than with blue-collar workers.
In Morris's Whitney show, the art is formally associated with the building trades,
as are the myriad photographs that depict it as an active "construction site." Un-
derscoring that he was al¡ove all an art worker, Morris performed the position of the
blue-collar forklift driver; such an identity proved far less alluring after blue-collar
workers stormed down lower Manhattanwaving flags andbeating up students. Mor-
ris's sudden involvement with the Art Strike struck some as careerist or opportunis-
tic; stickers appeared in downtown New York that read, "Robert Morris: Prince of
Peace.'128 Critic Nemser scofled, "Greater sacrifice hath no man than to shut down

his art show for his fellow m Although Morris was at the periphery of the AWC
^n.t72e
before the Art Strike, his involvement in the Art Strike and the Emergency Cultural
Government constituted genuine efforts to come to terms with the ethics of art mak-
ing and art display in the "museum system." It also represented an attempt to find
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 121

a new kind of political viability after his formal process exercise at the Whitney turned
into such a critical, aesthetic, and ideological disappointment.
Morris's disillusionment with the possibility for cross-class affiliation paralleled
that of the New Left in general, as the Left embraced Marcuse's belief that the work-
ing class was "counterrevolutionary."l30 The Whitney show, which was the residue
of collaborativeproductionwithateamof dozens of workers, suddenlybetrayedsym-
pathies with regressive politics, and Morris sought to remove it from view. Certainly,
the art projects he proposed in the months after the end of the Whitney show, with
their focus on precisely his uncertainties revolving around labor, the value of art, and
questions of collectivity, articulate a rejection of his previous models of art making.

Morris On and Off the Clock

Where could Morris go after striking at the V/hitneyl Morris seemed to sense that
the way he'd been working was insufficient to address the turmoil of these six weeks
in r97o. He pondered the question in a notebook a month after his show closed: "Feel
I have to re-invent an art viable for myself and consonant with the conditions of change
that have occurred over these last two months. Something either more public or more
privatel No clear idea at this point."131 Morris remained serious about his commit-
ment to deflating overvalued artistic labor, as his next project demonstrated. This was
the Peripatetic Artists Guild (PAG), a series of proposed projects based on "saleless
wage commissions" (Fig.+g). Starting in November rg1o, Morris placed a series of
ads in art magazines announcing that the guild (consisting only of Morris and, briefly,

Craig Kauffman) was available for projects such as "explosions-events for the quarter
horse-chemical swamps-monuments-speeches-outdoor sounds for the vary-
ing seasons-alternate political systems." Ranging from the prosaic (speeches) to the
toxic (chemical swamps) to the utopian (alternative political systems), these propos-
als were to be executed for a twenty-five-dollar-an-hour wage "plus all travel, mate-
rials, construction and other costs to be paid by the owner-sponsor."
Morris's list included both art and nonart activities; some of them, such as "the-
atrical projects for the masses," had vaguely political overtones that alluded back to
the Art Strike. Many of them reflected work he had already been engaged in (such
as riding quarter horses). The owner-sponsor, as he termed it, could call on the artist
to execute any number of actions, all for the same pay, negating the hierarchy that
assigns different scales of value to art pieces than to, say, construction projects. The
 TI{Ë PERIPATËTIC ASTI$T$ 6IJItP ANNOUIdçã$
Êo8ËnT m0ñnrs

Årailable fcr Cornmission* Ânywherc in the l¡Vorld

IxpLÕs rsNrs*gvrt'iïS rCIn Tþir ûuAaTrn

*c¡"{EM rcAL swAMpS* Mt[¡uMet{ls *
f-lÕ$1sE
sPËrtilÊs*ÇrjTpeÕR s0ur¡üs FOa THE
VAÊYI Nû $CASÕNS*ÂLTËRNÂTË POL ITICAl-
$YSTTM$*OËLUGES*DASIGN ANO TNCOUR.
ÂGEMËNT Of MIJTATËÛ FOR[J.!$ TT LIËE ANT
OTHSR VAGUELY AçAIÇULTURAL PM¡:NÕMENA,
SUCX A3 ÕISCIFLINËü TRËËS* ËÅfrTHWÛRKS*
ü g M0NsrnAïrCIN$* PR€$Tlû E0L'$ 0 g,.,ecrs
FOR þICIMg, ËSTAT€, ON MUSËUM *THSATNICÂL
ÊROJECTS FtR THr h'ÎASSg$*-g¡rr0 Âhl0 tTATiç
n LM$*rÕ{"jNTA¡ r,is' $¡ t jQu rÐ MKTALS* Ë l üSEM-
8LÊS CIr CUni0US CIBJËÇTS 10 8Ë SË€N WHltã
TAAVËLING AT þIIûH gPËãD$*T.]AT!ONAt PANK$
ANþ ¡.IANGINS GÅRTE''"Is*ANT'STIC NIVËR.
$IONS ÕF ËIVÊNS*SCI.,}LPTURAL PRÖJÊCTS*

Cal!aborative Froiects r¡¡itþ Othcr Ârtistt lnvited

lhe above is l¡ut a partial listinE ðl praiects ¡n whiclì

the srtist is qualified lo €ngåge. No prolect is too
ômall Õr too large. The artist will respand to all in-
quiries r*Earding c*mnrissions of whatever nature

Term* ç{ çÕrnmiss¡ùns

Sales or fees for any prajects are nol acceptai:le. A

$25.ûû per working hour wåSê plus nli trave¡. n'lsle-
riâis, construcli{rn ând Ðlher costå to be pai<l hy the
Õwne{-$$c}nsor. Subsoquent såles of êny proj€ct by
the Õwner-$ponsûr wi'l require * 5Û% return of
fl¡nds to lhe Peripat*t¡c Artists Gui¡d {PAG} tt b*
hcld ìn trust for lhe furtheranc* *f salølçss wélç*
commissions bel*¡e*n athÊr årtists ând owRer'spÕn-
sors, A csntract w¡ll be issued for evciry cômn"li*sion.

Address ell l*quiries to FÀG, 1*6 Qrand St"

FtcuRE 49 Robed l\,,forris,
¡¡Yç 10ü13
"The Peripatet¡c Artists Guild
Announces Robert Morris,"
1970. Printed advertisement,
Añforum I (November 1970):
23. O 2009 Robert Morris/
Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York.
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 123

use of the term guildrecalls a skilled artisanal association, and this language was per-
haps used in concert with the AWC; both asserted art's legitimacy as a profession.
Although Morris placed the ads hoping to solicit proposals, resulting in clueries from
tlventy-one interested parties, no commissioned projects came out of the PAG (in
retrospect it appears to offer a remarkably good deal).
Morris did not mean the PAG as a joke; he saw it as the future of progressive art
practices. As he wrote, "Working wages for art effort in an interacting situation with
the outside world must replace [the museum lgallery system]."132 The art world, ap-
parently, was not ready to embrace this replacement, and disapproval came even from
such seemingly sympathetic quarters as the fledgling Artworkers Nsws, abroadsheet
published in New York between I97I andt98z.133 Sandwiched between items on laws
affecting artists and getting health insurance and listed under the heading "Rip-Offs
and Cop-Outs: Tales of Horror from the Art World!" was an article appalled by the
"fake" business of the Peripatetic Artists Guild. "We are somewhat concerned by a
few aspects of this aflair. . . . We would be happy to hear exactly how things were dealt
with in this 'guild.'"134
If Marx considered wage labor the heart of alienation and exploitation, and often
explicitþ contrasted it to the relatively free, fulfilling labor of artistic creation, why
would artists wish to mime the pay structure of hourþ wagesll3s Morrisk resort to
wage labor in the PAG had implications beyond the financial. The PAG would se-
cure his place within a class system in which artists were on some level equivalent
to \Mage workers-the epic performance of work was no longer the best way to cri-
tique the system. At this point, the display of construction in the Whitney exhibit ap-
peared showy or false. His project proposals in the summer of t97o after the closure
of the Whitney show even go so far as to mock his previously straightforward attempts
to forge a collective model of working. Instead, his rehearsals of the procedures of
construction turned into a farce.
One proposal, called "Work at Pier 45," is a kind of ironic coda to the Whitney show,
envisioned at an incredibly grand scale. This pageant-type event was to include a nude
woman leading a team of horses, which are themselves dragging enormous U.S.
flags covered in flyers that picture the atrocities of the Vietnam War, as well as iug-
glers, acrobats, firefighters playing poker, and a National Guard drill team. The pro-
posal continues: "The Timber Piece I did at the Whitney will be redone. The forty
z6 foottimbers will be brought up on the moving luggage ramps, assembled and
spilled. The process should take several hours and require a crew offive."136 Thirty
white rabbits would be released, a dozen televisions would be scattered throughout
 124 I ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

the scene, and the audience ¡¡smþs1s-\À/earing placards around their necks with
the names of casualties from the vietnam war-would watch the scene perched on
bales of hay. This proposal is notable for its reimagination of the Whitney timber
piece, and because Morris inserted pictures of war horrors and the names of the dead
into this circuslike atmosphere.
A diflerent proposal from the same period imagines a choreographed scene of mass
toil: "roo men in a field dragging a steel plate . . . roo men and women planting, zo
men carrying timber, zo :nLen rolling large boulders, ro horses ." Llntitled [Tirnbers],
originally conceived as an earnest attempt to forge a method of transparent produc-
tion, has metamorphosed into of a campy, Busby Berkeley-type
a fantastical scene
spectacle, as if conceding that that was its place, in fact, all along. Morris spun out
visions of vast work with a pluralized and mixed gender cast, yet he recognized the
hollowness of its forced collectivity. He added: "Make a political text for these dif-
ferentiating any false Marxist notions about togetherness, the workers, etc. Some
of
text from Marxhimself-i.e. demonstrate by words that its political content merely
apparent-i.e. the 'collectivism' of the working people useless, non-productive,
From the whitney exhibition, to the Art Strike, to the wage labor of the pAG,
^¡."137
to this sorry scene of "useless art": the trajectory here is toward cynicism.
Morris's transition also records a widely shared cultural sense that work, war, and
resistance might all be subsumed, and diffused, under the category of the specta-
cle.138 He moved from an old-fashioned (even old Lefi) idea of the arm-in-arm link-
age of work and politics to an absurd parade of war photos, nude women, and on-
lookers. This is not Abbie Hoffman's strategic, even ecstatic acceptance of an image
culture and media intervention; rather, it is akin to Todd Gitlin's bitter contention
that the embrace of spectacle-that moment when protesters addressed the cameïas
to proclaim, "The whole world is watching"-was the very death of the New Left.l3e
If theWhitney showwas failure, itwas because the elements Morris wishedto bring
a

together were irreconcilable. Morris's re-presentation of industrial objects and his

desire to shift them from the realm of art to work led not only to a romanticized per-
sonal identification with working-class labor but also to culturally incoherent objects.
V/hile Morris wanted a show that would be sensitive to populist visions of artists and
workers collectively forging new relationships, the version of labor he performed
was fast obsolescing. The crude pulleys and weights do not necessarily speak to their
moment-a moment that was rapidly undergoing major shifts-but in fact hark back
to a previous time.
Morris's whitney show does not even demonstrate a last gasp of industrial man-
 ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE I 125

ufacture just as that version of construction l¡ecomes moot. As Michelson notes, these
basics of construction date from Stonehenge and the pyramids. She quotes a crew
worker's astonished utterance upon witnessing the installation of Concrete, Timbers,
S!.eel: "My God! This is like zooo BC!'140 In his effort to forge an art from raw ma-
terials and construction crews, Morris displayed a profound nostalgia for the prein-
dustrial (rather than postindustrial) mechanics of hard manual work. (This sentiment
includes nostalgia for the lost masculinity of working-class manhood. In this, Mor-
ris is not alone; arxieties attendant to shifts in the conditions of production-and in
times of war-are often displaced or refigured in sexualized terms.)
The collapse of artists' identification with workers after the hard-hat riots points
to the misrecognitions inherent in trying to eradicate distinctions between art and
labor.lal Morris's r97o Whitney exhibition-and its photos of strong-armed workers
hauling heavy loads, their faces grimacing, their muscles straining-crystallized ap-
prehensions facing the leftist U.S. art world about how to make art viable as a form
of labor. Why, in so many of the shots of Morris in which he is supposedly one of
the workers, is he pufñng on a cigør, the very symbol of "bossness"l The fictive iden-
tification with labor that these works insist upon vacillates between the artist as fore-
man and the artist as "construction man." It is critical that there are no photos of
Morris actually wearing a hard hat during the installation of the r97o Whitney show;
it sits on his head spectrally, in the realm of psychic projection and fantasy.
Despite a flurry of major press attention given the Whitney show in r97o, it has
largely disappeared from Morris's historical record.la2 This erasure is striking. It dis-
counts Morris's most important (if problematic) effort to merge political purpose and
artistic form, and it overlooks the pivotal role the erJribition played in Morris's own
development. After the Whitney and Tate shows, Morris abandoned postminimal-
ism as he shifted away from nonfigurative process art. Thus Morris's \X/hitney show
produced a critical ruphrre within his practice; as Alex Potts has astutely theorized,
the Whitney show constituted a "crisis . . . ending in a bleak rejection of almost every-
thing[Morris]hadseemedtostandfor.'143Theevents o{t97o signaledamajorshift
in American artists' ideas about the relation between art and labor; the AWC itself
limped along for only about a year after the Art Strike. The Art Strike is often re-
ferred to as a triumphant moment of artistic activism, but investigating the contra-
dictions attendant to its most fervent period-May rg7o-reyeals the fractured and
unsettled nature of the identily "arr worker."
 Lucy Lippard's Feminist Labor
One thing museum administrators can't seem to realize
is that most of the altworkers lead triple (for women, often
quadruple) lives: making art, earning a living, political or
social action, and maybe domestic work too.
Lucy Lippard (r97o)

Women's Work

"Herewith the twenty-two reviews. Hope they make whatever the deadline is' Slight
delay as I had a baby last week."1 Lucy Lippard sent this letter and its accompanying
parcel of reviews to the editor of Art Intemøtionøl on December u, 1964. The casual
mention of the birth of her son demonstrates the furious pace at which Lippard
worked:-oveï twenty reviews sent off only one week postpartum! Lippard had con-
cealed her pregnancy until this moment-"Luckily, the editor was in Switzerland. I
didn't tell him till I'd had the baby"2-and her brisk, slightly defiant tone is a mea-
sure of how carefully she positioned herself vis-à-vis her gender in the beginning of
her career. Lippard recognized that her work as a mother might be seen as an im-
pediment to her work as a writer, and her çonflicting identities as a laborer (to both
reproductive and remunerative ends) would sharpen with her increasing awareness
of feminism.
In this chapter, the concept of artistic labor is expanded to consider how art crit-
ics andcurators affiliatedwiththe AWC andthe Art Strikeunderstoodtheirproduction

in political terms. How were writers' contributions likewise corralled under the "art
workers" rubricl This chapter also examines how the feminist movement of the late
r96os changed what counted as legitimate artistic labor. The history of U.S. femi
nism is also a history of work; likewise, labor history is incomplete without women's
contributions. Labor, with its gendered double meaning, was central to all the com-

127
 128 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

plex, somewhat factionalized strands of second-wave feminism. The timeline of fem-

inism in the United States stretches back much farther than the r96os, with impor-
tant nineteenth- and earþ twentieth-century precedents. By ry66, with the found-
ing of the National Organization for Women, feminist influence was nascent within
leftist circles, and by 1969 womens liberation was a ma1'or social movement. This
"second wave" consolidated itself in the late r96os, coming on the heels of-and in-
tricately connected to-both the civil rights movement and the New Left, although
feminism was by no means welcomed with open arms as it gained momentum. As
Ellen Willis wrote, "'We were laughed at, patronized, called frigid, emotionaþ dis-
turbed man-haters and-worst of all on the left-apolitica1."3
Some historians mark the 1963 publication of Betty Friedans The Feminine Mys-
tique as one catalyzing start date for the women's liberation movement, as its de-
scriptions of the ruthless social conditioning of women "planted a seed for ideolog-
ical change."a Friedan's book investigated the push for women to return to domestic
labor after World War II, and the psychic pressures that attended this widespread ini-
tiative to return women to house-bound work. Despite these pressures, many \Momen
stayed at their jobs; bolstered by the great influx of women into the job market dur-
ing the war, by the earþ r96os more than one-third of all workers in the United States
were women.s However, research showed that for every dollar a man earned a woman
with a similar level of experience would receive fifty-nine cents. (So familiar and polit-
ically meaningfirl was this statistic that some women's rights buttons simply read " j9ç.")
The publication of the 1963 report for the Presidential Commission on the Status
of Women, which looked at wage discrimination and labor standards, ushered in a

new era of legislation regarding gender inequity, such as the Equal Pay for Equal V/ork
Act of that same year.6 The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order to end sexual dis-
crimination in hiring practices in t97t, and r97z saw congressional approval of the
Equal Rights Amendment, even though this amendment failed to be ratified ten years
later in the state-by-state vote. Pay equity, also known as comparable worth, was a

mainstay of 196os feministthought-the originalplatform of NOWincludedaplank

on "equal pay fot equal work."7
For radical feminists, such goals were far too modest. While cultural feminists ad-
vocated for maternity leave, radical feminists sought to abolish conventional ideas of
motherhood altogether.s They called for a revolution that would liberate women as

a class. As the 1969 Redstockings manifesto proclaimed, "'Women are an oppressed

class. Our oppression is total, aflecting every facet of our lives. \Ve are exploited as

sex objects, breeders, domestic servants, and cheap labor."e In 1972the International
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 129

Coalition for.Wages for Housework called for a new socialized economy in which
women would be paid for their housework; they noted that two-thirds of the worlds
work-including the often unacknowledged labor of cooking, cleaning, and child
rearing-was performed by women, with only 5 percent of it compensated. In other
words, women's work was at the forefront of feminism, and questions of labor were
central for Lippard as she grew to understand her feminist and art-critical pursuits
as gendered forms of work.
The demographic to which Lippard belonged-white, educated, middle class,
urban-registered most significantþ the atmospheric changes regarding U.S. cul-
tural feminism: she was studying at Smith just as Friedan was interviewing alumni
there regarding what she termed the "crisis" facing \Momen in which they felt torn
between families and careefs. Lippard's concealment of her pregnancy from the ed-
itor of Art Intemøtionølis syrnptomatic of this crisis. Reciting Lippards biographical
information is not meant to reduce her to statistics; rather, it helps untangle how
her status as a woman and her status as a critic were both called into cluestion in
the late r96os and led her to meke specific choices in her writing and activist com-
mitments. As Anne Wagner points out, exploring how women experience their own
"femaleness"-richly understood-is one way of trying to get at "the business of
artistic selfhood"; for female makers in the twentieth century, this identity comes
freighted with uniquely gendered pressures and expectations.lo
The case of Lippard makes clear how unstable and expanded the concept of artis-
tic labor became in the late r96os and early rg7os, as she herself identified as an art
worker but not necessarily an artist. This identification was forged throughacatalyzing
visit to Argentina and through her participation in the AWC-activities that fostered
Lippard's understanding of gendered labor. Lippard's trip to Argentina and her in-
volvement with the AWC thus functioned as pivot points between her early, formal-
ist criticism and her later feminist engagements.ll This trajectory follows the gen-
eral contours of the careers of many feminists whose political awareness grew out
of trips to the South (whether the segregated U.S. South or Latin America) and the
antiwar movement.i2
Lippards path was shaped by her understanding of writing as work-that is, as a
paid job as much as an intellectual pursuit-a view informed in large pari by her
consciousness of herself as a working rMoman. Reflecting back on her first few years
of writing criticism (frornry64 to 1969), Lippard blanches when she discovers that I

still-a
l
she used to say, "'the artist, he,' 'rhe reader and viewer, he,' and worse real I

case of confused identity-'the critic, he."'13 She thought of herself as "one of the I
j
 130 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

boys," along with her husband, Robert Ryman, and artists and friends Sol LeWitt and
Robert Mangold.la
The position of "artist's wife" was a tricky one, especially for women artists who
were trying to forge careers for themselves alongside, and often in the shadow of,
their husbands. In a r97z inlewiew with Paul Cummings, Ryman admits that hav-
ing a critic, as opposed to an artist, wife was less problematic in terms of competi-
tion. Cummings asks, "Was there a lot of career conflict between the demands of
your activity and her workl" Ryrnan responds, "No. of course, it would have been
worse if she had been a painter, too. That would have been very bad."1s (Ryman and
Lippard divorced in 1968.) Lippard's situation reflected a different dynamic, as she
did not consider herself an artist: she worked as a freelance researcher while also
pursuing a master's degree at New York University's Institute of Fine Art. Lippard
has recalled that her desire for that degree was motivated less by an academic drive
than by the raise in pay she would get doing research-it would enable her to ask for
three, instead of two, dollars an hour.16
Unlike most of her colleagues in graduate school, she had to work while pursuing
her studies; this enhanced her perception that she was, as she reflected in 1976, the
"proletarian of the Institute."17 Following a long line of thought regarding the classed
natrffe of the gender divide, most influentially the work of Friedrich Engels and Si
mone de Beauvoir, women-as-proletariat was a familiar trope of Marxist and social-
ist feminists of the second wave.18 It became a common refrain in the late i96os and
was picked up by popular feminist writers such as Germaine Greer, who claimed,
"'Women are the true proletariat."ie Thus, just as Andre's and Morris's attempts to
cast themselves as laborers were freighted with specifically gendered connotations,
so too was Lippards selÊidentification as "the proletarian of the Institute." "I called
myself an art-historical whore," Lippard recounts, "because I'd research anything any-
body asked me to."20 Lippard slips quickly between calling herself proletarian and a
prostitute-the signature category of female low-class labor. This statement couples
the mercenary aspects of her fledgling career with an implicitly sexual component.
Lippard's claim to be a "whore" is selÊmocking but also indicates how compromised
it felt to be a woman "selling ideas" within a male-dominated field.
To extend the sexualized metaphor, Lippards critical activities were in the begin-
ning quite promiscuous. V/riting on objects as diverse as Afücan masks and pop
prints, she did not subscribe to any one doctrine that mighi limit her objects of in-
quiry. While Lippard often included women artists among her examples, in these earþ
writings gender was not one of her primary concerns. None of the monographic ar-
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FÊMINIST LABOR I 131

ticles in her first book of art criticism, Chønging Essøys in Art Cnticísm, featured a

woman artist, as she herself would later point out.21 In fact, in some unpublished
correspondence from the mid-I96os, she displayed a flippant tone toward women's
making. For instance, in a 1965 letter recommending a woman for an artist's resi-
dency at the MacDowell Colony, she remarked: "She . . . has none of the belligerence
sometimes associated v/ith lady painters."zz The letter bears a handwritten annota-
tion, presumably made by her some time after the original date of the letter-two
surprised exclamation points next to the word bellígerence. Their presence speaks to
Lippard's later distance from this attitude.
But this phase of scattered attention within her criticism did not last. Like much
of the New York art world in the late r96os, Lippard moved away from writing about
all manner of eclectic objects to championing both the "eccentric abstraction' she
named in 1966 and, later, "dematerialized" art. She began to write primarily about
minimal and conceptual artists-many of whom were fellow art workers-seeing
radical potential for this advanced art and its ephemeral, participatory, and idea-based
components. Her conceptíon of herself as an "art-historical whore" was transformed
as she embraced the term ørtworker, andlhis shift in self-identity was integral to her
shift in her criticism. As she embraced writing as a distinctly political form of labor,
I

she also turned increasingly to feminist art.

Shadowing Lippards identity as an art worker was the simultaneous profes-
sionalization of art criticism. To quote Amy Newman: "The institutionalization in
America of what has come to be known as 'the art world-an entity encompassing
production, distribution, promotion, display, and consumption of art as well as its
intellectual, topical, legal and social dimensions-took place in the r96os and early
t97os."23 Lippard's ability to scrape together a living as a freelance critic was a tes-
tament to the increasing value of criticism in the United States and its status as a
professional identity; its writers not only began to earn higher wages but wefe
granted new measures of institutional prestige. This is not to say, however, that the
role of the critic was at all lucrative. When the National Endowment for the Arts
began granting awards to individual critics in 1972, the art-critical world increas-
ingly mirrored the art industry as a system of a few stafs at the top and everyone
else-undervalued, overworked-at the bottom. As Irving Sandler commented:
"Notwithstanding the newly elevated image of art critics, their economic condítion
remained low. A few were well paid and had full-iime jobs, notably those employed
by the NstD or Tirne. BuI most were free-lance, writing for
York Times, Newsweek,
monthly art journals; they were the most poorly paid of art professionals. With the
 132 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

exception of a handful who could turn out reams of writing, they had to support their
criticismbyteaching, lecturing, curating guest shows in museums, jurying, etc., often
risking conflicts of interest."2a Given how many critics and artists were close friends
and colleagues within this small New York circle, the potential for conflicts of inter-
est was real. Many art workers keen to interrogate the "autonomy" of criticism and
the interlocking of publicity and power would soon become targets in the antiestab-
lishment ethos of the A\VC.

Visiting Argentina

"I was politicizedby trip to Argentina in the fall of 1968," says Lippard in a :'969
a
interview published in the preface to her Six Yeørs: The DernøteríølizøIion of the Art
Object.zs She repeats this statement in her book s From the Center and Get the Messøge?

A Decøde of Artfor Sociøl Chønge, as well as in numerous interviews conducted over

the past twenty-five years; it has become the mythic origin story of her embrace of
socially engaged art practices.26 Yet little is known about what Lippard did in Argen-
tina or why it might have affected her so. How might her trip have had repercus-
sions for her own formulation of the labor of her writing and curatorial work when
she returned homel I do not assert a clean line of connection between the artistic
and activist practices Lippard saw in Argentina and what she did upon her return in
to the United States.27 Assuming that r96os artistic traffic moved smoothly along
the greased wheels of increasing internationalism fails to acknowledge how the unique
circumstances of art production in diflerent countries leÍt much room for misap-
prehension and broken lines of communication, and indeed the story of Lippard in
Argentina is one, in part, of mistranslation.2s
What, then, happened to Lippard in Argentina? In 1968 she was invited by the
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires to be a juror for aTarge exhibition.2e
The other juror was fean Clay, curator and critic for French art magazines (the award
was in part organized by the French embassy). Such an invitation is indicative of an
increasingly itinerant art world that encouraged curators and critics to travel an in-
ternational circuit of shows and biennials. While this artistic tourism has always been
undertaken by the wealth¡ in the r96os, along with the greatly globalizingeconomy
and the expanding flow of information across national boundaries, it was more and
more woven into the everyday fabric of artists' and critics' lives. The relatively trans-
portable nature of conceptual art, with its postcards and artist's books, also eased the
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 1 33

international traffic of contemporary art-in many cases, the artist sent instructions
to execute the art on the spot without the usual shipping fees and insurance prob-
lems. ExhibitslikeWhen Attitude Becomes Foryn,rnowted in 1969 at the Kunsthalle,
Berne and the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, promoted a global sense of
conceptual contemporary art in contradistinction to the vaunted 'Americanness" of
abstract expressionism. Enhancing this international circulation of art was the in-
creased distribution of art magazines such as Art Intemøtionøland Artforurnthrough-
out Europe and the United States.
For Lippard, this new portability offered great promise for decentralizing the art
world. As she wrote excitedly in ry69, "One of the important things about the new
dematerialized art is that it provides a way of getting the power structure out of New
York and spreading it around to wherever the artist feels like being at that time."30
However, she soon recognized the limitations of art's political possibility. fust as Lip-
pard expressed the hope that conceptual art could somehow challenge the art/power
nexus, this ephemeral art was being embraced by multinational corporations eager
to find new ways of promoting themselves to sophisticated audiences such as those
who traveled {ar andwide to see exhibitions.
This was certainly the case with her juryrng experience in Argentina. Held during
the height of the repressive military regime of General fuan Carlos Onganía, the show
and the awarding of its prizes turned into a rancorous event. The exhibit was spon-
sored in part by a plastics corporation, and, according to Lippards recollections, she
and Clay were pressured to give the top prize to an arlist whose medium was plas-
tic. Apparentþ the artist was selected before the jurors even arrived in the country,
much less viewed the art. Lippard recounts that this was a bewildering experience

for her. The prize, ostensibly an honor of artistic quality or innovation, was an overt
attempt to press art into the service of business publicity, and the incident opened
Lippard s eyes to the toxic influence of corporate patronage. In her words, "I was forced
to confront and reject corporate control."3l
Recalling her serviceable but spotty Spanish, and her astonishment at the overt
paramilitary culture-there \Mere machine guns leveled at her as she came and went
from her hotel, for instance-Lippard has said, "I honestþ didn't l¡now what to make
of it."32 In addition, the French embassy had placed limits on the political expres-
sions of the artists in the show, many of whom were making art sympathetic to the
May 1968 student/worker rebellions. She and Clay-who had come, as Lippard re-
counts, "straight from the barricades in Paris"33-instead gave out many prizes,
thereby thwarting a competition meant to reward a single artist.
 134 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

Many of the Argentinean artists in the competition also withdrew their work from
the show in protest of political censorship, and some were arrested after storming
the galleries of the museum to declare their solídarity with the French struggle.3a In
a collective statement entitled "We Must Always Resist the Lures of Complicity, " they
declared: "Our NONPARTICIPAIION in this prize is but a small expression of a
greater will to NOT PARTICIPAIE in any act (official or apparentþ non official) that
signifies complicity with all that represents, at various levels, the cultural mechanism
that the bourgeoisie has put in place to absorb any revolutionary process."3s As wittr
the Art Strike two years later, the concept of "nonparticipation' would prove a vital
tactic for leftist artists. The violent state response to the artists'boycott exposed Lip-
pard to the efficacy and force of artistic withdrawal as a political strategy. But it was
also the clarifying moment in which she witnessed firsthand a transparent attempt
by a corporation to uttlize art in the service of "branding."
The use of corporate-made materials was increasingly under scrutiny by many min-
imal and conceptual artists who would soon affiliate themselves with the AWC.36 (The
corpofate sponsorship of museums oI shows llke When Attitude Becomes Form, for
instance, became major source of critique for artists such as Haacke.) Art workers
a

debated how art served promotional pufposes. Critic Gregory Battcock stated, "The
corporation isn t interested in owning and collecting, yet it nevertheless feels it is get-
ting its money's worth in a less tangible but equally valuable commodity."37 With the
Bellas Artes show Lippard was confronted with the fraught valuation of her work as
a critic. While before she had bragged about "researching anything anybody asked,"

this instrumentalization threatened her sense of the autonomy of critical judgment.

Because of her intimate relationships with some of the artists she wrote about, this
fragile autonomy was at times seen as compromise, but never had she been so forced
to confront how her critical approval might be converted baldly into monetary value.
After Lippard and Clay completed their jurying, they sought to make connections
with the radical artists who had withdrawn their work from the show in protest of its
demand for depoliticized art. Lippard stayed in Argentina after the fracas with the
prizes and traveled to Rosario, where she met the Grupo de Artistas de Vanguardia,
also known as the Rosario Group. A few months after Lippard left, the Rosario Group
presented one of the most coherent attempts of any artists' group in the r96os to
merge art and politics within the context of labor: Tucumón Arde (Tucurnán Bums).38
The circumstances surrounding this event are too complex to capture in any detail
here. Briefly, Tucumón Bumswasthe culmination of the collective eflort of over thirty
artists, students, and workers who conducted interviews, gathered documents, and
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I I35

FtcuRE 50 Grupo de Artistas de Vanguardia

(Rosario Group), Tucumátn Arde [Tucumán
BurnsJ, 1968, ìnstalìation (designed by León
Ferrari), Confederación General de Trabajo
(CGT), Argentina. Misleading news accounts are
highlighted. Courtesy of Graciela Carnevale.

compiled statistics about the terrible poverty that had recently gripped the northwest
province of Tucumán. The Onganía regime had recentþ "rationalized" the economy
of this ïegion, shutting down the sugal refineries that wele the pri:mary soulce of
jobs and income in the area.3e However, in a l¡latant case of pufe misinformation,
the government embarked on a media campaign to declare that what was in fact the
regions economic devastation \Mas a triumphant success.
The Rosario Group, formed in response to the regime's distorted accounts, sought
to reinvent political art aesthetically and ideologicaþ in the wake of their disillu-
sionment with censorious art museums and elite prizes. They decided to not show
in conventional art spaces and to embark on an activist campaign to expose the lies
about the poverty in Tucumán. The members sought to counteract the state's false
claims by collecting a wealth of information, drawing upon the help of economists
and journalists, among others, to gather what they referred to as "counterinforma-
tion," which included posters, newspaper acconnts, photographs, and graphs. On No-
vember 3, ry68, the group displayed their efforts in the union halls of the General
Confederation of Labor in a collective installation enti¡ledTucuruán Burns.InTucumón
Burns,ítewers were confronted with two levels of information-one the polished un-
truths of the regime, the other the interviews and statistical graphs of the Rosario
Group, as in an installation designed by the artist León Ferrari (Fig. 5o).a0 Ferrari,
known for his calligraphic, word-based works, used juxtaposition and visual disso-
 136 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

nance as a way to drive home the contradictions of the omissions, lies, and inven-
tions of the official accounts.
The strategy of Tucumá.n Bumswas based on the idea of "a mass-mediatic art" that
Eduardo Costa, Roberto facoby, and Raul Escari had proposed in 1966, in which "the
making disappears. Hence the work becomes a commentary on the fact that it actu-
ally is a pretext to launch the process of information."al Faced with these competing
accounts, and with no interpretative mediation, the viewer was prodded into an ac-
tive involvement with the material. As Andrea Giunta has written, wi+h Tucuntán
Bums,rhe Rosario Group eflectivelybecame journalists; intheirmanifesto, theyspoke
of a social, transformative, revolutionary art based on an "overloaded informational
and counter-informational installation ."a2 For some of the artists involved, the event
represented so drastic a collision between art and politics that art dissolved under the
pressure; during the years of the dictatorship, some stopped making art altogether
to pursue other work such as social research or to join guerrilla resistance organiza-
tions. One participant inTucurnán Bums,Eduardo Favario, joined the Workers' Rev-
olutionary Party in 1969 and was killed by the Argentinean army in 1975.43

Lippard met the Rosario artists as they were commencing their fact-finding in-
vestigations but was not present for the final installation that opened in November
1968; she later spoke with great respect about how these artists "felt they could not
make art in a world so miserable and corrupt."aa Tucuntán Bumsrepresented for Lip-
pard a situation in which artists moved fully into the realm of social justice struggles
and showed her the political possibilities of collaborating with workers and unions.
Lippard's embrace of the Rosario Group's political merging of art and information
(whether journalism or a series of linguistic propositions) was in accordance with
her advocacy ofconceptual art. But it is crucial that Lippard was not in Argentina to
see the final incarnation of Tucurná.n Bums at the union hall, with its wheat-pasted
posters lining the halls, walls, and floor. Every available surface was covered with im-
ages, spray-painted words, and texts in this massive display (Fig. 5r). She knew the
project only in its first steps, both journalistic and theoretical, and hence did not wit-
ness the complexity of the final installation, with its all-over environment of large-
scale photos, graffrti, charts, recorded testimonials, and reports. The result is that she

in part misread Tucurnó.n Burns-she thought it representedthe totøl evøporøtion of

art that she had already glimpsed with some conceptual work, the absolute ceasing
of art making, when in fact the Rosario Group understood their work as a collective,
new form of practice meant to hold art, information, and activism in sustained ten-
sion. The event had significant visual and performative elements, including short
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I '137

FlcuRE 5l Grupo de Artistas

de Vanguardia (Rosario Group),
Tucumán Arde [Tucumán
Burnsl, 1968, installation shot
with murals and graffiti in
background, Confederación
General de Trabajo (CGT),
Argentina. Courtesy of Graciela
Carnevale.

films and audio clips from the Rosario Groups fieldwork, lights pulsing on and off
in the union hall, and the serving of bitter cofÏee without sugar (a reminder of the
closing of sugar refineries in the Tucumán region).as Unaware of these almost the-
atrical elements, Lippard understood it as a withholding or denial of art-a turning
away from images-rather than art's reinvention.
As a critic, Lippard was especiaþ attracted to the idea of art as written informa-
tion. She would later connect her chronological, pastiche style in her book Six Yeørs:
The Demøteríølizøtion of the Art Objea @ compendium of quotations, excerpts, and
artists' statements) to democratic viewing: "I enjoy the prospect of forcing the reader
to make up his or her own mind when confronted with such a curious mass of in-
formation."a6 Information became inherentþ political; as Lippard said in a lecture
inry69, "The dispersion of information about art and information that is art . . . [is]
connected to radical political goals; these parallels are so ol¡vious that they don t have
to be pointed out."47 This assertion was backed up by numerous examples of artists
embracing information as a way to inject politics into art praxis, not least Kynaston
McShine's r97o Informøtion sbow at New York's MoMA-a pivotal exhibition that
put peace posters next to news clippings next to conceptual art projects and that in-
cluded a piece of experimental writing by Lippard in the catalog. The Rosario Groups
gathering of statistics and reports demonstrated that information could be politicized
beyond a celebration of "media culture" or a formalist dematerialízalion that resis-
ted the commodity naírre of art.a8
While Lippard was inspired by what she had seen in Argentina, one of the most
radical aspects of the Rosario Group-namely their integration with local workers
and unions-was never attempted within the AWC. As Blake Stimson has asserted,
 138 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

'A compelling historical question is why artists in Argentina made the jump to throw
their lot in with workers and activists (most notably in the 1968 Tucumó.n Arde evenl)
and redefined their aesthetic in response to the heated political climate developing
around them when artists in New York, by and large, did not develop an aesthetic po-
sition that sided directþ with the Civil Rights movement and the protests against the
war *rat were transforming their milieu."ae Stimsons question is significant. Any
answeï would have to point out that in the late r96os there were not parallel politi-
cal or economic systems in Argentina and the United States. And many black and
Latino artists in the AWC and the Art Strike did see their aesthetic efforts as aligned
with the civil rights movement-including Faith Ringgold, Tom Lloyd, and Ralph
Ortiz, a77 of whom were involved in the AWC's eflorts for greater diversity within
museums, even as some, such as Ringgold, would become disillusioned by the racism
v¡ithin the Art Strike.s0 The Rosario Group was making work under a severely re-
pressive regime, in collaboration with an exceptionally militant union; such a col-
laboration would have been unthinkable within the context of the United States given
both the intensely antibureaucratic nature of the New Left and the conventional, even
conservative union politics in the United States.
As Lippard recounted in a letter to Martha Rosler in t977, "I've seen first-hand other
artists in Argentina and Australia working with labor unions but in the U. S. the prob-
lems are something else and it's hard to remember the unions are as often the en-
emy as they are the heroes and that the sympathetic 'working class' in the U.S. is re-
ally the unworl<rngor non-working class-the unemployed."sl Most in ttre AWC were
more interested in redefining workers and critics as specialized kinds of workers-
as well as emphasizing how largely unpøid their labor was-than in developing lit-

eral, lasting alliances with blue-collar labor.s2 A Tucumá,n Burns-Iype event was never
tried, and would likely not have been feasible, within the AWC. Yet despite Stimson s

assertion, there were attempts to develop "an aesthetic position' in direct alignment
with protests against the war. Lippard was a vocal and active participant in these efforts.

Three Antiwar Exhibits

Inlanuary 1969, just months after Lippard returned from Argentina, the AWC was
born, and its broad definition of who counted as an "art worker" importantly included
curators and critics.s3 As one of these critics/curators, Lippard was especially con-
cerned with questions of display and institutionality, as is reflected in the statement
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I '1 39

FIGURE 52 KeSIut¡S
Zapkus, Lucy Lippard,
Jean Toche, and other art
workers (seen on the left)
break up a trustees'
dinner at the l\¡etropolitan
Museum of Art, January
12,1971; Zapkus is about
to release a container of
cockroaches. Photograph
@ Jan van Raay.

she read at the AWC's open hearing at the School of Visual Arts in April 1969. In
this text, she reflects on the limitations of museum spaces and calls for changing
conditions of art viewing and creating "a new and more flexible system that can adapt
itself to the changes taking place today in the art itself."sa
By early 1969 Lippard had established herself as one of the most tireless mem-
bers of the AWC, a highly visible participant in many of their collective protest ac-
tions. For example, a photograph by fan van Raay from a r97r protest captures Lip-
pard (herself in the process of getting her camera ready) and fean Toche (passing
out leaflets) standing behind artist Kestutis Zapkus in the Louis XVI Wrightsman
period room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fig. 5z). Zapkus is pictured just as
he was about to unleash a vial of cockroaches at this museum trustees' dinner, say-
ing as he did so that it was to "keep Harlem on your minds" (a reference to the ran-
corous Hørlen'r on My Mind exhibit at the Met that was viewed by many as ignoring
the input of the local African American community). Given that the protests against
this exhibition focused on its negative portrayals of the neighborhood, Zapkus's battle
cry is puzzling, as it upholds stereotypes of Harlem as a site of pestilence. Never-
theless, this intentionally abrasive action did interrupt the meal by rendering the food
unpalatable and was part of alarger effort by the AWC to infiltrate and expose the
moneyed, private gatherings of trustees happening under crystal chandeliers just
as the museum was refusing to sponsor free admission to the public.ss The invited
dinner guests, seen in the periphery of the photo with their business suits, tuxedos,
and carefuþ coiffed hair, provide a stark contrast to the scruffy beards and ragged
coats sported by the art workers. Many of the figures in the image are somewhat
blurred, including the unrecognizable AV/C member in the immediate foreground;
 140 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

van Raay and the others had burst on the scene unannounced and had to act fast.
They were quicldy, and violentl¡ escorted out by the museum security; Toche sus-
tained some injuries and considered taking legal action against the museum in the
aftermath.s6
But such direct action was only one part of Lippard's interventionist efforts as an
art worker; she also curated three distinctþ different, high-profile antiwar shows from
1968 to r97o. Seen togetheç these exhibits illuminate the growing uncertainties
within the New York art world regarding how best to integrate art and politics-what
Lippard would callin a r97o Arts Møgøzine article "The Dilemma."sT The efficacy of
pursuing political art was endlessly debated, and by no means secure, within the
AWC-some felt that stopping all art was the only true revolutionary act. Many others
felt that artists' main role was to keep making their own arl as Sol LeWitt wrote in
1968, "I don t know of any art of painting or sculpture that has any kind of real sig-
nificance in terms of political content, and when it does try to have that, the result is
pretty embarrassing. . . . The artist wonders what he can do when he sees the world
going to pieces around him. But as an artist he can do nothing except be an artist."s8

fust after Lippard returned from her eye-opening experience in Argentina, she,
along with Robert Huot and Ron Wolin, organized a group exhibition of mínimal
artworks as a benefit for an antiwar gtoup, the Student Mobilization Committee to
End the War in Vietnam. With this show, Lippard tried to argue that politics were in-
tegral to the artistic practice then closest to her: minimalism. 'An exhibition of good
abstract art held as a benefit for the anti-war movement does not strike me as a con-
tradiction," wrote Lippard somewhat defensively.se This showwas significantfor sev-
eral reasons: it was the inaugural show held in Paula Cooper's pioneering SoHo gallery
on Prince Street, which opened in fall 1968 and was the first gallery to move into the
area. It thus also heralded a new era in which cheaper rents sent artists downtown
to raw warehouses and former sites of manufacturing as they inhabited both actual
and metaphoric spaces of industrial labor.
The debates about Carl Andre's work, discussed in Chapter z, illuminate holv some
critics in the r96os, and later art historians, have drawn parallels l¡etween the aes-
thetics of minimalism and antiwar politics. The AWC itself maintained a plurality
of opinions about the social import of abstracted forms. Most minimal artists would
never have argaed that there was an articulated antiwar content to their work (even
if they made other claims for minimalism's politics, as Andre did when he said his
work was "communistiC'). Lippard, Huot, and Wolins show to benefit the Student
Mobilization Committee, however, was a key instance in which the aesthetics of min-
imalism were directþ aligned with peace efforts.
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 141

FTGURE 53 lnstallation shot of

exhìbition to benefit the Student
Mobilization Committee to End
the War in Vietnam, lnaugural
Exhibition, Paula Cooper Gallery,
New York, OcTober 22-
November 1, 1968. Works by
Robert Huot (left) and Dan Flavin.
Photograph by James Dee.
Courtesy of the Paula Cooper
Gallery, New York.

FIcURE 54 lnstallat¡on shot of

exhibition to benefit the Student
l\/lobilization Commìttee to End
the War in Vietnam, Inaugural
Exhibition, Paula Cooper Gallery,
New York, Oclober 22-
November 1, 1968. Works by
Will lnsley (left) and Jo Baer.
Photograph by James Dee.
Courtesy of the Paula Cooper
Gaìlery, New York.

The show was billed as a "maior exhibition of non-objective art to benefit the Na-
tional Student Peace Group." Lippard called it "the best 'Minimal show"' she had
ever seen.60 Featuring Andre, f o Baer, Robert Barry, Bill Bollinger, Dan Flavin, Robert
Huot, V/ill Insley, Donald fudd, David Lee, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Robert Mur-
ray, Doug Ohlson, and Ryman, the exhibition featured worls that were sold at their
normal market rates (Fig. 53). This installation shot shows a wall piece by Huot and
a piece installed in a corner by Flavin, emanating its cool light; just one year latel
Flavin would be excoriated by the AWC as participating in the war economy by using
these GE-made tubes. The hard edges of the floor-basedworks such as Baer's painted,
minimal squares playoffthe geometries of Insley's serialwallunits (Fig. 54). The stark
blacks and whites of the wall works were laid out in the somewhat unfinished loft-
like spaces of the Paula Cooper Galler¡ demonstrating an afnnity between minimal
 142 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

*Pf.tcç L'sr
1
GARL ANDRE
'------- ,',N"O
\ r¡F
ç lo BAER ,r*
/raa
BOB BARf,f
B¡LL BOLLIilGER'r,"
* DAN FLAVllt o._"
ROBERT HUOT,/sa"
ltìfltl INSLEY ¡¡*"
X DoN JUDD ¡¡r'"
DAVII' LEE I,,,O
SOL LEWITTfù h4ar
ROBERT mANûOLÞr¿r¿¿
FtcuBE 5s Price list
"for peace" for Student ROBERT MURRAY"aT'
lVobilization Committee
benefit show, 1968. *. DOUG OHLSON,¿@
lmage courtesy of the
Lucy R, Lippard Papers, ROBERT RYMAN rfor
ca. 1 940-2006, Archives
of American Aft, fc;r peace
Smithsonian lnstitution.

forms and the formerþ industrial architecture. The gallery donated its normal cut
of the profit (the proceeds were split fifty-fifty between the arfists and the gallery).
lvith works priced from $5oo to $3,ooo, the show raised thousands of dollars for
the Student Mobilization Committee.6l A price list from Lippard's archive seems to
be incomplete, as it shows only four works sold with the characteristic red star next
to the prices listed (Fig. 55).
The curatorial statement maintained that this \Mas not a show of unrelated works
by artists committed to end the war; rather, the aesthetic of minimalism itself was at
stake. It was billed as "the first benefit exhibition of non-objective art," and it was
"intended equally as a statement of an esthetic position and in support of peace."62
"These 14 non-objective artists are against the war in vietnam. They are supporting
this commitment in the strongest manneï open to them, by contributing ma1'or ex-
amples of their cuffent work. The artists and the individual pieces were selected to
representa particular esthetic attitude, in the conviction that a cohesive group of im-

portant works makes the most forceful statement for peacs."63 Lippard recalls that
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 143

,sw{åüx[
. ,. :- -...
;.! ]

ftÀrlh Ur xl{ix

ilts(
^,t' Í.'.tr'*.r{
ð.{.: d ,: ,¡ ¡

{,t*¡s* S4¿rt*

ç0N.þlll

¡N vtÊ

FtcuRE 56 New York's Angry Arts week, Collage of lndignation, detail, 1962
Photograph O E. Tulchin.

she did not want this to look like a traditional fund-raising show with second-rate
"benefit art"; instead, she, Huot, and.Wolin asked the artists to contribute major pieces
that would generate the most interest and money. "It's a kind of protest against the
potpourri peace shows with all those burned dolls' heads. . . . It really looks like an
exhibition first and a benefit second," she told Grace Glueck.6a Her comment against
the "potpourri peace show" seems a direct criticism of earlier efforts such as the 1966
Los Angeles Peøce Tower or Ihe Colløge of Indignøtion (Fig. 561, a ry67 collaborative
mural at the Loeb Student Center at New York University spawned by the Artists and
Writers Protest's "Angry Arts Week"-efforts Lippard did fu1ly support but was in-
terested in augmenting with a more coherent alternative.
The Colløgewas conceived in part as a kind of large-scale petition; hence some artists
did not contribute imagery but simply signed their names or were included on the
mural as supporters of the cause.65 However, the Colløge was seen as taking a fur-
ther step away from antiwar imagery into the realm of language-based or conceptual
protest. Therese Schwartz reported in rgTrthaL "many artists had departed from their
 144 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

FIcURE s7 Sol Lewitt, Wall Drawing #1 : Drawing Series ll 14 (A and B), firsl ¡nstallation, Paula Cooper
Gallery, New York, October 1968. Black pencil, variable to walls. Firsl executed by Sol Lewitt. Photograph
courtesy of the Paula Cooper Gallery. Art @ 2009 the Lewitt Estate/Art¡sts Rights Soc¡ety (ARS), New York.

usual styles to hit out with a word painting or an obscenity slogan. . . . Such exple-
tives seemed to say: a show of art-as-protest isn't possible any more; the next step is
words on paper or canvas."66 Schwartz's read is somewhat overstated; this detail shows
that the Colløge,like the Peøce Tower, included all sorts of representations, featuring
scrawled phrases ("f ohnson's Filtþ War"), figurative images such as Bemard Aptekar's
gun-wielding cartoon man, and Herman Cherry's phallic, flag-patterned "lovesword'
that conjoins militarism and masculinism in one concise image.
In contrast to this eclectic approach, for the Paula Cooper benefit show, Lippard
instructed the artists to "give the best thing you have for what you believe in."67 The
peace show included some works now understood as major breakthroughs: for in-
stance, LeWitt made his first-ever wall drawing in what would come to be his signa-
ture style, Wøll Drøwing #t (Fig.57). The drawing was excerpted from a larger series
that appeared in Seth SieglauUs The Xerox Book, anditwould later appear as the cover
of Lippards book Chønging. The work was priced, according to the price list, "per
hour" on the basis of the amount of work it took to complete the drawing-the buyer
purchased both the idea and the artist's labor, not the object itself. LeWitt's trans-
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 145

formation of art from a singular, purchasable object to a dematerialized wage labor

system prefigures Morris's r97o Peripatetic Artists Guild.68
LeWitt's wall drawing, with its laying bare of artistic labor in the context of an anti-
war show brought together minimalism, conceptualism, and leftist politics. His move
from drawing on paper to drawing directly on the wall, thus activating the spatial frame
of the gallery, has been cited as one of the most significant moments in the shift
from minimalism to conceptualism, since it demonstrates how, as he famously stated,
"The idea becomes the machine that makes the art."6e Yet contrary to this declara-
tion his art is generated not by rote mechanics but by individual touches, and the
effort is often painstaking, tedious, and hand-cramping. Although he would later
delegate the labor by having others perform the task of drawing-thus emphasizing
it as a conceptual piece-the first wall piece at Paula Cooper was drafted by LeWitt
himself. After the show, it was simply painted over.
This work's resistance to commodity logic was only one part of its criticlue in the
context of the benefit show. As Bernice Rose has written, "LeWitt's transposition of
his drawings from the restricted if traditional format of a sheet of paper to the ar-
chitectural space of a wall with which it became absolutely identified was a radical
move."7o Its radicality functioned on multiple registers-its shift to merge the work
with its site rendered paper obsolete, and the resulting piece was temporary and
ephemeral. The move to the wall also underscored the work's spatial, institutional
frame. An iteration of his earlier serial drawing s, Wøll Drøwing #tplaces tightþ spaced
parallel lines head out in alternating directions (horizontal, vertical, and diagonal) in
two adjacent, four-foot-square grids, following his instructions about "lines in four
directions, each in a quarter of a sc1uare." The drawing dramatizes the labor of its
making, a grid whose density and precision underscore the draftsman's bodily eÊ
forts (its light gray mafks, made by thin graphite sticks, make the work difficult to
reproduce).
Lippard has reported that when LeWitt came to do a similar drawing in her home
in t97r, her young son referred to LeWitt's careful handiwork as "making peace."71
She suggests, however, that this childish misreading of "piece" with "peace" is felic-
itous. For Le\I/itt, the thoughtfulness and absorption required by this process recall
meditative practices. The fragility of the drawing, with its delicate, carefully spaced,
intentional marks that sometimes shakily veer off course, embodies LeWitt's insis-
tence that seemingly logical systems or instructions, even when faithfully followed,
can become intuitive, poetic, excessive. (Recall his famous formulation that concep-
tual artists are "mystics" rather than "rationalists. ")Tt ltis notable that the benefit show
 146 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

did not bill itself as "against the war" but, as the price list shows, "for peøce." Fol-
lowing Andre's proclamations about his art's search for "stillness and serenit¡" the
mostly monochrome art in the Paula Cooper show was for Lippard a reaction against
all that is violent, loud, excessive, and maniacal in society-the blankness of Baer's
squares, for instance, and the near-invisibility of LeWitt's work.
The Paula Cooper benefit show was hung and advertised in conventional ways-
no antiwar slogans appeared on the newly converted industrial walls of the gallery.
As such it prefigured later efforts of the AWC to emphasize that art served a polit-
ical function within larger social and economic systems, not simply at the level of
explicit reference or content. For Lippard, Wolin, and Huot, it was also, to cite the
press release, a matter of minimal artists "putting their particular esthetic achieve-
ment on the line."73 The reduction and simplicity of minimalism-often read as mute
antiexpression-were here proffered as a "forceful statement."
The connections being asserted between minimal aesthetics and antiwar politics
were not widely embraced. As seen in the case of Andre's work, within the context
of the politicization of artistic labor minimalism proved an unstable signifier-at once
indicative of a radical politics and a highly suspect rarified artistic practice.Ta The show
itself was not well received, and even critics affiliated with the AWC had a difficult
time agreeing with the exhibit's premise. As Battcock queried in his review, "Why
does a cohesive group of important works make a forceful statement for peacel"Ts
Forhim, nothing inherentto a "cohesive group'bespeaks an antiwar stance; this might
as well be a groupof similarþ designed shoes. Furthermore, to him the curatorial
statement seemed to suggest that only minimalist aesthetics oppose the war and thus
invalidated other forms of art. Finally, he was disturbed by what he saw as the show's
"old-fashioned principles of restriction and exclusion. "
The question of exclusion would continue to haunt Lippard's antiwar curatorial eÊ
forts. A second such exhibit, entitled Nurnber 7,was held in May of 1969 at the Paula
Cooper Gallery and was composed primarily of dematerialized and conceptual art,
with works by almost forty artists from the United States and Canada, including An-
dre, Mel Bochner, Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, foseph Kosuth, Christine I(ozlov,
Adrian Piper, and Robert Morris. At the opening, visitors were asked to contribute
to the AWC, and the show was billed as a benefit for the fledgling group. One room
was practically "empty," featuring such invisible works as Haacke's fan, positioned
outside the gallery door to redirect the air current, and a piece by Huot consisting of
"existing shadows."76 The other was crammed with information, text pieces, and ta-
bles laden with artists' books, thus demonstrating both poles of conceptualism: a lack
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 'I 47

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ca. 1940-2006, Archives of
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*ûç ô / DÉì.i; lnstitution.

of visual stimulation versus a surfeit of textual material. This show diflered from the
minimal show in several significant respects. First, it displayed more conceptual than
minimal art; second, it nowhere announced that its aesthetics were being put "on the
line" as intrinsicalþ political. However, it was even more unconventional as a benefit
than the minimal show, given how few works conformed to the logic of discrete ob-
jects that could be bought and sold.
Number 7's diverse roster of aftists included many of the AWC's supporters, ones
who oÍten vocalized their unease with the exclusionary practices of curating. Lippard
tried to distance herself from being its curator by stating on the announcement that
it was "compiled'by her-a more neutral term that implies gathering information,
as for a report, rather than making selective aesthetic decisions. Lippards efforts to
organize sophisticated art shows that also benefited antiwar groups met with harsh
criticism within the AWC. As is demonstrated in an anonymous protest flyer from
1969, some decried the selectivity of the show which appeared to be everything that
the AWC's antiestablishment ethos claimed to be against (Fig. 58). This flyer repro-
 14A I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

FIcURE 59 lnstallation shot of Col/age of lndignat¡on ll, organized by Lucy Lippard,

1970-7 1 , New York Cultural Center (and other places). Photograph by Cosmo. Courtesy
Lucy R. Lippard.

duces the small postcard announcement for Number 7 (the typed portion in the lower
middle half of the flyer that lists the artists' names) and places scathing epithets around
it, branding the artists the "inner circle" and insisting that "art ideas are the property
of all artists."77 This flyer demonstrates the branch of the AWC that wanted to rid
the art world of any proprietary impulses-it castigates the naming of individual
artists "chosen by a powerful individual." That the show was curated as opposed to
constituted from an open call, that the works were for sa1e, and that this show was
held in a gallery are all mentioned as suspect. The flyer goes so far as to align the
power of the curator with the po\Mer of the most reviled figure in the art world: Gov.
Rockefeller, who is invoked in a collaged cluote from a newspaper headline: 'A Tense
Nicaragua Awaits Rockefeller." Does this clipping indict Lippard (known to have
traveled to Latin America), along with Rockefeller, as an imperialist?
Perhaps in response to criticisms faced about her allegedly "exclusionary" c1ÍaIo-
rial work, in late ry7o Lippard organized a show of speciaþ commissioned protest
posters from over one hundred well-known and emerging artists at the New York
Cultural Center (Fig. Sq). Iis title, Colløge of Ind,ignøtion II, was an homage to the
earlier ry67 Colløge of Indignøtion mural. Lippard s Colløge exhibit consisted of orig-
inal, "touching yet søløble" works, as she put it, meant to finance anti-Vietnam War
organizalions (her emphasis).78 Each of the works was meant to sell at market value,
with that money then used to produce cheap, widely disseminated posters that could
circulate beyond the art market.
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 149

Colløge of Indígnøtior¿ 11 demonstrated a conventional approach to visual protest

and the role of the artist in antiwar organizing: the making of posters. Some appro-
priated familiar icons such as the peace sign, while others echoed the artists' own fa-
miliar styles, as in Alex IGtz's pencil drawing of a child's face (modeled on Lippard's
son) plaintively staring out at the viewer above the word "Peace." A few of them indi
cated connections to the advanced art practices of conceptualism and minimalism-
such as Robert Morris's Wør Memonøl prinl (not pictured in this shot) and Robert
Smithson's photograph of his fanuary ry7o Pøfüølly BuríedWoodshed, an installation
on the campus of Kent State in Ohio (eerily foreshadowing the role Kent State would
soon play in the antiwar movement).7e Smithson's poster is visible at the very left edge
of this installation shot, next to Leon Golubk napalm-burned figure. As Lippard wrote
of such posters five years later, 'As art and as 'good ideas,' they worked. As political
propaganda, most of them stank. "80 To Lippard s dismay, only one, by Robert Rausch-
enberg, was produced as a poster that was distributed; the show's failure to generate
money seemed to indicate the collapse of this model of artistic protest or, more sim-
ply, the fact that the artists were not that good at making political propaganda. Per-
haps the cacophony of styles-which Lippard embraced-diluted the overall force
of the posters show, even though many works had a graphic strength. In the face of
these failures, Lippard was disillusioned by the inability of artists to create art that
reached outside the confines of the somewhat insular art world but was also unwill-
ing to confront the inherent contradiction of artists invested in decommodification
suddenly making emphatically søløble works.
The criticisms Lippard faced for her minimal and conceptual benefit shows re-
capitulate some of the tensions within the AWC-should its art be populist and
"accessible"l Should its shows be nonjuriedl Should the role of the curator be dis-
mantled? Should there be evaluative judgments on the part of critics? Or should the
entire art industry and its "star systern' be demolishedl There were no simple answers
to these questions, and though Lippard became vocally antagonistic toward the rigid
editorial practices of the taste-making Artforurn-even declaring herself on "boycott"
against the magazine fromt967 to rgTr in opposition to its formalist, Greenbergian
methodology-she continued to curate and write about minimal and conceptual art.
(This boycott, she admits, was mutual, for neither was the magazine interested in
publishing her writing that embraced more political art practices.¡8l In April r97o
the AWC formed, along with a host of other subcommittees, a "publications com-
mittee" to draft a list of demands that would alter the way that art:magazines func-
tioned; the demands were an indirect criticism of what was perceived as the dogma
 1 5O I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

of Artforurn and were influenced by Lippard's sellproclaimed "boycott." They sug-

gested that all articles should be selected by a "collective editorial board' and pub-
lished on the basis of "quality and commitment and not by how well they conform
to pre-established criteria ."82 The AWC included platforms for increased diversity in
the art press: it insisted that magazines present artjcles every month featuring un-
known artists, black and Puerto Rican artists, and women artists.
The position of nonartists within the anti-art world discourse of the AWC was
precarious-and not just for Lippard. Although many critics and some curators were
welcomed into the A.WC, others recall being actively excluded. Despite Carl Andre's
claim that even collectors, gallerists, and dealers \Mere art workers, Paula Cooper re-
counts that although the AWC would hold meetings-and benefit shows-in her
galler¡ on occasion during their action planning sessions they would not let her
attend their gatherings, and she would stand outside the locked doors waiting to be
let back in.83
A November 1969 meeting between the AV/C and the International Association
of Art Critics manifested these tensions. As AWC member and art critic Gregory
Battcock (a perpetually confrontational voice in this time period) stated, exaggerat-
ing the hysterical pitch of criticisms against his profession: "The museums aIe not
the enemy. . . . The art critics are glued to their comfortable notions, prestigious pub-
lications, elegant dinner parties, elitist associations and systematic art criticisms. They
will write anything, anyplace, anywhere, for a buck. . . . Marcuse benevolentþ labels
them 'kept intellectuals.' In fact, they are frightened leeches that suck for all they are
worth and what they ïesent more than anything is not getting paid for their sinister
'work.' "sa Presumably this is a parody, although it is often difficult to discern in some
of these documents what is political fervor and what is mere sarcasm (such is the in-
decipherability of the archive's tone and aflect). Here the charge that art critics write
for money is particularþ scathing; yet Battcock knew better than anyone that criticism
was hardly lucrative. Perhaps he leveled this histrionic critique to locate himself more
fìrmly within the art workers' community. As he complained in r97o, "The great silent

majority aren't construction workers; they are art critics."ss In contrast to Morris's eÊ
forts to align his r97o Whitney process piece with the motifs of construction, Battcock
displaces these workers and claims disenfranchisement for his own labor.
It was in the midst of widespread disgust with the editorial practices of the art
presses that Lippard courted the notion that the categories of "artist" and "critic" were
in total flux. She began to disavow the separation of the two in hopes of expanding
these disciplines. Artists such as Dan Graham, Mel Bochner, Morris, and Smithson
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 151

often wrote lucid criticism, and they created magazine works that were often perceived
as displacing, or making irrelevant, more traditional critical writing.s6 Indeed, |oseph

I(osuth wrote in rgTo that conceptualism effectively "annexes the function of the
critic."sT Ursula Meyer concurred when she asserted, "Conceptual artists take over
the role of the critic in terms of framing their own propositions, ideas, and concepts."88
In a selÊeffacing move, Lippard wrote in i969, "The artists are so much more in-
telligent than the writers on the subject that the absence of critical comment hasn t
been moumed."se
If, as Lippard later recounted, "in the mid-6os the lines between 'artist' and 'critic'
and'theoretician were blured,"eo no one worked harder to blur those lines than she
did. She even faced accusations that her curation was little more than an elaborate
and personal art project.el Her long-standing affiliation with artists rather than with
academics stemmed from her awareness that her position was intimately bound up
with the economic realities of the capricious market and the harsh financial reality
of both freelance and artistic life. As she wrote int97o, "The serious working critic
(as opposed to the serious but less regularly writing curator or scholar) is subjected
to the same pressures, insights, and quick changes as the artist, and as the art world
in general."e2 This recognition solidified the collective identity of "art worker" as a
class and opened up the realm of artistic "work" to include critics and cufators.
In addition, the linguistic basis of conceptualism expanded the parameters of what
"art work" might be; this helps explain Lippard's increasingly fluid migrations among
the tasks of critic, curator, and conceptual author, using words as her medium. This,
however, is only one part ofthe story, for her understanding ofherself as an art worker
was also shaped by her political engagements-and by her feminism. Lippard's jour-
nalism gave way to more experimental formats in the late l96os (formats indebted
to the languages of minimalism and conceptualism), including the simple presen-
tation of information with little explanation, such as her catalog essay for the MoMA
Duchamp retrospective, which consisted of "readymade" fragments and puns.e3
After becoming aware of the beginning phase of the Rosario Groups use of infor-
mation for political ends in Tucumó.n Bums-inparticular, their technique of juxta-
posing contradictory sources that the viewer had to actively interpret-Lippard em-
braced a moïe open form of criticism that bled into what others saw as a kind of
artistic practice. For instance, in her contribution to the r97o Inforrnøtion exhibition
catalog, she matched artists' names with sentences from the Art Ind'exthalwere se-
lected on the basis of an arbitrary, predetermined system. This piece was produced
in lieu of the text she was supposed to write for the catalog; instead of a iist of page
 152 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

numbers \Mhere the artists appeared, she substituted random "entries" that drew from
an eclectic array ofrecent art publications. (Her "enIry" on Christopher Cook, for ex-
ample, is a passage about Etruscanbronze statues.) In the context of a museum ex-
hibition catalog, this text also functioned as an artwork-requiring that the interpretive
connections be made by the viewer rather than articulated.ea Lippard believed this
type of writing to be more accessible, even populist, and it seemed to her a logical
outgrowth of minimalism and conceptualism's notions of democratizing the art
world.es The catalog for her 1969 show 55Z,o8Z at the Seattle Art Museum Pavilion
was a compendium of quotes and short statements written on index cards that could
be read in any order.
Lippards experimental piece appeared in the artists' pages in the Inforrnøtion caI'
alog, rather than as the concluding, explanatory text. This organizational decision
in part legitimized her as a working artist, even though she herself never consid-
ered her writing "art," instead declaring herself more interested in extending the
boundaries of art making and criticism. (In his acknowledgments, curator I(ynaston
McShine called her, with distancing scare quotes, a "critic.")e6 While she continued
to identify primarily as a writer, her forays into the world of language experimenta-
tion were recognized as traversing the borders between writing and art making. Art
historian Barbara Reise admonished her in t97t, "Dammit, although you don t like
to think of yourself as an 'artist,' as a writer/researcher/criliclart historian, you are
an artist rather than a commodity maker and you should be treated with respect as
such."e7 Reise's comment indicates that at this time the definition of an artist was
bound up in the making or rejecting of commodities. In keeping with the ethos of
conceptualism, it was the generation of ideøs that mattered.

Women Writing (as) Art

Lippard's changing ideas about what counted as artistic work developed in relation
to a larger reconsideration of the various meanings-gendered meanings-of labor.
The years 1969 and r97o saw the greatest growth in the feminist movement, with
widespread media coverage, incremental mainstream acceptance, and more and more
women joining feminist organizations across the country. This culminated on Au-
gastz6,r97o, when overfiftythousandwomen marched up NewYork's Fifth Avenue
as a partof the Women s Strike for Equality. The march, held on the fiftieth anniversary
of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment for women's suflrage, was the largest
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 1 53

demonstration to date for womens rights.e8 Although the Womens Strike was held
in late August, it was announced as an upcoming event at the NOW annual confer-
ence on March zr, r97o-jttst as strike activity in the United States peaked to an all-

time postwar level. Like the New York Art Strike, the Womens Strike for Equality
adopted terms consonant with the rash of union shutdowns, wildcat strikes, student
walkouts, and antiwar pïotests that were threatening to shut the country down in
March and April of t97o.ee This timing gave NOW's call particular urgency.
Clearly the motif of work stoppage was a galvanizing political practice fot atange
of issues. what would happen if all women refused to work, even for one dayl
Friedan, in her March r97o rallying cfy to announce the upcoming strike, noted
that it was an opportunity to show how the economy might function when "the
women who are doing menial chores in the offices as secretaries put the covers on
their typewriters and close their notebooks, and the telephone operators unplug their
switchboards, and the waitresses stop waiting, cleaning women stop cleaning, and
everyone who is doing a job for which a man would be paid more stops."100 The
W'omen's Strike went beyond the workplace-where women were vastly'underrep-
resented and underpaid-and called for women to cease doing their household chores
as we1l.This emphasis on women's work within and beyond the home erased the dis-
tinction between domestic, hence ostensibly private, and public labor. The cluestion
of public and private gets to the heart of the feminist movement, as the phrase "The
personal is the political" was an oft-repeated slogan that linked individual circum-
stances to larger sexist social structures.
it is with a
Given this swelling tide of feminist consciousness in the late r96os,
somewhat apologetic tone that Lippard admits she did not become a feminist until
rg7o.lor Lippard has discussed her embrace of the women's movement as somewhat
delayed; her first years in the AWC were spent ignoring the influence of feminism
within the art world. Women's rights were addressed by the AWC in an uneven, and
for many women unsatisfactory, way.While there were often gestures toward inclu-
sion (such as the election of Poppy f ohnson to co-chair the Art Strike, alongside Mor-
ris), by fall of r969 many women felt that they needed their own organization in or-
der to address their systematic exclusion from the art world. The feminist ofÏshoot
of the AWc, women Artists in Revolution (wAR), formed inry69,but Lippard did
not join any women's art grollp until late in t97o. She was still attached to the idea
that she "made it as a person, not as a woman."102 The notion of "personal politics,"
of course, was the linchpin of r96os feminism; and this phrase yokes together pri-
vate experiences and public, or systemic, sexism. While the origins of this phrase are
 154 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

contested, it stemmed in part from C. Wright Mills's 1959 book The Sociologl'cøl lmøg'
inøtion,which examined the nexus of "private troubles" and "public issues," and it
was popularized by feminist theorist Carol Hanisch in 1969.103

As a well-known female art critic, Lippard was in a double or even triple bind in
the AWC. As Sophy Burnham's gossipy account of the art world at this time claims,
she was "a critic who belonged to the art establishment by virtue of writing for it and
who was therefore much respected by AWC, whose avowed purpose was to destroy
the establish-"tt1.r104 The tension generated by this paradox meant that Lippards
influence was also resented, as was seen with the response Io Nun+ber 7. And in'
creasingly she came under scrutiny by the female members of the AWC, particulafly
the newly formed feminists in WAR. fuliette Gordon wrote in r97o Ihal "suddenly
WAR began exactþ a year ago, without a name, in answer to an unstated need among
women in the Art Workers' Coalition. Although women made up half of the coali-
tion, they rarely spoke up at the intense discussions held sometimes twice weekl¡
except for one woman who held all the male artists in her power since she was an atr
critic who could build or destroy a reputation. "10s That "one wornan," clearly, was Lip-
pard, who in early r97o still saw herself as one of "the boys."
Yet her gender also marked her as difierent within critics' circles, especiaþ around
questions of labor. In 1966 Gene Swenson, Irving Sandler, and Lippard tried to or-
ganize a critics' union to establish fair fee structures and professional standards that
would afford them some degree of financial protection. It never happened. Instead,
as Lippard has recounted, "It fell apart ovel arguments as to who was a critic and
other idiocies; there is unfortunately a definite chasm between the interests of those
who write criticism now and then but have a lucrative teaching job to support them,
and those like me who live and support child þicl."Lo6In this statement, Lippard sub-
ordinates the more publicly valued labor of her writing to the domestic work of sup-
porting her child. She defines her professionalism through her need to sustain a
household. As a single mother, she is not just a mother but a breadwinner, and this
turns her criticism from a side project into an urgent source of income. Lippards
status as aworkingmotherwas at the heart of many of her anxieties about her labor-
and further distinguished her from her (mostly male) colleagues. For instance, in
r97z she was asked to be a visiting scholar at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago,
but child care issues prevented her from taking the iob.107
The issue of Lippards femaleness, while not explicitþ foregrounded in her writ-
ings before 1968, was raised in other ways. Her gender was also leveled against her
to demean her status as an intellectual. Clement Greenberg, for example, wrote in
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 155

ry69 ol "lady art critics" writing "so much crap about art" and bemoaned that "some-
one like Miss Lippard can be taken seriously."tot The unmasked sexism of Green-
berg's comment is especially harsh considering the increasing number of serious fe-
male art critics at this time, including Barbara Rose (who began writingfor Artforwrn
in r965), Rosalind Krauss and Anneüe Michelson (both of whom started in 1966),
and writers like Amy Taubin and Barbara Reise. They were more than just "lady art
critics": they were on the forefront of an increasingly professionalized field that wielded
unprecedented influence. (It is remarkable, for instance, how much of the first sig-
nificant writing about minimalism came from these women.)10e
Interestingly, many female art critics active at this time ended up making their most
well-known contributions to feminism. Although Ti-Grace Atkinson is better known
for her leadership role in lesbian feminist organizations and her bo ok Arnøzon Odyssey,

she wrote for ARTNst )s after graduating with a fine arts degree from the University
of Pennsylvaniaintg63 and was the first director of Philadelphia's Institute of Con-
temporary Arts.110 Similarþ dance critic fill fohnston, who was an early advocate of
the fudson Church school of task-based dance and wrote for Lhe Villøge Voice, went
on to pen the classic lesbian-feminist tract Lesbiøn Nøtion: The Feminist Solution.lll
Alice Echols has noted that many influential feminist theorists first pursued art ca-
reers, including Shulamith Firestone, Kate Millett, and Patricia Mainardi.112 How
might the sexism of the art world have calalyzed feminist arvareness among these
womenl
Lippard's resistance to feminism "was dispelled when [she] wrote [her] first novel
and was forced to examine a woman's life in terms of personal Politics."tt¡ She has
stated repeatedly that the process of writing her novel I See/You Meønledher to fem-
inism.lla While Lippard initially began writing criticism to support her fiction, by the
mid-r9 6os she was so busy lecturing and writing criticism that she never could finish
this novel, even as she worked on it intermittently throughout the years. Fragments
are found scatteredthroughoutthe archive-tellingly, there are drafts for AWC posters
scrawled on the backs of its typewritten pages. In the spring of r97o, when she spent
a few months in rural Spain away from the tumult of the New York art world, she
was able to work on her novel more consistently. She continued to revise it through
the r97os, and it was finaþ published in ry79 by the feminist press Chrysalis'l1s
I See/You Meønis an experimental book heavily indebted to the languages of both

minimalism and conceptualism. Its cover features a line drawing of a map of ocean
currents, swarming with directional arrows to indicate the ebb and flow of water and
recalling the quasiscientific look of much conceptual art (Fig. 6o). While the novel
 156 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

FlcuRE 60 Lucy R.
Lippard, I See/You Mean,
1979, cover. Courtesy
Lucy R. Lippard.

does not totally eschew traditional storytelling, the narrative can be difficult to follow
as itveers between dialogue, "found'quotes, and photographic descriptions. The four
principal characters-a writer, an actor, a model, and a photographer-are referred
to as A, B, C, and D, a possible nod to the 'ABC art" of minimalism. The character
named A is the most clearþ like Lippard herself: she is a writer (or, rather, she "wants

to be a writer")116 and is married to D, an artist/photographer. A carries the book's

clear emotional weight, and hers is the most fleshed-out storyline: she marries, has
a son, has nasty fights with her husband, and eventuaþ gets a divorce.

The book is a work of fiction; however, as Lippard herself has noted, much of it
was drawn from her life. "It wasnt autobiographical but there was a character I
definitely identified with. As I was writing her, or she was writing me, which is what
it felt like, a lot of stuff started to seep through the cracks of my resistance of the
women's movement."117 The characters have rambling, heated conversations about
the women's movement, waf, sex, and politics as they wind their way through the
very loose narrative of jealousies, divorces, and, to use a term true to its time, per-
sonal growth. Lippard plots their shifting dynamics onto a kind of emotional grid:
'A red line is drawn from A to D. Anxious anger. A violet line is drawn from D to B.
T?uce. A blue line is drawn from A to E. Affection."ll8 These vectors of emotion read

in some ways like the directives of LeWitt's wa1l drawings. Lippard's book is full of
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 157

such moments of appropriation of the realm of the visual (in this case, line and color)
using verbal shorthand. As a result, the novel does not easiþ lend itself to explica-
tion. Lippard also weaves in snippets from other sources, including unattributed block
quotes from sources like R. D. Laing, Marshall Mcluhan, C. G. )ung, and miscella-
neous subjects such as childbirth, the Tarot, and magic. Altogether, it deploys each
of the primary modes of linguistic conceptual art-"lists, diagrams, measurements,
1e
neutral descriptions."1
Much of the book comprises long descriptions of invented, imaginary photographs'
Continuing her exploration of text as art, the book is, as she has put it, "a perverse
and absurd idea-a visual book, made of words.'120 She utilizes the tropes of mini-
mal and conceptual art and in doing so grapples with her sense of the insufficiency
of criticism. She writes, thus, of her "sheer envy forthe concreteness" of the image'121
This envy for the visual is evident throughout the book. Lippard, as a critic, seems
afraid she cannot write without illustrations, so she attempts to cfeate them out of
words: "Black and white, horizontal. A clean white beach with small waves cutting
in diagonal across the lower right corner of the photography. Shrubbery in the back-
a

ground. In the distance, two figures in bathing suits þing in each otherk arms on a
striped towel, legs entwined. Their bodies form a long arrow shape pointing away
from the waler."122 The heavy reliance on photos within her book predates by one
year the r98o publication of Roland Barthes's Cømerø Lucidø.123 Barthes's book in-
cludes images, while Lippard, writing without the benefit of his example, shies away
from reprinting photos. (Cømerø Lucídø discusses only one photograph that is not
reproduced.) "It's a temptation to include a few real photographs, separated from their
descriptions, to see if one recalls oI echoes the other at all-a memoly game," she
,,But that's too gimmicþ. "tz+ The lack of actual pictures also functions as an
writes.
implicit criticlue of strict formalism. By providing formal analyses of photographs to

which the viewer has no access, Lippard increasingly frustrates the reader's expecta-
tions of narrative coherence. Reading about the way these pictures look-the texture
of their grain, the lines of their composition-we begin to long for an acknowledg-
ment of theirlarger context and significance to the overall plot'
I See/you Meøn is a further instance of Lippards rejection of formalist criticism,
as it demonstrates the need for interpretation and the inadequacy of mere descrip-
tion. At several moments, the book signals its own insufficiency in the face of the
power of the image; this is especially true of the moments in which the Vietnam War
interrupts the narrative. Near the end of the book, Lippard prints a list of l¡rief, one-
line descriptions of some of the most well-known photogïaphs from the Vietnam
 I58 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

likc faxists, cun¿ the welladowed l¡ke frustråted bankers, go to iail lik€
.r¡minab, diso¡ient like ¡he innne. We live tiroug* it' So it will have tô
hãppÊn to ss.

À ¡olorsd phttogrãph of bodies in a ¡oad. Bloody bod¡€r in 3 dlrt roäd.

Ànd båb¡es? AÍd bab¡.s.
A black and vhlæ pfiotogrâpft of t sold¡er dying,
A black ard whits phatogr¿ph of ¿ Ssnenl smiling'
Å black and wh¡te phoaogr¿ph tf ¿ yûttng run ¡n â whee¡chair throwing
r¡ædals like flowss.
A colorcd phofoSt¿Ph of ¡ child Ofl'ed on llssers.
A black ¡nd whife pftûtograph of policemen bs¿ting . young 8¡r¡.
A black and rvhite photograBh of a prkoner being dìot"
 black ¡nd whiæ photograph of womon wô€p¡ng"
A black aild wh¡ì€ photograph of a móv¡e si¡r ând ¿n orpñân.
A colorëd gftoiograph of â bl¿ckãed l¡ndscape, greon alr*dy blurr¡n8 its
rortoun¡.
And us? And us.

Restl*A.
Sche.ning B.
Fantic D-
Verging Í.
Sexutlly ¡nåcf¡vð A.
Dissatisfied 8.
Er¡ticD.
Loved E,

Elack ¡nd white, verticå|.

Head of a small child pgùfing out from thå lop of â knsbby fruit *ee' Hair
vôry long, pdê, blown oul like dandelion û¡zz. Body ¡nti3¡ble ¡n the l€aves'
Faå ho;rt$¿ped ryith srr¿¡¡ùt btr}v3 and eyc, hrge moulh twirted ¡ntô a
grimåce so th6 smile ¡s mûstly tn üÍe side ofthe face"

Q is þughing.
Q iç making faccs.
Q is crying.
Q is trying.
FlcuRE 6l Lucy R.
Q ¡s wondcríng.
Lippard, / See/You Mean, Q i¡ finding thingp cur.
'1979, page 121, with
short descriplions of
121
antiwar photographs and
posters. Courtesy Lucy R
Lippard.

War, including the My Lai photograph used by the AWC in their Q And. Bøbies? poster

in 1969 (Fig. 6r). There is no commentary to accompany this list; it sits on the page
like a poem, as if in tacit acknowledgment that no further descriptions are needed
to supplement these potent, immediately recognizable images. Directþ underneath
this passage is a description of a child-the experimental layout of the text brings
into proximity images of the war and scenes of domestic life.
As much as I SeefYou Meøn with all its rigor and
airns to be a conceptual wofk,

dryness, it also oscillates between an ostensibly neutral presentation of information

and the eruption of impassioned discussions or A's interior dialogues about femi
nism and sexuality. Lippard coniectures, 'A book's like a camela. You load, focus, take,
develop. The original cameïa obscura was a dark room, a good metaphor for the mind,
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 159

or an unopened book . . . or a womb."lzs Book/camera/\ /omb: this set of associations

traces a line between the text itself the medium Lippard is most at home with, and
the interior of a woman's body. The novel, with its extensive stretches of unidentified
dialogue and disjointed narrative floating in and out of first person, is proclaimed
on the back cover to be "open-ended, female"-with this, Lippard turns away from
seeing her book's fragmentation as a strategy of (gender-neuüal, even politicaþ dem-
ocratic) conceptual art to seeing it as distinctþ even perhaps essentialh "female."
The mobility of such fragmented writing techniques left them open to be recuper-
ated as conceptual (as in her Inforruøtion contribution) as well as polemicaþ feminist.
Although not yet involved in the \ /omenls movement when she began writing, the
bookincludes manyïeferences to consciousness-raising-the group process bywhich
women came to understand shared experiences as a result of patriarchy rather than
individual cifcumstance. Consciousness-raising had its roots in Mao Zedong's no-
tions of experience-based "perceptual knowledge." Though it was taken up by radi
cal feminists such as the Redstockings in the late l96os, by ry72 it was integrated
into the mainstream \ /omen's movement.126 In the early r97os over one hundred
thousand women \Mere regularly meeting in C-R groups.lz7 For Lippard, in an in-
version of the typical trajector¡ the isolated experience of writing the book, or "putting
herself down on paper," as she called it, helped her see how her life was shaped by
class and gen der.128 As a result, the novel is oddly caught between private insight and
public revelation-the precise tension held in play in consciousness-raising sessions.
This parallel was acknowledged; as D remarks to A, "Itk like reading a novel-all
that Consciousness-Raising."r2e Throughout I See/You Meøn, Líppard's autobio-
gïaphical impulses, while palpable, are at the same time made generic. The lack of
proper names opens up greater potential for the characters to be ciphers or blank
screens onto which readers can project. In other words, the novel structurally reflects
the involution of public and private that consciousness-raising depends upon. Reflect-
ing on her position through this fictional account, Lippard began to write for herself,
"and by extension . . . for \Momen."130

Grafting Protest

In r97o Lippard came back to New York after writing her novel in Spain and imme-
diately immersed herself in the women's movement, which, as she has written,
"changed my life in many ways, not least being my approach to criticism."131 She be-
 160 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

came active in the Ad Hoc Women Artists' Committee-an outgrowth of the AWC
that was committed specificaþ to fighting the underrepresentation of women, par-
ticularly women of color, in the art world. She was one of the participants in a high-
profile Ad Hoc protest in which she, Brenda lt4i11er, Poppy fohnson, Faith Ringgold,
and others demanded that 50 percent of the artists included in the rgTo Whitney An-
nual be women and nonwhite. Lippard's half,visible sign, with large stenciled letters,
baldly calls for "5o%" BLACI( WOMEN ARTISTS" (Fig. 6z). Their organizing took
the form of nearly four months of picketing, leafleting, the production of fake tick-
ets, forged press announcements, and a guerrilla installation in which they left eggs
and unused menstrual pads saying "1oy"" around the museum during the open-
ing.tt'An earlier event launched by WAR produced a flyer that declared, "Museums
are Sexist! Museums discriminate against female artists!" (Fig. 63). Alongside such
slogans and statements about discriminatory practices, cut-out eyes from portraits
of female artists "look back" accusingly at the institution. These watchful gazes i1-

lustrate the poster's declaration that "women have eyes of their own."
Up until the end of ry7r, there was some attemptto integrate women's issues into
the wider thrust of AWC organizing, and some art workers came out in support of
abortion rights at a march in spring r97o, wielding posters that read, 'Art Workers
for Abortion Repeal." Andre professed his admiration for the energy women brought
to the group, writing inr97t to critic Barbara Reise: "Last evening Lucy Lippard and
her gang broke up a private banquet at the Met, releasing roaches. The last vestiges
of militancy are being nurtured by the women. Without them the movement would
be dead.'133 As the picture ofthis event reveals, the instigator ofthe cockroach protest
was not a woman; still, Andre utilizes the maternal language of "nurturing" to de-
scribe Lippard's function within the group.
By late r97r Lippard was part of a wider trend in which the women wandered away

from the AWC to form feminist groups like \MAR, the Ad Hoc Women Artists' Com-
mittee, and Women Students and Artists for Black Artists' Liberation-a large-scale
defection that, according to her, led to the eventual unraveling of the AWC. "The
women became politicized and the men went back to their careers," recounts Lip-
pard.l3a By late r97r the AV/C was crippled without the active participation of many
of its women members, which raises questions about who, exactly, was doing the
sorts of secretarial and organizing labor necessary to keep it going. In fact, the pri-
mary archives of the AV/C were kept by lvomen such as Virginia Admiral and Lip-
pard; they did much of the work of transcribing texts, taking notes, and editing record-
ings of meetings.
FIcURE 62 Lucy Lippard demandìng
"50% black women aftists" as part of the
Ad Hoc Women's Commiltee protest,
Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York, 1971. Courtesy Lucy R. Lippard.

FlcuRE 63 Women Artists in

Revolution protest flyer, "Museums are
Sexist!" 1 970. lmage courtesy of the
Virginia Admiral Papers, ca. 1947-BO.
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
ìnstitution.

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 162 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

In a brief few years, the feminist offshoots moved from being "ladies' auxiliaries"
of the AWC, to use Firestone's phrase, to being independent groups that spawned
numerolrs long-lasting political projects.l3s While many feminists focused on mu-
seums and agitated for fuller inclusion of womens art within the established spaces
such as the Whitney or MoMA, others sought to establish alternative networks and
founded collaborative, nonjuried spaces. The early r97os saw a flurry of collective
activity within feminist art in the United States, including the founding of the Fem-
ini$ Art Joumøl (the first women's artmagazine) and the establishment of A.I.R. (the
first womens cooperative art gallery). Feminist artists and writers looked at how the
systematic exclusion of women was a result not just of the barriers of a chauvinistic
idea of quality but of the power diflerential that produced discrepancies in the treat-
ment and valuing of mens versus women's labor in both the public and the private
sphere.
In the midst of advocating for alternative structures, Lippard faced attacks on her
integrity as a critic that were edged with sexism. Once, at a talk, she confronted Green-
berg about the subjective nature of artistic "quality," and after she introduced her-
self, he said, "Oh, you're Lucy Lippard. I thought you were a schoolteacher from the
Brorx."136 This condescension demoted her to a dilettante, and his pink-collar choice
of profession further reduced her to the ultimate outsider in this educated, pre-
dominantly male, Manhattan crowd. V/hile Greenberg focused on dismissing Lip-
pard's professional contributions to criticism, others attacked her political credibility.
An anonymous letter sent to Lippard in r97o deserves to be quoted at length be-
cause its scathing tone speaks volumes about what sorts of resistance she faced as
she moved between her roles as critic, activist, mother, and feminist:

There she is, our Luc¡ making speeches at meetings, handing out leaflets on the l¡arri-
cades at West 53rd Street. . . . She explains to her boy: "lt's so UNFAIR, darling. If only
the Museum of Modern Art had given as much space to a show of your daddy's work as
they're giving to Bill de Kooning's, or are going to give to Oldenburg's, WE might have
made it in the big time. Then Mommy wouldn t have had to work so hard, turning out
all those potboilers. . . . And, Ethan darling, if only they'd realized that my Pousette-Dart
show should have had øtleøst as much space as the de l(ooning; it's all so UNFAIR, dar-
ling. fust because they're hung up on this silly old bourgeois, old-hat, liberal notion of
quølíty.. . . And that's why, darling, your mommy became an intellectual prostitute."137

The author of this letter proffers the assumption that Lippards participation in the
AV/C stemmed not from a broad sense of injustice but from a personal vendetta
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 163

against the museum. The attack turns into a mock discussion between Lippard and
her son. While it was not uncommon for art workers to bring their children and grand'
children to protests, this letter specificaþ uses Lippard's motherhood against her.
More startling is how this indictment aligns her criticism with prostitution. Al-
though Lippard referred to herself in jest as a "whore," this leüer, with its references
to Lippards "potboilers," alleges that her writing is somehow degraded and cheap.
By mimicking a conversation between mother and son (who are specificaþ classed
via the upper-crust term d.ørling), the letter also invokes her role as a mother and casts
her as a crude status seeker. It erases the intellectual labor of her work and asserts
that her writing is a bodily activit¡ a service performed for money and easy gratifi-
cation. It is difficult to imagine a :man in a similar situation receiving such a letter,
and this relentless sexualizing of the female critic suggests that a woman writing
about art is somehow a peïversion of the relationship between the (male) arrist, his
audience, and his (male) interpreter. It also bespeaks the perceived crisis of critical
autonomy-Lippard was seen as mixing work with pleasure, being "in bed," as it were,

with her subjects.

Despite these attacks, Lippard relished her position as a feminist critic and cura-
tor whose main pursuit was not to be a gatekeeper but to expose audiences to women

artists. lnr97r, at the Aldrich Museum, she curated the first all-women art show in
a museum, Twenty-Síx Contemporøry Women Afüsts. (WAR had otganized an all-
women show in t969 at the alternative space MUSEUM.) This show was a signifi,-
cant departure from Lippard's previous curation of fairþ well-known artists, as it in-
cluded only women who had never had solo shows in New York. For her it was a "form
of personal retribution to women artists" that she feared she had "unintentionally
slighted' in the past, as she confessed in her curatorial essay'138 Indeed, the earþ r97os
for Lippard were marked by a series of acts of contrition, and she sought to make up
for her former "exclusionary" attitude. Her exhibition c. 75oo, first presented at the
California Institute of the Arts in1973, refuted common conceptions that conceptu-
alism was dominated primariþ by men; Lippard's show presented over thirty female
conceptual artists. "For the record, I could have includedmany mole," she wrote in
her introduction.l3e
Starting inr97o, Lippard changed the focus of her criticism; she now wrote to fur-
ther the reevaluation of how women's art was perceived and accepted within the in-
stitutions of art. She did so with an awafeness that making art was always, for women,
a matterof cawing out time in between paid work and unpaid domestic activities.
As she wrote in r97r: ".Women often have three jobs instead of two: their art, work
 164 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

for pa¡ and the traditional unpaid 'work that's never done.' The infamous eueens
housewife who tries to crack the gallery circuit is working against odds no eueens
housepainter (as Frank stella was) has had to contend with.'140 This statement about
unpaid domestic labor was issued by Lippard at a time when women arlists were em-
bracing the radicalization of their labor; for them, it meant a newfound acknowl-
edgment that their work had value. This came on the heels of a wider feminist recog-
nition that øll the work women did, including housework and child rearing, was labor.
As fuliet Mitchell wrote in "women: The Longest Revolution," "Domestic labor is
enormous in terms of productive labor. In Sweden, z34o lrrllllion hours a year are
spent by women in housework compared with r,z9o million hours spent by women
in industry."l4l 'I'he question of women's housework spanned the diverse sectors of
U.S. 196os and r97os feminist approaches (from liberal to radical/socialist) as many
writers connected unpaid domestic labor to women's "underclass" status.la2
"Women have always worked," writes Alice Kessler-Harris, and this work "involves
a constant tension between two areas of women's lives: the home and the market-
place.'r+¡ For Lippard, this tension was made greateï by the fact that, as a freelance
writer, there was no separation of spaces for her-her worþlace was her home, and
vice versa. After her personal exploration of sexism in I see/You Meøn,her writing
openly questioned the divide between public and private spheres. She began to em-
bark on a more confessional approach to writing, with a liberal use of the first per-
son and asides about "serving tea' as an artist's wife. In fact, she began to see that
criticism itself was analogous to domestic labor; as she asserted inr97r, "It is far eas-
ier to be successful as a woman critic, curator, or historian than as a woman artist,
since these are secondar¡ or housekeeping activities, considered far more natural
for women than the primary activity of making art.'L44 Tellingly, the union of mu-
seum workers, PASTA MoMA, was composed of mostly women, for reportedly 75
percent of the museum staff was female as opposed to 25 percent of the manage-
ment.145 Lippard reiterates this formulation when she comments that women func-
tion primarily as "art housekeepers (curators, critics, dealers, 'patrons')."1a6 As Laura
Cottingham has pointed out, such a gendered identity would likely strike a critic such
as Greenberg as dismissive.laT But rather than demoting criticism, this parallel at the

same time elevates it; for Lippard, the maternal act of caring for the household is one
of dignity.
what is more, criticism for Lippard becomes housework, a job that is inherentþ
feminized, a form of gendered service rather than making or creating.las This strik-
ing redefinition of criticism &s tuornen\ work also calls into question the nature of
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 165

FtcuRE 64 Mierle Laderman

Ukeles, Hartford Wash: Washing,
Tracks, Maintenance: lnside,
performance at Wadsworth
X&" -:ü..*
Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut,
July 22, 1973. Courtesy Ronald
Feldman Fine Arts, New York.
@ lVlierle Laderman Ukeles.

"housework"; how could (paid) writing count as "a chore"l Lippard's association of
criticism with housework seemingly redefines the "house" as that of a delimited artis-
tic community. Feminism at this time expanded a definition of housework that went
beyond traditional ideas of it as unpaid and "of the house." Some have claimed that
housework, being contained within the domestic sphere, is not a mode of produc-
tion. But there is an economics to the household itself-it is wrong to presume that

domestic work is somehow "outside" questions of employment. Lippard, fully aware

of feminist del¡ates about remuneration and the productive value of housework, was
not trivializing the critic's job but contending that although criticism is consumed
differently from art objects, both are implicated in the market. , -

The division between women's public and private labor also played a significant
l

part in many early feminist artworks, including Mierle Laderman Ukeles's perfor-
mance series Møínten&nÇe Art. ln 1969 Ukeles wrote her "Maintenance Art Mani-
festo," which declared that the tasks of labor could be divided into those of "devel-
opment," and those of "maintenance," such as chores, cooking, and child care.l4e This
labor was often invisible, she claimed, not only because it had to be perpetually per-
formed, but because it was undertaken by women in the private sphere. Ukeles pro-
posed making that unseen labor visible within the space of the art museum, and in
r973's HørtfordWøsh: Wøshing,l7øcks, Møintenønce, part of Lippards c.75oo exhibit,
she did just that (Fig. 64). She worked both inside and outside the Hartford Wadsworth
 1 66 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

Atheneum to dust display cases, scrub floors, and mop stairs. On her hands and knees
with rags in hand and wearing ordinary clothes, Ukeles did not announce or mark
out her performance and as such was virtually invisible as an artist. Helen Molesworth
comments that Ukeles's piece "brings theoretical questions of public and private . . .
to the fore, specifically with regards to the problematic of 1abor."1s0
Ukeles's distinctions between the invisible, ongoing work of maintenance and the
productive process of development aïe in dialogue with Hannah Arendt's catego-
rizations of "labor" versus "work." In The Humøn Condition, Arendt writes that la-
bor, as related to the cyclical pfocesses of life and death, is perpetual, is never com-
pleted, and does not result in a final product. "It is indeed the mark of all laboring
that it leaves nothing behind, that the result of the effort is almost as quicldy con-
sumed as the effort is spent."lsl Labor, she writes, fights the decay of the world in "the
monotonous performances of daily repeated chores."1s2 Arendt loosely genders this
category by connecting labor with fertility and birth, and she contrasts it to work,
which entails the fabrication of things and obiects and is "world-making": that is,
transformative of nature, with a beginning and an end. Though for Arendt the work
of art is the most "worldly of all tangible things," the most "worked' of objects, Ukeles
subverts this notion by insisting that her ephemeral performance, her "unseen'bod-
ily labor, becomes art within the space of the institution.ls3 Recalling the slogans of
the Women's Strike in r97o, Ukeles asks: Who is going to pick up the garbage after
the revolutionllsa
picking up the garbage, dusting the furniture, ironing, darning socks: these daily,
useful, necessary, and unpaid tasks were increasingly turned into subject matter for
feminist art. A further aspect of women's work that was reinflected with value in fem-
inist art was skilled hand-making, or craft. Although some crafts had long been affili-
ated with rote chores (the making of rag rugs, for instance), most were categorized
as "hobbies." If the boundaries between public and private and between domestic
and "legitimate" forms of workwereblurredin Ukeles's work, theywere furthertrans-
gressed in feminist art reevaluations of craft. While pop art's embrace of "low" ma-
terials as a souïce for their artistic explorations had blurred the distinctions be-
tween mass and high art, the spheres of "high' art and craft were still strictþ separated.
Craft is sometimes cast as the trivialized, amateur "other" within the discourse of
artistic labor-a mere leisure pursuit-or, conversely, seen as utilitarian or applied
design. Yet many movements within modernism have also embraced handiwork and
decoration (the Arts and Crafts movement and the Russian constructivists, to name
just two). In the earþ r97os the feminist art movement embraced the procedures
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR I 1 67

FlcuRE 6s Faith Wilding, Crocheted

Env¡ronment (Womb Room), 1971-72,
installed at Womanhouse, Los Angeles.
Rope, wool, twine, I x 9 x 9 ft. CourtesY
Faith Wilding.

and "pefsonal projects" of craft as a way to revalue womens labor. While shunned by

many modernist critics for its taint of amateur decoration, cfaft became a way for
feminist artists to critique the denigration of domestic, female work within the art
institution.lss Miriam Schapiro used swatches of fabric in her "femmage" works, be-
gun in rgTr as a way to feminize the procedures of collage. Ringgold commenced a
series of fabric-based works in r97z and later made a series of story quilts related to
African American history. Quilting in particular was undergoing a transformation
from being seen as merely utilitarian to being recognized as significantly contribut-
ing to aesthetic debates; this was exemplified in a significant earþ feminist art his-
torical text, Patricia Mainardi's 1973 "Quilts: The Great American Art," which argued
for the importance of quilts in American art.1s6

Likewise, weaving, crocheting, and knitting saw a ïesurgence of interest among

feminist artists. Faith Wilding's immersive installati on Crocheted. Environment (Wornb
Room) was created as part o{ the r97r-72 Wornanhousø project under the auspices of
the Califomia Institute of Arts Feminist Art Program (Fig. 65). While much of the
work in Wornønhouseinterrogated the place of womens work, Crocheted Envíronrnent
 168 I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

was the most overtly indebted to hobby handicraft, and its large-scale webbing ex-
panded crocheting out from its usual site of individual "lapwork"; here it provided a
protective, collective space that could be entered. Wilding's environment, as sanctu-
ary but also claustrophobic cocoon, revealed the double bind of unpaid, repetitive
work that was at once durational chore and escapist pastime; the artist herself has
brilliantþ theorized the connections between female labor, domesticity, and craft.1s7
Lippard was somewhat slow to accept the idea that crafts were legitimate forms
of artwork; she has written that she had to "work at" or push herself to come to like
such art.lss Instead, she interrogated the distinction between craft and art using the
art she already knew and respected, particularly art that incorporated the use ofun-
traditional art materials into its practices, such as that of Eva Hesse. While Hesse
would not live to see *re women's movement firlly take hold in the New York art world,
her use of fiber was seen by Lippard as protofeminist-even when these fibers were
often of industrial rather than domestic materials. As Elissa Auther notes, the use
of fiber arts within the process work of artists such as Morris and Hesse acted as a
critique of the autonomy of art, since it melded the industrial, the decorative, and
the modern.ise Lippard was quick to see continuities between the work of Hesse and
traditions of womenk craft: "Women are always derogatorily associated with crafts,
and have been conditioned towards such chores as tying, sewing, knotting, wrapping,
binding, knitting, and so on. Hesse's art transcends the cliché of 'details as women's
work' while at the same time incorporating these notions of ritual as antidotes to iso-
lation and despair."160 In other words, rather than looking to women's actual craft
practices and attempting to argue the case for them øs ørt, she took what was clearþ
accepted in the realm of art and asserted it øs crøfi.

As Lippard began writing about how female artists utilized craft, she began to seek
out explicitly feminist locations for her criticism. One such place was Ms.rnagazine,
founded in t97t.Her "Household Images in Art," published in Ms. in 1973, cele-
brated "'female techniques'like sewing, weaving, knitting, celamics, even the use of
pastel colors (pink!) and delicate lines" in recent feminist art.161 Feminism, she stated,
opened up these techniques for women artists who had previously been afraid to use
them. This essay, howeveï, was careful not to align work about the domestic sphere
and chores with craft techniques alone. Lippard did not generalize about what sfyle
\ryomen artists utilized when they used "household imagery," and she ended her ar-
ticle with Ukeles's HørtfordWøsh.
Lippards early articles on craft were in the recuperative mode: rather than using
craft to try to dismantle the hierarchy of art altogether, she lauded only "named ' artists
 LUCY LIPPARD'S FÉMINIST LABOR I 'I 69

such as Hesse and fudy Chicago. As feminist criticism evolved, however, Lippard grew
more attuned to how the movement to integrate craft into models of honored artis-
tic practice was not always sensitive to the still-flourishing communities of anony-
mous crafts\Momen. Lippard was most excited about projects that linked these sepa-
rated spheres, such as British artist Margaret Harrison s collaborations with low-wage
craftswomen who did piecework at home. ln (r97fl, Harrison worked
HomsÃ)orkers

with nonunion women to create an image-text piece that was shown in schools and
community centers. Such collectivities were for Lippard the cmx of a true feminist
critique. As she wrote in a ry78 article in the journal Heresies, "The greatest lack in
the feminist art movement may be the lack of contact and dialogue with those 'am-
ateurs' whose work sometimes appears to be imitated by professionals."162
If Lippard's writing style often mirrored the art she discussed, so did her embrace
of feminism. Her occasionally fragmentary writing style, at first seen as reliant upon
conceptualism, was by the mid-r97os recupelated under the essentializing sign of
"women's imagery." In a 1975 roundtable on "female imagery," Lippard noted "a
certain antiJogical, anti-linear approach also common to many women's work. . . .
Women are, for all kinds of reasons, more open."163 While this might seem to have
some surface similarities 1ofhe écriturefémínine espoused by French feminism, Lip-
pards ongoing experiments with pastiche and experimental forms, as in the mosaic
format of Six Yeørs or her writings that took the form of dialogues between uniden-
tified speakefs, wefe attempts to make verbal quilts-that is, to align her work with
crøft.164

Along with her interest in manual hand-making, Lippard pursued making active
connections between working women and the feminist art movement. In r98z she
co-organized, with Candace Hill-Montgomery, an exhibition entitled WorkingWomen/
Workíng Afüsts/Workíng Together (Fig. 66). This show brought together artists and
members of the National Union of Health Care Employees, District rr99 (a major-
ity of whom were women of color), to collaborate on artworks on the theme of non-
domestic female 1abor.16s The poster for this show features a black woman with a

toolbelt strapped around her waist. Her face turns toward the camera with a small
smile as her body and hands are still engaged in their manual work of lifting. There
is no caption information to clarify if she is a conventional laborer-one of those sta-
tistically few women involved in the construction trade-or an artist in the midst of
making a large-scale piece. (ln fact, she is Marianne Shepherdson, a carpenter from
Massachusetts, who was featured in Susan Lindemank art piece.) This blurring is
precisely the point of the show, and the exhibition thwarts expectations not only about
 17O I LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

FIcURE 66 Posterfor
Working Women/Work¡ng
Art¡ sts / Wo r k¡ n g Tog eth e r
exhibition, organized by
Candace Hill-Montgomery
and Lucy R. Lippard at
Gallery 11 99, New York,
1 982, lmage courtesy

of the Lucy R. Lippard

Papers, ca.1940-2006,
Archives of AmerÌcan Art,
Smithsonian lnstitution.

manual labor as (white) men's domain but also about female artistic labor as distinct
from union politics. Beyond demonstrating a commitment toward bringing together
differentspheresofgenderedlabor, WorkingWonnen/'WorkingAfüsts/WorkingTogether
prefigured the trend in "relational aesthetics" some years later, described by French
thinker Nicolas Bourriaud as art "that takes as its theoretical horizon the sphere of
human interactions and its social context.'166 Exhibits such as the one for District
rr99 demonstrate that relational art had significant early roots in the feminist move-
ment of the r97os, particularly as practiced by Lippard and the women she worked
with (though this aspect is not theorized as such by Bourriaud).
To conclude, let me return to 1968. Lippard came back from Argentina with a new
 LUCY L¡PPARD'S FÊMINIST LABOR I 171

sense of the interrelatedness of economics, nonparticipation, and power in art. As

she said in a ry69 interview that was later edited and publishedin Six Yeørs:

It becomes clear that today everything, even art, exists in a political situation. I don t mean
that art itself has to be seen in political terms or look politicaT, but the way artists handle
their art, where they make it, the chances they get to make it, how they are going to let it
out, and to whom-it's all part of a life style and a political situation. It becomes a mat-
ter of artists' power, of artists achieving enough solidarity so they aren t at the mercy of
a society that doesn't understand what they are doing. I guess that's where the other cul-
Írre, or alternative information network, comes in-so we can have a choice of ways to
live without dropping out.167

Yet what she experienced in Rosario regarding collaborative work across class divi-
sions proved difficult to translate, interpret, and understand.lGs For a few briefyears,
it looked like this wish might be fulfilled within the AWC. But with its relentless fo-
cus on an already estal¡lished circuit of institutions like MoMA, the AWC never fos-
tered "the other culture, the alternative information network" that Lippard dreamt
of. Where this "other culture" did develop was within feminism, in collectives such
as Heresies, and with the women's movement came a more radical version of Lippard's

wish for a "solidarity" that encompassed both "a lifestyle and a political situation."
In other words, it was belatedly-and within the context of the women's movement
rather than the AWC-that Lippard was able to enact some of the possibilities opened
up to her by Tucumán Bums. Shows such as Workíng Afüsß/WorkingWomen/Working
in eflect a delayed reiteration of the connection between art workers
Together were

and union workers that she had seen glimpses of in Argentina: a vision of artistic
labor sensitive to race, class, and gender.
 &sx*f**qr:

\&å*{d t*x* ***t th*t ffiwærn*r ffiei*k*fsl**r

þ*s n*t dæç*ffi*rïtr*d Prss*d*nt l\*ixsr¡k
,kt&**l*rï& p*{*ry hs s r**sürl fçr V*ax rw
ãe wæf# f*r *x*ry* üm f**ruænruþçr ?

..-". ,&ffiw

into tfrc Ht box;

 Hans Haacke's Paperwork

fllews

For his contril¡ution to the group show Prospect 69 in Düsseldorf, Hans Haacke in-
stalled a teletype machine that streamed news from the DPA, Germany's wire ser-
vice. Viewers were invited to peruse the rolls of paper printed with l¡reaking head-
lines from around the world as they came scrolling out (Fig. 67). This work, entitled
Nøws, was repeated in ry69 at the Howard Wise Galler¡ this time using the United
Press International service. In both instances, the machines ran continuously when
the gallery was open, churning out long streams of paper that collected in heaps on
the floors. At the end of each day, these reams of reportage were posted on the walls,
then taken down every thfud day androlled into tubes for storage. A different version
of in the r97o Sofiwøre exhibition, organized by fack Burnham, at the
Nøws appeared

fewish Museum.l Haacke installed five teletype machines that issued reports from
Germany's DPA and Italy's ANSA wire service, as well as the NewYorkTirnes,Reulers,
and UPI. Here, Haacke let the paper gather in an increasingly voluminous wad, only
to be discarded at the end of the show (Plate ro).
The artistic use of the telex device in the late r96os was a global phenomenon: Ar-
gentine artist David Lamelas's Ofi.cinø d,e inforrnøtión sobre lø Guerrø de Vietnørn ø tres
niveles: Lø imøgen vísuø\, el texto y eI øudio (Office of Information about the Vietnam
War on Three Levels: Visual Image, Text, and Audio) at the 1968 Venice Biennial fea-
tured a teletype machine in a small, glass-walled ofñce (Fig. 68). A paid "secretary"

173
*Ær**n
e{*k* tfx* f,**t t*?æt *wsrn*pr ffi**k#f*f**r
*wx r**x ***x*xx**d fræxi'd*rit f{ixsrt'*
Måx*rw edcn/ be a reâ.$CIfi fm 3r**x nffi
** wtæ f*r hðm *rT fX*e#æwTb*r ?

&rr*cx tk# !æft k*x;

 Hans Haacke's Paperwork

lVews

For his contribution to the group show Prospect 69 in Düsseldorf Hans Haacke in-
stalled a teletype machine that streamed news from the DPA, Germany's wire ser-
vice. Viewers were invited to peruse the rolls of paper printed with breaking head-
lines from around the world as they came scrolling out (Fig. 67). This work, entitled
News, was repeated in 1969 at the Howard Wise Gallery, this time using the United
Press International service. In both instances, the machines ran continuously when
the gallery was open, churning out long streams of paper that collected in heaps on
the floors. At the end of each da¡ these feams of reportage were posted on the walls,
then taken down every third day and rolled into tubes for storage. A different version
of News appeared rg1o Softwøre exhibition, organizedby |ack Bumham, at the
in th e

|ewish Museum.l Haacke installed five teletype machines that issued reports from
Germany's DPA and ltaly's ANSAwire service, as well as the NewYorkTímes,Reuters,
and UPI. Here, Haacke let the paper gather in an increasinglyvoluminous wad, only
to be discarded at the end of the show (Plate ro).
The artistic use of the telex device in the late r96os was a global phenomenon: Ar-
gentine artist David Lamelas's Oficinø d,e inforrnøtión sobrelø Guerrø de Vietna,rn ø tres
niveles: Lø imøgen visuø\, el terto y el øudio (Office of Information about the Vietnam
War on Three Levels: Visual Image, Tê>rt, and Audio) at the 1968 Venice Biennial fea-
tured a teletype machine in a small, glass-walled office (Fig. 68). A paid "secretary"

173
FIGURE 67 Hans Haacke, News,
1969. lnstallation with telex machine
on table, rolls of paper, aI Prospect
69, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf,
September-October 1 969.
Photograph by Hans Haacke, O
2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

FlcuRE 6a David Lamelas, Oflice

of lnformat¡on about the Vietnam
War onThree Levels: Visual lmage,
Text, and Audio, 1968. N/ultimedia
inslallaiion with telex machine, wall
panel, and live performer, at Venice
Biennale, 1968. Courtesy of David
Lamelas and Monika Sprüth &
Philomene Magers Ltd.
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 175

FIGURE 69 Roberto JacobY, Mensaie

en el DiTella, 1968. Multimedia instaìlation
with blackboard, teletype, photograph, in
Buenos Aires, May 1 968. Photograph by
Oscar Bony. Courtesy of Roberto Jacoby.

read into a microphone the cables from ANSA related to events in Vietnam in sev-
eral diflerent languages; when there was other news, she sat silently. Lamelas used
a female office worker to mediate and translate the headlines, distancing the viewer
from the information and providing a further level of mediation between the events
occuffing across the globe and thefu eventual bureaucratic consumption, while also
commenting on the gendered role of media spectacle.2 Her silences were as important
as her woïds: How much of the news of world being reported was nol about Vietnamì
Similarly, another Argentine artist, Roberto f acoby, used a teletype machine in his

worl< Mensøje en el Di Tellø (Message in the Di Tella) for the controversial Buenos Aires
show Expenenciøs 68 at the Instituteo Torcuato Di Tella in May i968 (Fig. 6q). I"-

coby was part of a loose affiliation of leftist arbists who weÍe increasingly radicalized
under the repïessive conditions of the Argentine regime. Here f acoby installed a telex

machine to relay information from the Agence France Presse about the ongoing May
1968 Paris uprisings, using the art instittltion as an international communication
outpost. His wall muïal text message, seen on the left, declared that "all the phe-
nomena of social life" have been converted into "aesthetic material" and "the medias
of mass communication."3 He further railed against old avant-garde notions of "affir-
mation and negation," instead advocating for the "artist becoming a propagandist."
The telex streamed out messages about the student/worker uprising while being con-
nected visuaþ to other international protest moYements, such as the photograph,
placed above it, of the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike in which African American
laborers carried signs declaring "I Am a Man."
 176 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

While Lamelas and |acoby were concerned with bringing atvareness about certain
political events-Vietnam and May r968-into the spaces of art, Haacke was inter-
ested as well in úte sheer volume of streaming information-its daunting prolifera-
tion, its accumulation, its arbitrary ordering. With wire services, reports afe trans-
mitted one after another, from sports to political events to entertainment tidbits,
creating the appearance of a real-time, if random, transcription of the globe's goings-
on. Haacke strove to Íe-represent that flow objectiveþ with no further aesthetic frame,
aware that different viewing subjects would come to the material with various agen-
das and interpretive lenses. The standard account o[ Nøws is that Haacke, by bring-

ing the social/political world of headlines into the ostensibly "nevlral" spaces of the
gallery or museum, reveals the interpenetration of these two spheres.a But his trans-
formation of the gallery into a newsroom is more historically specific, and somewhat
more excessive, than this account acknowledges.
The late r96os are characterizedby the complex economic restructuring known
as postindustrialism-one part of which includes a move away from manufacturing
toward the collection, processing, and management of information. Michael Hardt
posits that the informationalization of industrial production has become increasingly
ruled by "immaterial labor"-services that create knowledge, emotional responses,
and social relationships. Not only that, the production of afTect crucially undergirds
what he calls "creative and intelligence manipulation."s Looking closely at Haacke's
art in the years of the AWC, however, shows us that the relationship between labor,
information, and affect is by no means straightforward.
In urgent staccato pacing is metonymic of immediacy and fast-
Nøws, the teletype's

breaking developments. Five of them simultaneously clacking in one small space must
have been somewhat deafening. This audio component adds an importantþ sensoly
supplement to Haacke's laconic presentation, as do the sheets cascading to the floor
in a dramatic white tangle reminiscent of contemporaneous scatter pieces such as
Robert Morris's tangled piles of felt. Stories from around the world commingle and
merge, effacing their national origins as they overflow into a pile of dense, snarled
ribbons. This "overflow" is of critical importance in Haacke's work, for his version
of artistic labor as information management (recalling journalistic fact finding and
sociological data gathering)was specifically forgedin the late r96os throughhis affili
ation with the AWC. Looking at his work next to the art workers' demonstrations and
protest graphics, I propose that Haacke's appropriation of informationwas in explicit
conversation with the activist practices of the AWC'
Nøu.¡s marked a decisive shift within Haacke's practice, even as it continued to ev-
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 177

FlcuRE 70 Hans Haacke,

Condensat¡on Cube, 1963-
65. Clear acrylic plastic, water,
l¡ght, air currents, temperature
12 x 12 in. Photograph bY
Hans Haacke. @ 2009 Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New
York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

idence his interest in what fack Burnham labeled "systems art."6 Theories of repre-
"sys-
sentation and the state came together in the urgent need to understand both as
tems"; some chose for their method of anaþsis the systems of structuralism, while
others looked to class relation s. System1Tlke process,was a l96os New Left buzzword
picked up by artistic practice. Pamela Lee notes that such a phrase resonated urith
the imperative to "name the system," first articulated by Paul Potter in his antiwar
speech "V/e Must Name the System," delivered at the April 1965 march on Wash-
ington.T The art wofkels' understanding of the art world as a "systern' was most ex-
plicitly explored by Haacke.
starting in the earþ r96os with his affiliation with the German zero group,Haacke's
projects were invested in technological systems theory and utilized organic, kinetic,
of mechanical processes: in Condensøtíon Cube (19$-65\, for example, the moisture
inside a plexiglas cube varies with the relative tempeïature of the surrounding gallery
and is influenced by the number of visitors at any given time (Fig. 7o). Condensøtion
Cubeisone logical pïecedent to Haacke's institutional analysis in that it demonstrates
how the space in which an artwork is placed-its material atmospheric conditions
that include massed bodies, temperatuïe, and light-compfomises a system, one that
is allegorized and miniatunzedinthe small, selflcontained "hothouse" cube' Yet its
beads of wateï, slowly rising and falling in barely perceptible drips, are an abstract
v/ay to register the conditions of spectatorship.
Haacke continued to explore the convergence of technology and biology in the late
rg6os and rgTos after he moved to New York, with works like his 1969 Chickens
Høtching,which featured a grid of incubators, lamps, and chicks as they emerged
 17A I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

from their eggs, and Norbert: "All Systems Go" (r97o-7r), in which he taught a myna
bird in a cage to say, 'A1l systems go' in a parody of cybernetic pioneer Norbert'W'iener.8
Although there are continuities throughout his practice, around 1969 Haacke began
to move away from these quasi-scientific experiments to art that utilized facts and
statistics to address the art institution itself.
In short, he embraced the medium of inforrnøtion. And, as he stated in r97i, in-
formation "can be very powerful. It can affect the general social fabric."e The year
1969 was, significantly, when the AWC, which sought to forge a political identity for
artists as workers, was founded. These identifications were never simple and were
overburdened with fantasy and misrecognition. Further, the yoking of artistic iden-
tity with rhetoric about "the workers" would prove unstable given the uncertain re-
lationship with blue-collar labor in the New Left, which insisted that radical political
change would be catalyzed not by an increasingly complicit working class but by a
new critical intelligentsia. This is a shift that Haacke not only promoted but prefigured:
his vision of artistic labor pointed to an emerging model of labor as information man-
agement within a service economy, although this view of artists as knowledge work-
ers had its own ambivalences.

The AWG and Conceptual Art: Decentralizing Museums

Haacke was one of the original founding members of the AWC who joined Takis to
protest the unauthorized display of his sculpture in MoMA's Møchine show in early
1969. With Tom Lloyd and Andre, he authored the earliest statement of demands
for artists' rights. He was also among those in the AWC who voted, in the fallof ry7o,
to form an actual dues-paying union. According to Haacke, artists, "being an eco-
nomically and consequently politically weak grovp," needed to organize in order to
"impose their ways of procedure and their ideals on the distribution system of art. "10

Casting hopeful eyes back to the r93os for useful precedents, some in the AWC ad-
vocated the return of an organizalion such as the Artists' Union. This model, how-
ever, proved difficult to update. In the late r96os, of course, no government-spon-
sored workaday artistic employment existed (aside, perhaps, from teaching). And,
given the antistate fervor of the art workers' protests against the Vietnam War, look-
ing to the government for remuneration was not an option. Who, then, to turn tol
The AWC's "Program for Change" exhorted museums to pay artists rental fees to
exhibit work, as well as to set up "stipends, health insurance, and help for artists'
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 179

i'''
è:

FIGURE 71 Hans Haacke,

Gallery-Goers' Birlhplace
and Residence Profile,
Part 1, 1969. ìnteractive
installation with bìue and
red push pins on wall map,
at Howard Wise Gallery,
NewYork. Photograph by
Hans Haacke. @ 2009
Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

dependents."ll In other words, AWC wanted museums to function as their employ-

ers, not least by guaranteeing them stable incomes. As artists became workers, then,
museums were implicated as management.
Haacke's famous assertion that museums are "managers of consciousness" (which
mobilizes a metaphoric use of management) stems in no small part from the AWC's
literal understanding that artists were workers within an aIt "induslty."tz He like-
wise embraced the identity of art workeï, even calling his art "job-oriented."13 In the
excellent critical literature on Haacke-including works by Rosalyn Deutsche and
Benjamin Buchloh-his affiliation with the AWC is only glanced at.1a Buchloh, for
instance, discusses the shift Haacke underwent around r97o as he began to move
from organic/biological woïks to art that utilized information with no mention of
his activist work at a11.1s Yet the AWC's influence on Haacke was vital, as it not only
catalyzed his investigations of the discursive framing of art but also affected his art's
specific forms, particularþ the polemical presentation of information.
While News marked Haacke's first foray into art as journalism, this area of inter-
est was further extended in his 1969 Gøllery-Goers' Bírthpløce a.nd Residence Profi.le,
exhibited at the Howard \Vise Gallery in New York (Fig. 7r). In this work Haacke moved
from providing, as he didin News, a mere conduit of streaming, prepackaged infor-
mation to being an active investigator. His work became a collection of statistics that
were geared toward ferreting out truths and facts about the art world system; Buchloh
 180 I HANS HAACKË'S PAPERWORK

has referred to this as Haacke's "factography."i6 In line with figures such as fohn
Heartfield, Haacke's work asks us to interrogate the mutual exclusivity of the cate-
gories of journalism and art. Unlike Condensøtion Cube, whose viewership is rela-
tiveþundifierentiated, Prof.leasksdirectquestionsaboutthespecificityofartviewers.
In the gallery profiles, Haacke invited visitors to mark on a large map both where
they were born and their current residences; the results revealed a confined dis-
triþution of art audiences in the New York area, concentrated primarily in lower Man-
hattan, with a significant cluster of red pins indicating native New Yorkers (Plate rl).
It is a map colored by social geography. Its participatofy component meant that the
look of this object was ever-changing, even as it bore a visual resemblance to more
staticmodesof abstraction,withitspricks of primary coloragainstadarkblueand
white ground. With the Birthpløce ønd. Residence ProfiIe, Haacke wanted to discern
how an interest in art derived from specific class formations as they played out ge-
ographically. As a relatively recent emigrant, such questions of birthplace, home,
and location were of special significance to him. (It is also important that most of
the art wofkers lived in the same general area in Manhattan and as such were part
of a geographic community-and local economy-along with the coalition forged
through the AWC. The distinctþ urban stew of activism in New York, with its heated
yet inconsistent rhetoric about the politics of art and making, might have prompted
some artists to flee for seemingly less conflicted landscapes, as Smithson did in his
forays into the U.S. West.)
The polls gave the viewer a modicum of participation-a gesture that, while small,
perhaps offered, as Kirsi Peltomäki has suggested, an affective surge of spectatorial
pleasure in that it provided a way to reflect on in-crowd formations and shared so-
cial space.17 Haacke followed this with other audience polls that collected informa-
tion about viewers' demographic profiles as well as their political leanings, religion,
and views of the Nixon administration.ls Ëndeavoring to quantify the art world sys-
tem as a network of tastes to be charted and analyzed, he reported the results of the
polls in bar-graph form. Haacke's polls bear a surface resemblance to the questions
issued by sociologist of taste Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Darbel in their 1969 book
The Love of Art: Ewropeøn Art Museurrts ønd Their Public.le The Love o;[Arf asserts that

an appreciation for art is determined by objective social factors that promote cultural
appreciation, such as income and education. By questioning the constitution of the
"public" of art museums, Bourdieu and Darbel assert that one's level of education sig-
nificantly determines one's inclination to visit museums (the so-called "cultivated
disposition'). To track quantitativelyhow cultural capital affects the "logic of museum
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I I81

visiting,"20 their methodology includes questionnaires about visitors' residences, level

of education, and political leanings.
Whlle The Love of Artwas an early (and uncharacteristically positivist) project for
Bourdieu, it plays an important foundational role in his theorizations of the networks
that subtend the production, distribution, and reception of art. Bourdieu's later writ-
ings on cultural production examine not just artists but also "critics, publishers, gallery
directors, and the whole set of agents whose combined efforts produce consumers
capable of knowing and recognizing the work of art as such."21 Indeed, the overlaps
between Haacke's art and Bourdieus theories of "taste" led them to collaborate on a
book project entitled Free Exchønge.22 Bourdieu and Darbel, like Haacke, see muse-
ums as spaces structured by exclusion and privilege. In their concluding paragraph,
they excoriate the "false generosity" of the ostensibly public museum, writing that
the museum "is reserved for those who, equipped with the ability to appropriate the
works of art, have the privilege of making use of this freedom."23 The polemics of
this statement matter: here the authors do not simply present data but offer a pointed
political analysis.
Haacke's investigation into the audience as a social system significantly diverges
from Bourdieu's work in that Haacke in the late r96os and earþ r97os insisted that
the information he presented was without any interpretive framework or summa-
rizing conclusions (although, as Deutsche asserts, these polls themselves had their
own "mediating efiect").2a He did not, he claimed, marshal data to prove or disprove
a hypothesis. "I leave it up to you as far as how you evaluate the situation," he said.
"You continue the work by drawing your own conclusions from the information pre-
sented."2s His lack of interest in synthesizing the data or making inferences moved
him closer to the myth of objective iournalism than the situated sociology advocated
by Bourdieu.
In this, Haacke proposed of artistic labor than the ones ofÏered
a different model

by Andre, Morris, and Lippard: the artist as number-cruncher. It represents a fur-

ther instance of the degree to which artists afnliated with the AWC understood their
"work" quite broadly; for Haacke, "The studio is again becoming a study."26 Haacke
activated another central paradigm for political laboring, that of the "information spe-
cialist," and described his "real-time systems" art as a "double agerrt."z7 The description
evokes a strategy for the New Left outlined a year later in Marcuse's Counterrevolu'

tion ønd Revolt. Marcuse writes of the subversive potential of Rudi Dutschke's notion
of the "long march through the institutions": that is, "working against the established
institutions while working in them . . . by'doing the job,' learning (how to prograrn
 1A2 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

and read computers, how to teach at all levels of education, how to use the mass
me-

dia . . .), and at the same time preserving one's own consciousness in working with
the others."2s Haacke viewed his art as this "doing the job," working within the in-
stitution to interrupt the uncritical flow of data, news, and numbers'
Haacke's art participates in the general trend at this time toward understanding
the artist-as well as the common worker-not as a construction laborer but as a
.,knowledge m aîager," one who collects, processes, and manages dala-ze Buchloh has

influentiallytermed this the "the aesthetic of administration."30 Even atthe time, con-
ceptual art was seen as mirroring "an economy whose base is shifting from produc-
tion to information process íng."tt As Sol LeWitt noted inry6T, "The aim of the artist
would be to give viewers information. . . . The serial artist does not attempt to pro-
duce a beautiful or mysterious object but functions merely as a clelk cataloguing
the

results of his premise."3z Lewitt casts the artist as a petty bureaucrat who mimics
the procedures of the desk clerk.
In this decade, artists and corporations alike sought out literal connections between
art, manufacturing, and business. Experiments in Art and Technology, founded by
Robert Rauschenbergandthe Bell Laboratories scientist Billy lcüver in 1966,33 and

fohnLatham and Barbara Steveni's Artists Placement Group, founded in 1966, pur-
sued collaborations between artists, engineers, and technology firms. The APG was
a British organization that established residencies for artists in a variety of govern-
mental departments and corporations. At the time, the APG was heralded as a direct
product of "the post-industrial society . . . the change ftorn a goods-producing to a
service economy . . . and the creation of a new 'intellectual technology."'34 About a
dozen artists were placed in companies during the APG's existence, in places such
asBritish Steel, Esso, andthe British Deparhmentof Environmental Health' The APG
had its artists literaþ become office workers in direct response to the ever-intercon-
necting spheres of art, labor, and the new service economy. But these residencies were
always rife with contradiction-wefe the artists there to simply act as the cleative
supplements to coïporate reseaïch and development, to turn the wheels of indus-
try's production? Or was the artist embedded in industry, as Lippard characterized
her understanding of the APG, as "a jolt . . . to fuck up the ordinary corporate think'
ing habits"l3s As Peter Eleey has observed, the APG attempted to maintain a "deli
cately Utopian co-existence of antagonism and service."36 Like so much artistic labor
in this era, artists working "within'institutions (whether museums or corporations)
thwarted any easy distinction between complicity and resistance'
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 183

Facts, figures, and documents: instead of metal squafes or large timbers, these
are the building blocks of Haacke's artistic labor. Yet this is not a free-floating ma-

trix of data. Instead, Haacke's use of different countly's news agencies and his polls
alrout location also show how his interests became increasingly spøtíøIized as he
deepened his interest in the systems of power in the art world. In his April rc, tg69,
statement read aloud at the large AWC open hearing, Haacke made it clear that the
physical space of the museum was of special concern to him, particularly in light
of his previous art/research in the gallery-goers' polls that revealed the homogeneity
of art audiences in New York. While the texts read at the open hearing broached
a diverse series of topics related to the just-formed AWC, such as racism, sexism,
war, and the politics of the art world, Haacke's statement persistently characterized
the museum as a location of power, calling for "a radical decentralization, a dis-
persal of the Museum's activities into all areas of the city." He continued: "Such
a decentralization would liberate the arts from their fashionable Midtown ghetto

and would open them to the communities. A relocation in cheaper neighborhoods

would also contribute to desecrating the temple. As soon as Museum officials are
willing to work in the various loft-districts of the city, a lot of financial problems
are solved."37
The notion of "decentralizatiorl'of the museum was a common refrain at the time
for the AWC and related groups such as the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition
(BECC).3s While they also wanted a specific wing and study center for black and lluerto
Rican art in MoMA named aÍter Martin Luther King fr., some in the AWC believed
that opening branches in underserved areas such as Harlem would provide a way to
increase its accessibility to (somewhat ill'defined) "communities."3e Protests by the
AWC, particularþ its Black and Puerto Rican Committee, called for the museum to
"Decentralize or Die," as one pïotest poster read. The muchJonged-for decentrali-
zationoccurred to some degree, though not under the aegis of MoMA, when the
Studio Museum in Harlem opened in 1968 and El Museo del Barrio opened in
Spanish Harlem in 1969. Importantly, the founder of El Museo was Raþh Orlz, a
member of the AWC and occasional participant in GAAG.a0
More, even, than opening special branches of museums, conceptual art promised
to potentially explode the idea of the brick-and-mortar institutions as repositories and
authorities of art. Lucy Lippard forcefuþ linked conceptualisrns primacy of ideas
with the broader goals of making art and information more accessible. In a lecture
in 1969 she stated,
 184 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

Last spring, members of the Art Workers' Coalition, which is a dissenting arlists group
in New York, spent a great deal oftime talking about alternate structures, viable alter-
natives to the current art-\¡rorld set-up. . . . Decentralization takes place by word and pho-
tograph, by easiþ and rapidly transportable media and by the physical moves of the artist
himself.ar

The radical dematerialization of conceptual art, with its use of postcards, telegrams,
and easily transportable ideas, was seen as tied to decentralization-though Lippard
and many others quicldy recognized how fragile those connections were. Still, from
1969 on, in the wake of the formation of the AWC and its calls for decentraliza-
tion, Haacke's work aggressively cluestioned how museums occupied both actual and
ideological sites. To do this, he marshaled site-specific forms of data collection and
information gathering.

lnformation

One of the most graphic uses of informational and investigative practices occurred
in 1969; this was GAAG's performance A Cøllfor the Immedíøte Resignøtion of All the

from the Boørd of Trustees of the Museurn of Modem Arf, known simply
Rockefetlers as

Blood Bøth.azIn this action, four artists (fean Toche, fon Hendricks, Poppy fohnson,

and Silviana) gathered in the peak hours in MoMA's lobby.a3 Without warning, they
began ripping each other's clothes off, screaming incoherentþ as they burst concealed
bags filled with nearþ two gallons of blood (Fig.7z). As the artists sank to the floor,
bloodied and halÊstripped, they lay amid scattered leaflets that accused the Rocke-
fellers and the museum they supported of using "art as a disguise, a cover for their
brutal involvement in all spheres of the war machine." Photographs of the action
document its urgent violence, with the dark blood soaking the men's "respectable"
suits-speciaþ chosen and worn as costumes to help heighten the visual eflect of
their subsequent destructisn44-¿5 they roughly grabbed each other.
The photograph of them playing "dead' on the museum ground, white flyers stained
with þlood, recalls images of the massacre of My Lai, but it also captures, somewhat
blurril¡ the gathering crowd of museumgoers in the background (Fig. 7). The up-
per portion of the image is dominated by the legs of the spectators, although it is
clear that not all of those in the immediate area of the protest action were so absorbed
by GAAG's {renzy several of the legs indicate people who have turned away. Still,
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 185

FIGURES 72-73
Guerrilla Art Action Group,
A Call for the lmmediate
Res¡gnation of All the
Rockefellers from the
Board ofTrustees of the
Museum of Modern Art.
Performance by Jon
Hendricks, Jean Toche,
Poppy Johnson, and
Silviana in MoMA lobby,
November 19, 1969.
Photograph by Hui Ka
Kwong. @ Guerriìla Art
Action Group,

the small audience who foïmed around them by and large read the street theater cues
coïrecth for they "watched silentþ and intentþ" while the artists writhed on the
ground in the blood and then burst into "spontaneous applause" when GAAG rose
up to leave the museum, signaling the end of the piece.as
GAAG's flyer included a three-point summary of research that detailed the Rocke-
fellers' financial involvement with corporations that manufactured napalm and other
v/armunitions, including Standard Oil and McDonnell Aircraft (Fig.Z+)' The artists'
halÊnaked bodies referred both to the stripping effects of napalm and to the tangle
of corpses in much wartime photograph¡ and their live bodies within the museum
sought to animate and make vivid the horrors of war. The gesture or action was in
 1 86 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

À cÀ.tr ¡.oR rnE Ir't{EÞI.â,iE ntrSICNn'X:oN ot À¡! fl¡s nocIiE!'Ì.iLI¡!Rs FRott ?HE BoARD
Or ?RUSTEBS OF TtrE üUSEUlf Or ¡toDI¡R!¡ ÀRl,

There ¿s a groulr of, êxtrenely r¡.alttty peop.Le rho ârc using art aE å rea¡s ot
Ëel"f-glôr{flcåtlon Ð.1 aB a forn of sociâI acceptabj,lity. fhey use art as a
dlsguieé, a æver f,or tÌ¡el,r brutal Lnvolverent ln all spholea of the var
mâchine.
These peoplê seek to apgease thelr guÍlt w:th glfts of blood rcney anå dôna-.
tLonô of ?ôrkB ôf, årt to lhê li{u6èun of ¡lodern Àrt. lie as ârtlsts f,eêl that
lfieËe ls no rcral Jutlf.lcåtlon rhaèaoever for t!¡e lluseum of, llodern Àrt to
exLst at a1l lf lt nust rely sslely on thê contlnuêd acæptance of dlrfy
money. By acseptlng 6oi1ed donatLons frón !àese veal"thy lteople, the museun
is dêstroying ¡h¡ J,ntcgrl.ty of ôrt.
th€sè lrsople }lâve beê¡ in åct[å1 control of the eu6eun's poll,cles €incê Lts
foundlng. }llth {*ri"B lrffir they have been ab:.e to m¡tpulate artistsr ldeasi
sÈèritL!ê art of, any fom of social protèet and indfelhent of, thô oppressive
forcêÊ in soeiêty! üd therof,or€ tender årt tolally irelevst to thë ¿xiÊt-
inq social crisis.
1. According to rerdlnànd Lundbers ln his book' The Rich elC,-!¡3--91P9=Bi9!,
th€ Rockåae¡Iêra wn 653 of thé sbandard olj: ffi
according to seyrcur t{. tlersh tn his book, çhenlcal-illl:pþþglcal f'¿arf are.
thê sèanáard olir corporatlou of calif arnia ="f6Ïõ¡i-I3-ã-FêõIãfÏñ€õïõãE*
of, Davld Rocksfsllsr (chal"rnan of the 8Õard of, trufiteès of the ldusèum of
ltodern Àrt) - l€aãeal onê of Lts pl.ênla to United Tëchnology ce¡ter (Ufc)
lor lhe rpåciflc pur¡tose of nanufâcturing nåp4n.
2. Àscord¿ng to Luatberg, th€ nockèfel¡er bÏothsrs ovn 201 of the ¡'lcDonnelL
Ài.rcr¡ft-Côrporatôon {nüufôcturera of Èhê Phan¡@ ånd Eilshee jet
ftdhters whtal¡ rere uaed in thê Konan $år!. According to ,¡ersh' the
Hcóonnell corporaÈl,oh haa been de€ply fnvolved in chenl'ca¡ ud bioloqical
uarfare reseârch.
l.'Acærding to George Th&yer in hl-5 book, the war Bsire, the chàse
¡lanhattañ sank (oi uhicñ Davld nockefeitãIls--õEãfiñãñ-õf ùhè Board) -
as wetl as t'¡e ¡.tcÞonnell ¡\ircraft Corporation snd North ¡aeric¿n Àirlínes
{ðr,.:xer Rockèfetler interesl} - are spreEented on the comltteê of the
Defênsî lnðustry ÂdvlËory courctl (ÞIÀC) çhtch serves a5 â liaison group
trêtween the donègtic aru nanuf,acturera sd the tnternatiotal l,ogistics
negotiatione@ to lhe rn¡ernational securily
Àffaira Dlvislon ln the þ993993.
therefore re d.¡md the lmdiale reslgnatio¡ of ¡tl the Roskefellgrs fran
thê Soard of, anltê€3 of t}le ltu6eun qt ¡lodem Art.

alew Yo¡k, NovcÍiler 10. 1969

GUEAR¡¡.LÀ ÀNT ÀCITIO!{ GiOUP
Jon geldrlcks

FIGURE 74 Guerrilla Art Aclion Group, A Call for the lmmedtate Res¡gnation of Ail the Rockefellers
from the Board ofTrustees of the Museum of Modern Art, communiqué, 1969. Offset on paper,
81/2 x 11 ln. @ Guerrilla Arl Action Group.

efÏect a delivery method for the flyer, a way to circulate its point-by-point condem-
nation in as visible a manner possible. GAAG, it seems, was not quite convinced of
the power of disembodied information and simple paperwork to act as an explosive
political device; thefu investigation, however dutifully reported, rvas not meant to stand
alone. The visibility they craved was akin to journalism- Blood Bøthfunctioned with
a kind of excessive insistence on the evils of the institution precisely as it relied upon
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 1A7

and exploited the museum's networks of visibility. This action made sense only when
performed within the spaces of the museum; the institutional frame made GAAG's
critiques legible.
Direct quotation from journalistic sources vr'as also deployed in the AWC-designed
poster from 1969 entitled Q And Bøbies? A: And Bøbíes (co-designed by GAAG mem-
ber Hendricks; Plate z). This poster, which twinned a journalistic photograph of the
massacre at My Lai with excerpts from a television interview with one of the involved
soldiers, is perhaps the AWC's most well-known artifact and appears in most accounts
of their antiwar activism. But it also exists within aTarger project of the art workers'
political appropriation of information and news-both its words and its images. Its
arresting short phrases, juxtaposed with an explicit photograph of dead civilians, mal<e
it the most visually sophisticated political work created under the auspices of the AWC.
As with much effective sloganeering, its redundancyworks to great effect: the phrase
"and babies" appears twice, as question and affirmation, and acts like a rh¡hmic re-
minder of the presence of the smal1 children in the photograph.
The citation of information was a popular strategy for the AV7C. An anonymous
flyer fro:nr 1969 entitled 'AWC Research," for example, lists a series of statements
regarding acquisitions atthe Museum of Modern Art, including a statementbyboard
member David Rockefeller. Rockefeller comments that art is a "commercial under-
taking" and refers to art viewers as "customers" (Fig. 75). The flyer seeks, with un-
adorned quotes, to expose the classed nature oftaste. This is a protest poster as re-
search and reportage, and it rests on the perhaps naive hope that the bald information
it presents is enough to spark outrage-that investigative methods such as those ex-
posing the My Lai massacre to the U.S. public will incite shifts in policy.
This flyer foreshadows one of Haacke's major motifs, which is the reframing of
brief but damning quotations of institutional and corporate voices. ln ry75 Haacke
created his first examination of corporate patronage, On Socíøl Greøse.In this work,
Haacke photoengraved magnesium plaques with quotaiions from business leaders
and museum officials extolling the connections between business and the arts (Fig.

76). These direct quotes, as on the AWC's flyer, are presented without interpretive
commentary-and this marshalling of a strategic neutrality is a persistent mode of
operation in his work of this period, for both rely upon the citation of public infor-
mation. It is no surprise that the Rockefellers appear in the anonymous flyer, GAAG's
Blood Bøth, and Haacke's piece-they were at the heart of the AWC's critiques of the
connections between the museum, the state, and corporate interests in the Vietnam
V/ar. There is a similar logic of quotation in the AWC's protest poster, Blood Børh,
 The llluseum of Modern Ar{

fiocketeller, rsterring tó h¡5 convætion wlrh Diego Rivffi rsgêfding the ad¡st's ßural
for ñeketêller Centsr which ws æmñ¡s¡oned, re¡&ted ând laæt d6trôyed:
I f¡Mily eíd, "Look, D¡ego, w ìust can\ haw ¡h¡s. Art ìs frce ìn ¡ts
expæ¡afr, but thk ls Nl sørcthlng you're doìng fot yurclf, not fot
us príwte callætaß. îh¡s is a commea¡al undertakìng. lhe¡efare, we
have to da ûmsth¡ng that ¡s iot gp¡ng to ofîØd aur uttoeffi but
that ¡s go¡ng ta gìw them plwvre end joy, lnstæd, yw ircluded iust
about every *m¡t¡ve pdlít¡cal ard æl¡g¡ws ilb¡ect ít yøu ñap¡,"
- SockEfelle. at The Nry School, 1967
! am not M¡ly coilæmed w¡th what th' rt¡st me6 , , . .
- Soekefeller, New Yqk Tiû6
I buy aft mostly from etalogas . . . . I ehæk th¡ngÉ that I l¡ke.
Sffiet¡re the þ$ple at MAMA hëlp me ûræn th¡ngs taa.
- Nèlsn Rockefeller, Memb€r ot ahe Policy
Comilìttee for thE tollect¡ôn of Marteruorks, 1969

MAMA w8 nêrer ìntüded to be mercly a depæhary fõr att¡stic

ttffiures. tt ws cwce¡wd ês ah ¡nst¡tu|¡oñ ,hat would wark ¡n
and with the conmn¡ry v¡gotoutly part¡c¡pat¡ûg ¡n ¡ts lile.
- Rene d'Harnonæurt, Olræior oî Musflm
Collmions, 1954

ln Septñbët 1947. undq the tetøs of a famâl âgremerî betwæt

the lrtetopol¡taî Muæum of Ad and the Museû ol Madsn Art,
the Muwm of Moden Art æ¡d to the Meùapolllan twenty4íx
works âl@dy decmed "ôlas¡æ|," the p@eeds tó be 6ed fat the
purchæ of mare "maden" wotks.
- Alfred H. 8arr, Jr.

A. W. C. RËSËARCH

FIGURE 75 Art Workers' Coalition,

'AWC Research," flyer featuring
quotes about the lvluseum of Modern
Art trustees, ca. 1970. lmage courtesy
of the Lucy R. Lippard Papers, ca.
1940-2006, Archives of American Art, ;;rtl"'l iìíÌ lj.iloi"le¡]li$ :il{lit*Ðülñì, sltqll
Smithsonian lnstitution. :in'lho rill ôíln illç;:r (lkÐ(X â]ìi1 rì¡RUlþ1ê;i)ôns'fiT.å.
ll **r Ì;rovlçli: ¡ rltl;nì]rnn.f 1Ìiì}:r ðtiansiïê ,qilþilç1I}
FIcURE 76 Hans Haacke, On Social ¡ìi) i] ¡Ie¡r9i'119jíçf ToplilsÌìi-rR, :*n¡l nn
ïnprov*iJ rl!)lPOlðla :¡da¿| Ð.
Grease (detail), 1 975. Photoengraved
èìx} b!.jï(l .bÐTÌêi ,iç$ì0i¡$T
magnesium mounted on aluminum,
ç'¡3Ìrl.ail** ùJ *O¡ïpuny trÐr,l-iJillsl
77.2 x 76.2 cm panel. First exhibited at pirdæï .ö:Ì ilish gìrs,lry,
John Weber Gallery, New York, 1975. ¡hê ¿,?b.ð€n
Photograph by Walter Russell. @ 2009
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 189

and Haacke's later works, such as On Socíøl Greøse. As is detailed below, there are
further lines to be drawn more concretely to connect the AWC's methods of research
and Haacke's institutional critique.
Haacke produces his objects with great scrupulousness, and his materials are
always carefully selected. For On Sociøl Greøse, he specifically chose magnesium be-
cause it is the metal used to make newspaper engraving plates, and he made the
plaques to mimic commemorative markers that would be "at home in the lobby of
corporateheadquartersorintheboardroom."a6Inotherwords,with OnSociølGreøse,
Haacke appropriates the actual means and materials of journalism, as well as cor-
porate back-patting, aesthetically underlining their connection with the manufacflire
of "Infih."47 Haacke's attention to such details is important for recalibrating our un-
derstanding of his work not as the simple presentation of research but as a process
that extends, iconographically and literaþ out into the wider information world.
"Information'was a tremendously important concept for artists around the world
in the late r96os and early r97os. The trend toward art as journalism was famously
institutionalized by the MoMA show Inforrnøtion, curaledby Kynaston McShine and
on vie\M a few short months after the Art Strike of May ry7o (luly zo-September
zo). Inforrnøtionwas the first international suwey of conceptual art at a major U.S.
museum, and it suggested a relationship between word- and photo-based art and a

larger world of signs, messages, and global communications. The exhibition was
viewed by many in the AWC as a bit of an olive branch, if not an outright concession
to their demands for more input into museum exhibitions, for it included many within
the AWC ranks. For instance, extending the process he had originated in the 1968
minimalism for peace benefit exhibit, LeViitt paid four draftsmen $4.oo an hour, for
four hours a day, for four days, to make a colored-pencil wall drawing.
The catalog was seen as an extension of the show (rather than mere documenta-
tion) and a work in its own right. The front and back covers are composed of a grid
of mass media devices and vehicles of speed, including a Volkswagen Beetle, com-
puter, telephone, television screen, typewriteç radio, and steamship, all rendered in
harsh high contrast under a screen of dot-matrixJike circles that reference a Marshall
Mcluhan pattern-recognition test. At the center of the back cover is a teletype ma-
chine of the sort Haacke used in Na.us (Fig.ZZ). The catalog includes free-form artists'
entries, the curator's essay, and a nearþ fifty-page section that brings together, un-
captioned, images culled from a diverse range of sources, from Godard film stills to
Duchamp playing chess. Within this conceptual photo essay one finds shots of the
moon landing, spreads from the New York Times, and photographs of mass demon-
 190 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

FIGURE 77 lnformation, edited

by Kynaston L. McShine (New
York: Museum of Modern Art,
1970), back cover The Museum
of lvlodern Art Library, New York. I
Digital lmage @ The Museum of
Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/ j
Art Resource, NY

strations and protests. One page includes reproduction of the AWC's Q And Bøbies?
a

poster (Fig. 78) alongside ads announcing promotional materials for galleries in Mi-
lan and Stod<holm; the contrast of this artistic cosmopolitanism, complete with a

blonde woman, her bared breasts accessorized by a chunky chain necklace, and the
gruesome Vietnam massacre scene could not be more stark. These images-some of
which were also installed within the show itself-made the claim that the exhibition
was a compendium of timel¡ political "documents" rather than arhvorks. The inclu-
sion of such antiwar images, moreover, appeared to be a response on the part of the
museum to the art workers' desire for art institutions to take a stand on the war.
At the entrance to the show stood Haacke's MOMA-Poll, which asked viewers their
opinions about New York governor Nelson Rockefeller's support of the Vietnam Wãr.
This work consisted of two transparent ballot boxes, aesthetically reminiscent of the
Condensøtion Cube, seI up under a printed sign reading: "Would the fact that Gover-
nor Rockefeller has not denounced President Nixon's Indochina policy be a reason
for you not to vote for him in Novemberl" (Plate rz). Viewers were issued color-coded
ballots keyed to their fee status; thus the distinct responses of full-fare visitors, mem-
bers, guest-pass holders, and those who came on the museum's free day were clearly
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I f91

tueky

TÉn6iilm
kwld!
w

FIGURE 7a lnformation, edited by

Kynaston L. l\,4cshine (New York:
Museum of Modern Art, 1970), page
142. Offset, printed in colo¡ 10 x 3/a x
8% in. The Museum of Modern Aft
Library, New York. Digital lmage @
The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed
by SCALA/ArI Resource, NY

visible. (The free day had been instituted that prior February as a direct result ofthe
AWC; Haacke wanted to make evident how such a day affected the museum's visi-
torship, in both numbers and political persuasion.) Each ballot triggered a counting
device that tallied the results, and there was a horizontal chart panel next to the bal-
lot boxes where a daiþ number count was entered. The precise taþ mattered a great
deal to Haacke, for he felt going into the show that the public opinion it registered
was by no means a foregone conclusion. But the exact numbers on the graph became
somewhat irrelevant as the ballots piled up inside the clear boxes, with final results-
25,566 voting yes, rr,563 voting no-showing the large majority (69 percent) voting
"yes" (indicating, counterintuitively, a vote against Rockfeller). Where Haacke had pre-
viously used animals like birds and chickens in his experimental art, now museum
viewers were the guinea pigs.
Rockefeller was at that time a high-profile member of the MoMA board of trustees.
One of the AWC's most insistentþ voiced arguments related to the direct links be-
t\,veen art institutions and the Vietnam War. As Carl Andre put it, "It is a pretense of
the museum that they are an apolitical organizalion . . . The board of trustees are
exactly the same people who devised American foreign policy over the last 25 years.
 192 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

Man for man they are the same."48 Haacke's poll sought to make those connections
overt. With this critique, he took the museum somewhat by surprise. He told Mc-
Shine only that he was going to conduct a viewer poll and did not supply him in ad-
vance with the question.4e In the catalog, he stated only that it would be "an either-
or question referring to a current socio-political issue."so Museum director fohn
Hightower, coming out of a beleaguered first six months in his tenure (characterized
primarily by the persistence and ferocity of the AWC's animosity), did not \ryant to
have another Art Strike-type fight on his hands. He decided that not allowing the
work in the show would cause more controversy than letting it stand, so he fought
for its inclusion, even as Governor Rockefeller lodged serious objections to it.
Hightower recalled receiving a phone call after the show opened from the gover-
nor asking him to "kil1that element of the exhibition."sl Hightower wrote back that
Haacke's Poll was "not inconsistent with the role of provocateur that artists enjoy."s2
He went on to note that it would be to Rockefeller's credit if he allowed himself to
be criticized openly, and he exhorted Rockefeller to respect the long-standing tradi
tion of the museum as a place of free speech. The fact that the AWC was sparked by

an incident concerning artists' rights was not lost on Hightower, and his corespon-
dence with Rockefeller underscores that the Inforrnøtion show was in many respects
meant to appease the AWC.
V/hile the MOMA-Poll targets the links between the museum's overseeing board
and the Vietnam War and is considered a foundational moment in the artistic move-
ment of "institutional critique, " its inclusion also bespeaks a certain tolerance toward
critique within the institution. Its inclusionin Informøtionis not simply a lesson in
what Marcuse termed in 1965 "repressive tolerance," the notion that to "tolerate" sub-
versive dissent effectively renders such subversion inefÏective.s3 Art museums do not
see themselves as the conservative antagonists to radical artists, but neither do they

always identify as neutraþ "apolitical," as Andre would have it. Art institutions have
instead long fostered an understanding of themselves as actively, progressively søp-
pofüng artistic and political avant-gardes, not just putting up with them. Marcuse's
repressive tolerance is perhaps less helpful here than Michel Foucault's govern-
mentality, which theorizes that an institution's benevolence, or active political en-
it shapes complicit citizenship.sa But the insti-
gagement, helps refine its power as
tution's response was uneven-neither totally tolerant nor totally antagonized.
Museums such as MoMA and the Metropolitan did occasionaþ respond to art work-
ers' demonstrations with strong,armed, even violent tactics-threatening lawsuits,
issuing injunctions, or resorting to physical violence (as was the case with the cock-
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 193

roach protest). In some instances, struggles between museum security and art work-
ers led to bodily injury. The state also at times responded to the art workers with re-
pressive force, as when it arrested three art workers (Hendricks, Toche, and Ring-
gold) for defaming the flag in r97o during rhe FIøg Showheld at fudson Memorial
Church.
Haacke has insisted that his polls are framed to be as objective as possible, inten-
tionaþ phrased so as not to prejudice the answer-this is part of his wider quasi
empirical sociology. As he wrote inrgTr, "Following standard polling practices, I tried
to frame the questions so that they do not assert a political stance, are not inflam-
matory and do not prejudice the answers."ss But one unnamed author in ttre Science

Tirnes criricized+he MOMA-Pollfor its badly leading, biased question and singled it
out as a negative example about how to skew po1ls.s6 Its confusing phrasing, the "not"
then "not" double negative adding up to a strange kind of affirmation-"Yes, I will
not vote for Rockefeller"-does not so much mine the rhetoric of pollsters as make
that rhetoric somewhat absurd. Perhaps Haacke's strategic neutralit¡ his careful por-
trayal of himself as utterly objective, allowed him to smuggle in critique under the
guise of science. Even with its insistence on the exact toting up of statistics, its data
exist primarily as a succinct visual field-because of these transparent boxes, we know
the results at a glance. The exact numbers themselves are less important than the
clutter of multihued tickets, meant to signal classed electoral leanings.
The MOMA-Poll harnessed viewer participation for a specific end: produced just
months prior to an election, it mimicked the procedures of voting to make public the
audience's (as well as the museum's) political affiliations. Because the ballots were
cast into two separate boxes, viewers had to signal visibly their positions if they wished
to participate, thus perverting the privacy of the voting booth. There are few in situ
photographs of the poll in action; the one most widely reproduced features a woman,
her loosely upswept hair and glasses silhouetted against the white wall, casting her
ballot clearly in the left, or "yes" box as a man next to her reads Haacke's question
(Fig.ZÐ.(It was surely intentional to place the antiwar box on the lefi.l The inclu-
sion of two figures here highlights that her choice is open, or readable, to anyone in
the gallery; Haacke's desire for transparency is extended from the question itself-
which brings to light a relation between the state and the museum-to the viewer's
political leanings.
By physically siting his works within the spaces he criticized, Haacke established

a dependency on the museum context. The poll fell under the category "art" while
performing a critique of the very place that granted it this art status. He felt his work
 194 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

&*s:ü'

A.ss,€r,

fþ,
&c¡6tiç[tdfi
itìrd
¡úad¡id{be

FIGURE 79 Hans Haacke,

MOMA- Poll, 1 970. lnteractive
¡nstallation with clear plastic
voting boxes, text panel, chart
of results, aI lnformation
exhibition, Museum of l\4odern
Art, 1970. Photograph by Hans
Haacke. @ 2009 Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York/VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

had more clarity and efficacy when it was located within institutions as opposed to
outside them. As he said in r97r, "The MOMA-Pollhad even more energy in the mu-
seum than it would in the street-real socio-political energ¡ not awe-
have had
inspiring symbolism."sT This is indicative of how some art workers of the AWC
focused on art institutions as the arenas for publicity and protest, rather than di-
recting their antiwar energies out in the public sphere (as in, sa¡ the ;966 Peøce

Tower). As Hilton Kramer wrote in the early rgTos, "The museum has become one
of the crucial battlegrounds upon which the problems of democratic culture are be-
ing decided."s8
The Inforrnøtion show was a controversial effort on the part of MoMA to further
mine this "battleground."se In his withering critique of the exhibition, I(ramer
mocked the idea that the most politically relevant thing for artists to do was ':to go to
town with the Xerox machine," and he lambasted it as "unmitigated nonsense. . .
tripe . . . an intellectual scanda1."60 The leftist art critic and AV/C member Gregory
Battcock, however, felt that protest, not art, was the loser in this particular fight. He
claimed that the works in Inþrynøtion became absorbed and neutralized within the
frame of the museum: "The art works have to be made specifically for the Museum
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 195

of Modern Art, and that's what's \ryrong. They should have been made øgøínst it."6t
Battcock's notion of accommodating versus adversarial art drew from his engage-
ment at this time with the writings of Marcuse, and he saw the exhibit as a clear ex-
ample of repressive tolerance. Because the works ín Infomnøtiolr respond to the site
of the museum but do not interrupt its daily functioning, according to Battcock, they
are not "abusive" enough to their context. Instead, "The potential of a negative con-
frontation is wasted."
In an unmistakable (yet unattributed) reference to Marcuse, he states that art should
"widen the gap that already exists between that which is and a vision of what can
be."62 This directly echoes Marcuse's vision for an art that sustains "a dialectical unity
between what is and what can (and ought to) be."63 While he maintained that the lru-

forrnøtion show fell short of the mark, Battcock did in other instances embrace the
radical negation of conceptualism, particularly as it instanced its own decommod-
ification.6a Haacke's knowledge management in the MOMA-Poll suffered under
Battcock's loose Marcusian reading, as it concerned itself with unmasking present
conditions rather than offering a "prefigurative" vision of a utopian world, to use Mar-
cuse's phrase.
For many in the AV/C, in fact, the Informøtioru show did not go far enough. The
word itself was picked up and resignified on an Art Strike protest flyer that hails the
viewer with a cacophony of fonts, some intentionally outdated like an old-fashioned
printed handbill, undiluted by any images as it lays out its six-point accusations:
"INFORMATION! INFORMAIION! r. You are involved in the murderous devasta-
tion of S.E. Asia." (Fig. 8o). It goes on to detail racism, sexism, and repression and
implicate the viewer-"You are involved unless you stop it!"-and the museum in
which the flyer presumably circulated. This, it seems to suggest, is the real information
that matters, not the show up on the walls of the institution, which might distract
from the cause.
Though for a critic like Ikamer the Inforrnøtioru show represented a near-collapse
of art into propaganda, some art workers viewed all image-based art as insufficient
in the face of the war. An unsigned sketch from r97o lays out a dream of a wholly
transformed museum in which art has been totally evacuated to make room for news
(Fig. 8r). Here visitors are confronted with a statement about the museum's stance
against the war, flanked by movie screens on opposing walls with projected footage
of, on the left side, protests against the war, including films of peace marches and
demonstrations, and, on the right, atrocities of racial injustice, war, and repression.
This directed, even propagandistic, information is in the service of tøking ø stønd (even
 ]f@{, &re ãrswæEned
-repressíota ¿'2
ot. horme
FIcURE ao "lnformation!" Art
Strike flyer, 1970. lmage courtesy
of the Lucy R. Lippard Papers, ca. sræ ãmwæåc?æd
1940-2006, Archives of American
Art, Smithsonian lnstitution. b'E g@s'r'

FIGUBE 8r sketch for museum

featuring announcement that it
"takes the following stance
against the war," unsigned, ca.
1 970. Pen on paper, 81/2 11 in.
r¡¡use¡¡nn ls'also
"
lmage courtesy of the Lucy R.
Lippard Papers, ca. 1940-2006,
Archives of American Art,
Smithsonian lnstitution.

T^ N d:L
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 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 197

though the sign in the middle of the room stops short of actually prescribing what
that stand is). In this sketch there cannot be enough information. As Lil Picard wrote
in the wake of the Art Strike, with its protest on the steps of the Metropolitan: 'Art
now enters a new phase. In the future Art will be the political information of tmth.
V/hat happened since about four weeks in the galleries and museums of New York
is a new Art Form. . . . In the coming year this kind of Information-Art will be the
one in which America will be again a leading force."6s
Such a vision had some basis in reality. On the day of the Art Strike in May r97o,
the fewish Museum let artists set up information tables with antiwar literature, eÊ
fectively obviating its function as an art museum, and MoMA launched a special pho-
tography exhibit in earþ May that included recent pictures by Garry Winogrand of
the hard-hat riots. The sketch of the politicized museum also echoes one of the most
coherent attempts of any artists' group in the r96os to merge art, information, and
politics: the Rosario Group's :1968 Tucumó.n Arde (Tucumá.n Bums), discussed in Chap-
ter 4. Many in this Argentine group advocated the abandonment of art in favor of
social research; Iacoby, one of the artists who used a telex as a medium, was involved
in the Rosario Group and was clearly continuing his interest in the possibilities of
art in the service of propaganda. The Rosario Group s move out of the art world and
into the union hall had few parallels in the U.S. context; the sketch in Figure 8r
instead envisions a recuperated museum pushed beyond tolerance or "neutrality," a
fantasy museum turned into a propaganda machine. Recall the January 1969 flyer
issued by Takis that inaugurated the AWC: "Let us unite, artists with scientists, stu-
dents with workers, to change these anachronistic situations [museums] into infor-
mation centres for all artistic activities."66
While minimal art was pressed into an antiwar context in Lippard's 1968 benefit
show at the Paula Cooper Gallery, there also existed a tension within the AWC re-
garding the status of object making in general as a political project. The drawing shows
amore far-rangingnegationof artthanthealleged evaporationof artenactedbycon-
ceptualism.67 Such a fantasy of the museum becoming an information center per-
haps also highlights a widespread feeling about the irrelevance of traditional artistic
making. ln ry69 Cindy Nemser reported a "revolution of artists" in which "rnaîy
young artists are refusing to make art objects" and described it as "closely related
to the iconoclastic and egalitarian impulses that motivate students causing up-
heavals on campuses all overthe world."68 If "painting," "objects," and "images" were
deemed insufficient, some in the AWC still believed that idea art, or text-based con-
ceptualism, might be effective. The dematerialized efforts of conceptual art and po-
 198 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

litical performance were, in some respects, generated by this tension. It is by now

common to link the dematerialization of art to the political imperatives of the era-
foseph l(osuth was merely the most succinct when in rg71he called conceptual art
"the art of the Vietnam war."6e Kosuth made the connections between conceptual art
and the war not on iconographic grounds but on ideological ones, since both con-
ceptual art and the Vietnam War era shattered some of the foundational myths of
modernism, which put its faith in art's ahistoricity and autonomy. He wrote in ry75
of the end of a movement of which he had been a major parL, one that had struggled
to come to terms with the wreckage of modernism by emphasizing intellectual
processes. This emphasis on conceptual process had been meant to challenge art's
dependence on the market; thus the "death' of conceptual art came when it was ab-
sorbed by the institution. Still, conceptualism's linguistic basis and purported re-
sistance to the market-even when recognized as partial and compromised-was
seen by many as a reaction against, if not an antidote to, mediatized spectacle.
Tellingly, the sketch of the museum as information center shows no static artworks
at all, only ruovingirnøges, and the museum has become a hotline to mass-media in-
formation. Perhaps granting immediacy and urgency to film and television rather
than art was a response to the feeling that the mediatization of culture was fast eclips-
ing artistic interventions. As McShine puts it in his essay for the exhibition catalog
Infownøtion, 'An artist certainly cannot compete with a man on the moon in the liv-
ing room."70 McShine's view that art had been overwhelmed by televisual spectacle
was widespread. Lippard comments even more forcefully that 'Abbie Hoffman (as
The Drørnø Rwíew and other sources have known for some time and the media are
beginning to appreciate fully), the Weathermen bombings, Charlie Manson, the storm-
ing of the Pentagon, are far more eflective as radical art than anything artists have
yet concocted. The event-structure of such works gives them a tremendous advan-
tage over the most graphic of the graphic arts."71 Lippard lists a series of extreme,
even violent events, nominating them as "efiective radical art" precisely because they
make such good television. An oft-rehearsed pronouncement regarding the Vietnam
War is that it was waged via images: on television, in the newspaper, as graphics and
posters. It was, to cite Michael Arlen, the first "living-room war."72 While this well-
worn phrase has become a cliché, there are crucial ways in which contemporary wars
qre lhose of conflicting visual propaganda. "Politics" has become arì arena of man-
aged spectacle, careful publicity, and tactical performance. Rather than strategize about

how to make meaningful interventions in this "war of images," many artists in the
late r96os and r97os often chose To stop making aft-or at least to stop displaying it
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 199

(as in the Art Strike). Quasi-journalistic institutional critique offered itself as one al-
ternative for artists seeking \À/ays to intervene in this war of information.
Informøtion was MoMAs major attempt to address some of the issues regarding
the politicization of art raised by the AWC. The museum was under pressure not
only to take a stand on the Vietnam War, and to "democratize" itself in terms of its
audience, but also to show more contemporary, experimental art. Although the AWC
included many representational and abstract painters such as Nancy Spero and Leon
Golub, the Inforunøtíon show clearly linked political activism with conceptual art. In
the catalog, McShine's curatorial essay made this clear, famously referencing not only
the Vietnam War and Kent State but global repression and military dictatorships:

Ifyou are an artist in Brazil, you know of at least one friend who is being tortured; ifyou
are one in Argentina, you probably have had a neighbor who has been in jail for having
long haia or for not being "dressed' properly; and if you are living in the United States,
you may fear that you will be shot at, either in the universities, in your bed, or more for-
malþ in Indochina. It may seem too inappropriate, if not absurd, to get up in the morn-
ing, walk into a room, and apply dabs of paint from a little tube to a square of canvas.
What can you as a young artist do that seems relevant and meaningfirl?73

The medium of painting receives the most scathing attack here, reduced to the ab-
surdly ineffective application of "dabs of paint." After suggesting that the medium
of painting is bankrupt-one suspects abstraction is his specific target-McShine
offers up an alternative in its place: the open-ended conceptual art on display in In-

forrnøtion,whose meaning was completed by the viewer. The new "relevant" art there-
fore hinged on the concept not only of "information' but of "participation."
Participation was widely embraced circa r97o as a tool, along with information, to
democratize art. This was forcefirlly conveyed in the context of the Informøtion show
(Adrian Piperk contribution was a set of empty notebooks for viewers to fill) and its
catalog, which included a blank page for readers to write on, encouraging them to
make their own marks and thus nominating them as co-creators (Fig. 8z). Pøfücipø-
tionhadmultiple meanings in the late r96os and earþ r97os; we sa\M in Chapter 3
how it resonated in connection to democratic openness. Further, as artists embraced
the idea of the spectator "completing" the work of art, so too did participation become
an influentialbuzzwordwithin labor management. Writers such as Paul Blumberg
in his 1968 book Industriøl Democrøcy: The Sociology of Pørtícipøtion argued that al-
lowing workers a modicum of input at their jobs, even if highly limited, would in-
crease worþlace satisfaction.Ta In the late r96os and early rgTos,just as artists in-
 2OO I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

FlcuRE 82 lnformat¡on, edited by Kynaston L. McShine (New York: Museum of lvlodern Art,
1970), page 181 . The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York. Digital lmage @ The Museum
of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/ArI Resource, NY

vested in audience participation as a way out of modernist alienation, factories were

reorgarizing around the principle of participation. Many commentators saw reme-
dies for worker dissatisfaction rooted in gïeater work freedom and "psychic benefits"
such as "job enlargement, enrichment, rotating work groups or teams, worker par-
ticipation, and the removal of time clocks."Ts For instance, a new Proctor and Gam-
ble factory, unveiled in ry69, was heralded for its "open' floor plan and its focus on
despecialization. Workers were touted as having unprecedented control in this new
environment that fostered "industrial democracy."76
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPËRWORK I 2O.I

That artists most often gave viewers small, controlled arenas in which to partici-
pate suggests a possible analogue between participatory art and this new model of
corporate management. Haacke's poll is on some level indicative of this. To be sure,
the viewer participates in his work as she votes; in fact, the art relies upon the reg-
istry of those acts of participation. Yet this participation is reduced to an either/or
choice (such are the sadly limited choices of democracy in the United States). The
limited arena of the blank Infonnøtion catalog page, too, is a somewhat disingenu-
ous, even hollow gesture. These catalogs have a brisk trade on rare book sites, but
how many include the caveat "includes handwritten comments"l
Moreover, the concept of notpøfücipøtingwas taking the globe by storm in this era:
general strikes in France, student strikes in Mexico, the U.S. "labor revolt" of spring
r97o, as well as the movement against the Vietnam War and the women's movement
with their myriad moratoriums, boycotts, walkouts, and shutdowns. As Barbara Rose
noted in ry6g, "If no object is produced, there is nothing to be traded on the com-
mercial market . . . Such non-cooperation can be seen as reflective of certain politi-
cal attitudes. It is the esthetic equivalent of the wholesale refusal of the young to par-
ticipate in compromised situations (e.g. the Vietnam war)."77 Dematerialization is
here posited as a direct consequence ofthe wider noncooperation and "refusal to par-
ticipate" evidenced in the burning of draft cards and student strikes. Such refusals
were occurring throughout the international art world. Recall the boycott of the Ar-
gentinean exhibit juried by Lippard and f ean clay in 1968. The Argentine artists who
withdrew from that contest issued a letter of protest that explicitþ referred to the idea
of "nonparlicipation. "
As with the Art Strike, the language of withdrawal in some circumstances was even
more politically compelling than that of participation. While Haacke believed that art
critical of the institution needed that institutional context for its impact to registeç he
also at times withheld his work from exhibition. For instance, he withdrew from the
1969 São Paulo Biennial to protest the military regime inBtaziT, writing that he did
not wish to be "an accomplice of the U.S. Government. . . . I believe that any exhibit
organized and in the name of the U.S. government abroad is a public relations job for
this govemment and has the potential to divert attention away from its machinations
and the war in Vietnam."78 As with the Art Strike, noncooperation \ryas seen as a strat-
egy for artists who understood the ethical consequences of circulating their art.
In addition, there was an even grimmer counterpoint to the optimism of partici-
pation on the rise in the r96os: corporate particþation. This was to be more influential
for Haacke's art than the idea of audience involvement as a way to foster (in some
 202 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

general sense) democracy. Note the word choice in the patron's statement for the 1969
exhibition Wen Attitudes Become Form. "We at Philip Morris feel it is appropriate
thatwe participate in bringing these works to the attention of the public."Te Likewise,
when Maurice Tuchman's 1969 exhibit ArtøndTechnologyatthe Los Angeles County
Museum of Art lauded how "private industry is publicþ involved in the creating of
art works," a skeptical reviewer queried, 'Are any of the participating corporations
manufacturing for the American war machinel"so The term p øfücipøtion could span
a range of meanings, from "active viewer engagement" to "partnerships with in-
.i
dustry," connoting corrupt influence from the military-industrial complex. a.

,.t
In ry67 David Rockefeller founded the Business Committee for the Arts to help : I
]:
i

"stimulate, encourage, and advise" corporate interest in the arts, and with "ninety !

corporate leaders as charter members, they raised $825,ooo."81 Rockefeller's com- ì:

mittee was one of the earliest attempts by museum boards to court the sponsorship I

of industries , andby the time the AWC was formed in ry69, artists were increas- ;

':
j

ingly aware that museums, particularþ the Whitney, the Metropolitan, and the Mod-
ern, answered to corporate patrons. The artist as worker was annexed into this cor-
1

porate model as the museum was seen as increasingly continuous with industry.
:

Within this climate, Haacke's art-as-document-gathering (which he declared acted as

a "double agent") could also be termed "whistle-blowing": that is, acting to under- :

mine his workplace.

J

.
:

Journalism
a

Haacke continued his appropriation of investigative journalism inhis

:

Shøpolsky et

ø1. Mønhøttøn ReøI Estøte Holdings, ø Reøl-Tirne Sociøl System, øs of Møy t, tgV. For ¡

this piece, Haacke spent weeks combing the New York County Clerk's Office and go- i

ing through newspapeïs to track each property owned by the Harry Shapolsky fam-
j

ily and its associates-one of the largest owners of run-down properties in areas such :

as the Lower East Side and Harlem. He then photographed the facades of these r4z
1

buildings and assembled accompanying data sheets that listed, among other facts, ..

address, lot size, building code, date of acquisition, holding title, and assessed tax a

I
value (Fig. 83). The piece also included two maps of these properties and six charts ì

outlining business transactions such as sales and mortgages, criss-crossed with a :

dizzyingweb of lines. The photo and text blocks are usually installed in a thick, rec- :

tangular band around the museum space, but the work was originally intended to be i

;
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 203

FIGURE 83 Hans Haacke, Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Rea|Estate Hold¡ngs, a Real-Time Socra/ System,
as of May 1, 1971, delail, 1971 . lnstallation with 142 black-and-white photographs, 142 typewritten cards,
2 excerpts from New York City maps, 6 charts, detail. Photograph by Fred Scruton. @ 2009 Artists Rights
Society (ARS), NewYork/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

placed on a speciaþ built shelf on the curved, inner railing of the Guggenheim Mu-
seum's spiraling rotunda, as part of Haacke's one-person exhibit in r97r.82
This merging of architecture and artwork never happened, for Haacke's show was
canceled before it went on view and its curator, Edward Fr¡ who had worked closely
with Haacke, was fired.83 Shøpolsley andits subsequent censorship by the Guggenheim
Museum have been widely discussed elsewhere.sa Haacke's process in the making of
this piece was painstaking: he spent weeks combing through the New York County
Clerk's Office to track down how Shapolsky was in fact not an individual but a group
and to report its selling and exchanging of mortgages. Combining the pictures-
assiduously photographed in straightforward documentary fashion-with the data
sheets for each property, Haacke produced a mountain of information regarding the
spaces of power and capital in Manhattan. Grace Glueckhas commented on "his dili
gence and skill as an investigative reporter." She continues, "Had Haacke not devoted
himself to art, he might have become an exemplary journalist."ss In fact, a Villøge
Voice arltcle used Haacke's research as a basis for designating the Shapolsky group
as one of the worst slumlords in New York. (The artist's research proved useful in
other contexts. Haacke's similar piece on the holdings of landlord Sol Goldman
 204 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

piqued the interest of the New York Police Department in their investigation of Gold-
man's partner's possible Mafia connections. Haacke recalls going to an unmarked
police building and having the police make copies of all of his records.)86
Shøpolsky et øl.was denounced by Guggenheim director Thomas Messer as noth-

ing but a "muckraking venture."87 That Messer saw the work as mere journalism-
and hence not art-justified his cancellation of Haacke's show. Messer suggested that,
with its simple listing of facts and its black-and-white photography, Shøpols'lq lacked
even the bare minimum of effort and aesthetics. Messer's press statement about the
cancellation of the show argued that Haacke's work was unacceptable because of its
"reduction of the work of art from its potential metaphoric level to a form of photo
journalism concernedwith topical statements ratherthanwith spnbolic expression."ss
Haacke had refused to raise mere information up to the level of artistic discourse,
whichwas predicated, in Messer's view, on metaphor and "symbolic expression." But
with his invocation of "muckraking, " Messer also alluded to misleading "yellow" jour-
nalism that gave the lie to journalism's supposed autonomy or political neutrality. It
was a contradictory accusation-Haacke's information was tainted by prejudice but
also too unmediated, "unworked." Messer's main contention was that there was not
enough conventional artistic skill in Shøpolsky. Haacke's data, then, were seen as lit-
eral 1'ournalism that disregarded the diflerence between a museum wall and a news-
paper; location was at stake. The issue of the appropriate space or site of such ma-
terial was a bit of a smokescreen, of course, ftorn the larger problem the museum
had with the potentially libelous exposure of these slumlords with thefu dummy cor-
porations and shady dealings. The Shapolsþs were not literally afEliated with the
Guggenheim, as is often erroneously thought. Instead, as Fredric fameson notes, the
museum's objectionmayhavepartly stemmedfromits sense of a shared "ruling class
ideology" with the Shapolsky family.8e
In the face of these attacks regarding "muckraking," Haacke asserted that there
was "no evaluative comment" in this work.eo Both Messer and Haacke mobilized the
notion of unadorned facts to different purposes. Haacke maintained that his infor-
mation was utterþ "neuIra7," claiming that since "the facts would speak for them-
selves, no validating commentary has accompanied the factual information."el This
v/as meant to rescue the work from accusations that it was an open indictment. Messer,

on the other hand, saw the work's lack of interpretive material as cause to deny its
status as art. At stake in the fracas over Shøpolsþ was, in part, the relative visibility
of conceptual artistic labor. Messer's claim that Haacke's work lacked evident effort,
or was "found" (sans any surplus value from the imaginative or aesthetic work of the
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 205

artist) reduced his labor to an act of nomination, or, better, anaclof displøcement:Ihe
information had simply been moved from the clerk's office to the gallery space.
Haacke maintained that his information was in some sense pure reference, utterly
without mediation. But even as the mountain of paperwork here referred to the mind-
numbing accounting characteristic of information management, fact finding, data
processing, or investigative reporling, Haacke was not strictly committed to truth. In
fact he offered to substitute a fictitious name for Harry Shapolsþ (Hawey Schwartz)
when the show first came under fire, potentiaþ severing the information from its
referent altogether (although retaining the referent's shadow by keeping the same
initials and by using a similarly fewish-sounding last name).e2 Haacke's "facIicrty"
(to use Buchloh's term) is often taken as a given, even though }lis MOMA-Poll asks a
leading question, and even though the Shapolsþ piece is guided by subjective choices
about what data are selected, how they are compiled, and how they are presented.
His aspiration to what Bourdieu calls transcendental objectivity is actually a compli-
cated pose of transparency-a strategic neutrality-to protect his art from the charge
that it is only photodocumentation or, worse, propaganda (as if documentary pho-
tography were at all simple or as if these categories were discrete).
One of the overarching claims of this book is that many arbists organized around
the moniker a.rt u)orker even though evident, traditional labor was somewhat evacu-
ated from their art. Conceptual art, in particular, was seen as the negation of work.
In the late r96os, Kosuth asserted that to speak of a "conceptual work of art" was a
contradiction in terms; he preferred the term ørt proposition.e3 This reflects what has
been termed the "deskillin g" of art, or the denial of conventional artistic work. Artis-
tic work, however, did not deskill as much as reskill: that is, it did not disappear but
ratherwas converted from the production of conventional aesthetic effects into other
kinds of endeavors. What marks Shøpolsky is how explicit it makes Haacke's labori-
ous mapping. The piece is above all a record of intense research; the photos, partic-
ularþ produce an index of Haacke's time-consuming itinerary, which involved
trekking all over Manhattan. There is no lack of effort here. Rather, this work sug-
gests a surfeit of it, an overwhelming assemblage of documents that serves as a tran-
scription of mental and bodiþ work. It is a documentation of an extreme performance
of labor, not McShine's "dabs of paint" but the collection of information.
To what extent, however, is this information usable by the casual viewer? The data
lack a filter to direct the viewer's attention; there is, to draw from the language of
journalism, no "lede" here. Haacke does not so much "refuse" work or process as re-
fuse to make it easily digestible. As Buchloh has commented, Haacke's work not only
 206 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

FIGURE 84 Art Workers'

Coalition protest at the
Guggenheim Museum after the
cancellation of Hans Haacke's
show, May 1 , 1971 . Left to right:
Yvonne Rainer, Jan van Raay, ând
Jon Hendricks. Photographer
unknown. Courtesy of Hans
Haacke.

FIGURE 85 Art Workers

Coalition protesters form a conga
line after the cancellation of
Haacke's exhibition, Guggenheim
Museum rotunda, l\Aay 1, 1971 .
Photograph @ Jan van Raay.

"demands new skills" at the level of the artist's production-its abandonment of the
traditional procedures of aesthetic art maldng-but also makes demands of its view-
ers, asking them to interpret and filter information.ea Mark Godfrey remarks that
Shøpolslq's usual double-banded configuration makes it "difficult for the viewer to
see the whole work at once."es Imagine how much more impossible to grasp it would
have been if installed as originally intended, curling up the Guggenheim's rotunda,
forming a spiral that could be taken in only when viewers wound their way up or
down the length of the ramp.
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 2O7

There is something eccentric or even excessive about all these facts and figures and
photos and somewhat bewildering charts. These formal choices underscore how con-
tingent the work is upon repetition and seriality-not so far from Hanne Darboven s

gridded panels that overwhelm gallery spaces or the webbed lines of LeWitt's wall
drawings. The shimmering grids of LeWitt, for instance, though made in accordance
with a written set of instructions, when executed exceed those directions, producing
visual supplements, aesthetic eflects that cannot be contained by the rigor of those
systems. Such repetition, as Briony Fer has argued, is "never the preserve of the 1og-
ícal and the rational."e6 It is critical that we cannot as yiewers take in all of Shøpolslq,
that it exceeds comprehension and spills out of the tidy frame of "mere" journalism.
This excess somewhat beyond the rational is also seen in Haacke's overflow on view
as well in his large heaps of paper churning from the telex; all these charts and lines
effect an ømplif.cøtion of banality that brings with it an affective charge.
In the wake of the show's cancellation and the firing of Fry, art workers mobilized
against the museum. Petitions were circulated to censure Messer, angry letters were
written, and the Guggenheim briefly overtook MoMA as the most demonized art in-
stitution in New York. Over one hundred art workers signed a petition refusing to
have dealings with the museum, including Andre, Morris, and Lippard. As Donald

fudd telegrammed to Messer, "I don t see how I or anyone can ever show anything
inthe Guggenheirn' (apositionthat, predictably, didnotlastlong).e7 Aflyea designed
by Carl Andre for the AWC and lettered in his signature blocky font, called for artists
to demonstrate at the Guggenheim. Th"y assembled in the lobby with posters de-
claring "Free Art !" and proceeded to join in a conga line-which itself mimicked the
spiraling form of the museum-that was led up the ramp by dancer Yvonne Rainer,
seen here to the left of photographer |an van Raay and Hendricks (Fig. 84). In this
protest dance, the artists circled the space where Haacke's photos and texts would
have been (and where two installers had already begun building the low, broad shelf
on the railing). This bodily motion, with its own delights and sensuous pleasures
even in the midst of the protest's real anger, reminds us that "work" is never a sim-
ple matter of remuneration or process or effort but is accompanied by an affective
register that includes the production of social emotion. The overflow, this eccentric
supplement, to Haacke's procedures hints to a move beyond journalism or data into
the realm of excess, illogic, and free form. The conga line, which includes children
walking hand in hand with adults as they spin around the ground floor of the Guggen-
heim, littering it with flyers as a camera crew captures the action, reminds us that
while labor was important to the art worker, so was radical play (Fig. 85).
 2OA I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

Propaganda

The cancellation of the Guggenheim show further impelled Haacke to investigate

how museums r¡/ere beholden to industry-connected trustees and corporate spon-
sors. In ry74,he produced Solomon R. Guggenheirn Museum Boørd. of Trustees, awork
that outlined board members' corporate afñliations, linking them to companies such
as the Kennecott Copper Company, which had played a central role in the brutal over-
throw of democratically elected Chilean president Salvador Allende in 1973 (Fig. 86).
This series of seven brass-framed text panels under glass spells out the details of
Haacke's (again assiduous) research into the connections between art and commerce.
While they might appear to be simple lists of names and affiliations-kissing cousins
to the kind of agitprop that the AWC produced with its flyers-it is important that
we not assume that his aesthetic choices are by any means given or transparent.
Each decision was based on Haacke's research. The clean, sans-serif Helvetica font
and the panel's symmetrical formatting mimed the bland aesthetics of the business
world, in particular drawing from the visual look of the corporate "tombstone."es
Tombstones is a term used in the financial world for print advertisements placed
in newspapers such as the Wøll Street Joumøl to announce mergers, acquisitions,
or other significant financial transactions. The frames were equally consciously
chosen: brass is an alloy of copper, and the panel on copper is the most damning of
them all, with its excerpts from the Nçw York Tímes ouTlining the connections l¡etween
the privatization of Chilean's vast copper mines, Kennecott Copper, and ttre 1973
coup. In the case of Haacke's work, the "tombstone" also commemorates the death
of Allende.
This piece is an outgrowth of Haacke's previous investigations into museums' cor-
porate ties, but it has another, never-before-acknowledged precedent-art workers'
protest posters, neveÍ previously published, that were produced in t97o by the AWC
for a protest that targeted the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fig. 87 and Fig. 88). Al-
though crudely homemade, with distinctively handJettered words, the posters are
also the result of careful library excavations, for they detail the connections between
museum board members such Roswell Gilpatrick, seen here in a smiling head shot,
the U.S. government, and the military-industrial complex. There is a strong formal
mirroring between Haacke's work and these earlier activist posters, for both list these
facts on large white sheets. As political posters, in fact, they are somewhat strange-
compare them to the efficiency of the brief quotes in the And Bøbies? poster. Diffi-
cult to read or digest in an easy glance, they do not necessarily lend themselves to
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 209

SOLOMON R. GUGGËNHEIM MUSEUM

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.i
l

FIGURE 86 Hans Haacke, So/omon R. Guggenheim Museum Board ofTrustees, detail, 1974
Seven panels in brass frames under glass, 61 x 50.8 cm each. Photograph by Hans Haacke. i

@ 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

!

picket lines or address themselves to the casual viewer. To be sure, there is a distance
between these quicþ made protest posters and Haacke's professionally printed, brass-
framed sheets, but the direct parallel in their simple listing of affiliations is striking.
The posters were shown at the Met itself during an event that was conceived of as
a revisiting of the earþ art workers' open hearing. Held in the museum's "Great Hall"
for five hours on October zo, rg7o, it was sponsored by the AWC, the Art Strike,
Women Artists in Revolution, and other groups, and the arena for the protest was
demarcated by massed posters that were punctuated by one that clueried, "Do you
trust these trusteesl" (Fig. 89). As with Haacke's institutional critique, art workers
FlcuRE 87 Poster featuring business affiliations FIGURE aa Poster "Met Pays for Art with Death
and background of lVletropolitan Museum truslee Earnings," outlining corporate ties between the
Roswell Gilpatrick, designed for the Art Workers' museum and GE, designed for the Art Workers'
Coalition and Artists Internatìonal to protest Coalition and Artists international to protest
involvement of the museum's trustees in the V¡etnam involvement of the museum's trustees in the Vietnam
War, lvletropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Wa¡ Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
October 20, 1970. Photograph @ Jan van Raay. October 20, 1970. Photograph @ Jan van Raay.

*4tÞ-
.& fu*
t re ]

t
ì

FIGURE a9 Alex Gross gives a speech just before he dons his Egyptian outfit, Art Workers' Coalition and Art¡sts
lnternational protest, l\i'letropolitan l\4useum of Art, New York, October 20, 1970. Photograph @ Jan van Raay.
l
:
I

:
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 211

advocated for holding their demonstrations on the museum's own grounds. This en-
tailed agreeing to some of the institution's own rules, and the AWC Black and Puerto
Rican Committee declined to participate as a result. "The museum had chosen co-
operation instead of confrontation," explained the story in the Nøw York Tírnes,head-
lined "Metropolitan Is Host to Antagonists."ee Host carries a double meaning, refer-
ring to a congenial invitation but also impþing a parasitical relationship: this account
casts atrists as dependent, andnot especiaþwelcome. Aware of the potential for erup-
tions of violence, the museum put heightened security measures into place, but the
crowd turned out to be sparse and well behaved. The museum provided a podium,
which was cluickþ affixed with a poster declaring 'Artist Power" with a graphic that
echoed the "power to the people" fist as well as the r93os Artists' Union 1ogo.
Alex Gross gave a speech in which he proposed the total "liquidation of art," in-
terrupting himself midway through to don a specially designed Egyptian-themed cos-
tume, complete with a staff and hat ornamented with ancient symbols. This speech
was a performance in the prankster tradition of Abbie Hoffrnan; Gross was inter-
ested in walking a tightrope between pe{orming such theatrical absurdities and tak-
ing seriously the exposés behind him. His outfit was a nod to the museum's famed

holdings in Egyptian art directþ adjacent to the protest space, as well as an attempt,
as he recalls, to make the event (and himself) "look a bit ridiculous to minimize the
chance for violence, which given the state of the Coalition and other groups at that
time, was very real."1oo
Such violence did not erupt this time. Instead, though the trustees were lambasted

for promoting "counterinsurgency and riot control" and for "exploiting cheap black
labor" through their investments in South Afüca, they were relatively unfazed by the
event. One trustee, Roland Redmond, came by and commented, "We're giving them
an opportunity to express themselves, and if that allows them to let off steam and
gives them satisfaction, I suppose that's all right."101 The AWC trustee posters do not
marshal information "objectively" in the same way that Haacke's Solornon R. Gugen-
heirn Museum. Boørd ofTrusteespurports to; they mean to function as propaganda and
are unabashed about that. "The Met pays for art with death earnings," trumpets a
headline, followed by exact calculations regarding the Met's investments in GE. Such
an interpretive slogan does not accompany Haacke's trustee piece; rather, his strate-
gic neutrality acts to neutrølize information away from accusations of propaganda.
In Haacke's work, the vast body of information is presented in a hyperbolicaþ un-
emotional and understated way; there is no accusing slogan to drive its point home.
Perhaps propaganda is both the greatest hope for the dream of art as news and, si-
 2.12 I HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

FIGURE 90 HanS
Haacke, News, 2005.
lnstallation with dot-
matrix printer, rolls of
paper, connected to
lnternet news source,
at Paula Cooper Gallery
Photograph by Eilen
Page Wilson. @ 2009
Adists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/VG
B¡ld-Kunst, Bonn.

multaneousl¡ its worst nightmare: greatest hope because the polemical cast of prop-
aganda might move people to act and worst nightmare because the taint of infor-
mation as propaganda can delegitimate not just art but activism.
Haacke redid News at the Paula Cooper Gallery in 2oo5. Unable to locate any now-
ol¡solete teletype machines, he rigged up a daisy-wheel printer to an Internet news
source (Fig. 9o). For gallerygoers constantly accessing their PDAs or downloading
headlines, the anachronisms foregrounded in this version were quaint and also a lit-
tle melancholy. Viewers are not used to waiting for information an)¡rrìore; people now
carry the news with them. Nor are they used to thinking about art spaces as detached,
impenetrable fortresses. News also read di{ferently in 1969 in terms of the public
function of information. The release of the Pentagon papers, journalistic investiga-
tions about atrocities, reports about body count, and photographs such as the one
used in rhe And Bøbies? were viewed as factors that eroded the popularity of the war

and led to its cessation. Information was widely perceived as having the ability, in
Haacke's words, to "affect the general social fabric."
By aoo5, the status of information had changed: the Iraqwar, justifiedby grotesque

distortions and blatant lies, was nonetheless grinding bloodily ahead. Arguably, the
collapse of r96os idealism put to rest the notion of truth as invincible and gave way
to paranoid cynicism. The myth of pure information, given the compromised role
of many "embedded' reporters in the lraq war, serious manipulation and outright
censorship, and the merger of state and corporate ne\MS interests, has been further
eroded. The zoo5 redoing of News therefore took on a slightly nostalgic cast.
Haacke's work from :'969 on, with its intentionally cool aesthetic, evinces a grow-
 HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK I 213

ing distrust in propagandistic excess at the same time that that distrust reproduces
excess in a different form-the too-muchness of unfiltered information that becomes
somewhat difficult to process. Haacke's "strategically neutral" use of information was
in part forged as a reaction against the shrillness of political works such as Gross's
posters and GAAG's Blood. Bøth. If the management of affect has become a hallmark
of corporate strategy, this gives a new traction to Haacke's intentionally bland aes-

thetics. Haacke underwent a profound disenchantment when the AV/C broke apart
inr97r, onethatwentalongwithhis abandonment of technology. Bythe r97os, hopes
that technological advances would make the world more human for workers and artists
alike were dimmed, and even former advocates of its utopian promise such as fack
Burnham proclaimed its failure.1o2 Walter Grasskamp has commented, "It is scarcely
possible to understand the development of Haacke's work in the late r96os without
being aware of the growing influence of the two failed utopias of this decade, one
political, one technological, both of which promised to bring the bourgeois relation
of art to an end.'to3
As Haacke later wrote, the AWC never had a sufficient "coherence of ideas" to main-
tain its organizing energies.loa Despite this disillusionment, it was in concert with
the AWC that Haacke proposed a new kind of work, a new kind of worker, and a new
kind of activism, all trafhd<ing in information. Yet Haacke's role as paper pusher circa
r97o was no less fictive than the AWC's working-class fantasies-as an artist, his re-
lationship to power and employment was quite difÏerent from that of the worker
chained to his desk. For Haacke, though its ideological grounds proved untenable,
the AWC successfully calalyzed the following, critical, question: "Why is art made,
what kind of art is produced, by whom, under what circumstances, for what audi
ence, who in fact uses it, for what ends and in what contextl"l0s These are the issues,

above all, that were brought to the fore by the art workers, and they continue to haunt
our current economy dependent upon the production of information and immate-
rial labor. The model of the artist as knowledge specialist, investigative journalist, or
archive hunter (as in the new documentary work of artists such as Trevor Paglen)
has proved much more durable in the intervening thirty years than the one of the
artist as old-fashioned artisan, or blue-collar construction worker, offered by the likes
of Andre or Morris. Though the attempt to move from artists to art workers in the
late r96os was accompanied by many misrecognitions, the attempt to politically re-
organize artistic identities should not be seen, reductivel¡ as a failure. The brief life
of the art worker as a coherent identity was also productive, and it ushered in new
kinds of artistic forms-not least, institutional critique.
 Epilogue

Inzoo6, the 1966 Los Angeles Peøce .Towerwas reenactedfortheWhitney Biennial.

Relocated from its original position in an abandoned lot to the museum's courtyard,
it featured hundreds of individual panels designed by contemporary artists-some
of whích featured an antiwar theme and some of which did not. This remaking ev-
idences a resurgence of interest in r96os and r97os artistic activism, but for many
viewers in zoo6, such as artist Martha Rosler, this new version, embraced by the art
institution and sited in an "unfortunate, but telling" location next to the cafe, was re-
duced to "a brushed steel clothesline barely visible from a sliver of Madison Avenue, "
diminishing the tower's original intent.l As an object, it appeared ungainly, easily
overlooked, naive-a "big thing" (to recall Susan Sontag) that, instead of being made
freshly pertinent to the ongoing war in lraq, according to another critic, "didn t ex-
actþ emanate utopian energy from its lonesome hole in the ground."2
That same year saw another kind of remaking from the Vietnam'War era. At the
zoo 6 " Rethinking Marxisrrf' conference at the University of Mas sachusetts, Amherst,
artist Kírsten Forkert passed around the transcripts from the A\X/C's 1969 open hear-
ing, one of the largest and most polemical gatherings of art workers of the time. Par-
ticipants read aloud selections from the speeches delivered by art workers, ranging
îromLozancis announcement of her "general strike" to Haacke's call for museum
decentralization. Echoing Carl Andre's appropriation of Philip Leider's text, these
rereadings were meant to vocalize and rehearse these archival documents, to sound
them out anew and hear how they might reverberate today. Like the resurrected

21 5
 216 I EPILOGUE

FtcuFE 9t Lee Lozano's slatement from the open hearing held by the Art Workers' Coalition in 1969, Seen
here as a public speech reenactment organized by lf'e Journal of Aesthet¡cs and Protes¿ outside Southern
Exposure, San Francisco, May 18-19, 2002 Pholo by Steve Rhodes.

Peøce Tower, some statements did not age well. However, in contrast to the tovver's
relatively conventional display of art against war, many of the open hearing's calls re-
mained presciently relevant, particularþ those that urged artists to come together in
the name of economic justice and peace. Forkert stated that the project came out of
her interest in past artists' collective organizing. She wondered: What lessons might
such organizing have in zoo6, given the gap between art stars benefiting from record-
breaking auction prices and overworked artists who piece together adjunct work to
pay their bills and cannot afford health insurance) Rehearsing the speeches from the

open hearing became a way to reflect upon "what might have changed (or not changed)

between ry69 andthe present."3

Forkert's respeaking has inspired other actions that revisit these statements. In-
terestingly, one AWC text that has proven especially popular is Lee Lozano s, in which
she rejects the term ørtworkerinfavor of ørt dreømer.Theeditors of the Los Angeles-

based Joumøl of Aesthetics ønd Protesthave sponsored several collective, public read-
ings of Lozano's statement, always to enthusiastic response (Fig. 9r). There are sev-
eral reasons for its persistent recirculation today. Its relative brevity lends itself to
becoming a group chant (it is easier for many voices to speak together when the text
is short). In addition, the repetition of the word revolution-eight times in the space
 EPILOGUE I 217

of three punchy sentences-provides a certain rhythm and momentum to Lozano's

words, a cadence that, when spoken aloud, becomes more insistent as it culminates
with the final alliterative emphasis on the "personal and public." In addition, because
it does not dwell (as many of the other AWC documents do) on the specificities of
1969, Lozanos rousing, idealistic vision is more easily drawn into the present.
Many contemporary artists have looked back at arlistic labor circa r97o for a model
of how best to organize around questions of work. For example, a group entitled
WAGE (Working Artists and the Greater Economy) was formed in the fall of zoo8
in New York City. Sounding much like the AWC, WAGE "calls for an address of the
economic inequalities that are prevalent and proactively preventing the art worker's
ability to survive within the greater economy. We demand payment for making the
world more interesting."a Whether this demand will gain traction, given the volatile
art market and the global economic crisis, remains to be seen (it may well be more
in the realm of art dreaming).
In the late r96os and early r97os, the concept of "artworker" provided a flexible,
if unstable and frequently contradictory, identity for artists and critics like Andre,
Morris, Lippard, and Haacke. As such, it furnished artists a framework in which to
understand their production as politically meaningful, even vital, during a time in
which the value and meanings of "work"-and who counted as "workers"-were
undergoing massive transformations. In the wake of these groups' dissolution inr97t,
many of the participating artists became disillusioned and lost faith in what had once
been potent forms of collective political action. In ry79,1ess than a decade after the
r97o New York Art Strike had galvanized nearþ five hundred artists, Yugoslavian
artist Goran Dordevió sent out a call for an international art strike "as a protest against
the art system's unbroken repression of the artist."s He received about forty replies,
the vast majority negative, including ones from AWC veterans Lippard, Haacke, and
Andre. Andre, who had been a vocal leader on the steps of the Metropolitan Mu-
seum with the Art Strike, replied, "From whom would artists be withholding their
art if they did go on strikel Alas, from no one but themselves."6 This statement in-
dicates a turn away from the strategies of collective withholding that had once seemed
so potent.

Yet understanding art workers' art and activi sm as prøc-tice.s indicates that they should
not be measured by simplistic ideas of "success" or "failure." The AWC lasted less
than three yeaß, yet as |ulie Ault has commented, it marshaled organizingenergies
hitherto unmatched: "No art field group evidencing an equal base of support, criti-
cal stance, or idealism has existed since."7 Beyond cynicism and collapse, then, how
 214 I EPILOGUE

might we assess the legacies of the term ørt worker? Lippard, for her part, still uses
the term.8 Despite its short life, the AWC spawned other organizations across the
country that agitated for artists' rights, including Artists Meeting for Culture Change,
Artists for Economic Action, the Artists' Community Credit Union, the Boston Vi-
sual Artists Union, the Atlanta Art Workers Coalition, the Los Angeles-based Visual
Artists Rights Organization, and the Artists' Rights Association, and its participants
were key figures in the founding of the Brorx Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio,
the Women's Caucus for Art, and other still-flourishingorganizations. It also paved
the way for later groups such as Artists Meeting for Cultural Change, Political Art
Documentation/Distribution, Group Material, and REPOhistory. The AWC's valida-
tion of artistic labor also advanced a number of lasting causes, from securing a mu-
seum free day to pressingfor racial and gender inclusion. In addition, the recogni-
tion of artistic labor, both manual and intellectual, as a valid form of work provided
momentum for museum workers to organize.IntgTr, riding the coattails of the AVZC,
the Professional and Administrative Staff Association of MoMA was born. Art Strike
and AWC veterans gave them organizational tips when they decided to go on strike.
This group was the forefront of white-collar organizing, pointing to the potential for
professional unions to be "a decisive new force in the knowledge industry."e
The realm in which the art workers sought to intervene is precisely where they had
a measurable impact-that is, the spaces and policies of the art museum. As Lip-
pard has written, "Not much changed fundamentaþ about the artist-museum rela-
tionship until the AWC brazenly proposed that artists should have some control over
their own production and its distribution."lo Art workers in the late r96os andtgTos
attempted to undermine the "managed" spaces of museums and galleries by insti-
tuting radical pricing structures for art, undertaking collective process pieces, declaring
art strikes, organizingbenefit shows, and pursuing the political redirection of infor-
mation. The idea of artistic control, as well as the idea that art might work for or against
other institutional interests, has gained wide currency. However, other recent orga-
nizing efforts by artists serve to measure the distance between the late r96os and
early r97os and now. For instance, many artists are moving away from issues of con-
trol, as exemplified in the r97r artists' rights contract, and instead advocate opening
up intellectual property, embracing creative commons, and abolishing copyright
restrictions. And Gregory Sholette's important scholarship reminds us that there are
broad, informal economies of artistic production and distribution that exist some-
what outside monolithic notions of the art market.l1
The art workers I have examined understood themselves to be polemically work-
 EPILOGUE I 219

ing both within and øgøínstlhe auspices of very specific kinds of military-industrial
institutions-that is to say, art museums. Museums continued to serve as a target for
a diverse range of groups like the Guerrilla Girls, whose title pays homage to GAAG,
and the Women's Action Coalition. These groups, following in the art workers' wake,
explicitly problematized the economic and representational politics of art institutions.
But the r96os and r97os black-and-white readings of art institutions as monolithic
no longer make much sense. As art has increasingly migrated to other, alternative
spaces, "the museurn' is no longer seen as all-powerful and is now a flexible, com-
plex space of entertainment, commerce, and public culture. As the market has been
refined and expanded, activist artists have continued to reimagine possible avenues
of resistance.
One arena artists have looked to for this resistance is the realm of relational art,
yet as Lane Relyea asserts in his essay "Your Art World: Or, The Limits of Connec-
tivit¡ " the much-touted flexibility of such work is ideologically intertwined with new
forms of capitalism.l2 Could it be that the art worker's relationship to the shifting

ticipøtion, øIienøtion-points to a multidirectional flow of influence in the r96os and

r97os that continues today. The shifting contours of artistic work have roughly
alleled the changes in industrial production in the economy at large; Irving Sandler
noted that the transition from blue-collar labor to white-collar management "provided
new role models for artists."13 But perhaps, instead of arguingthat the alterations in
labor practices register more visibly within artistic "work"-as is mandated by the
tired "art reflects society" formulation-we can point to the influence running in
the other direction: with the rise of the "culture industr¡" artistic practice began to
influence the worþlace.
Reflecting upon the r96os and t97os anxieties about artistic labor helps histori-
cize more recent debates about the increasingly blurred lines between paid and cre-
ative labor within "artistic" workplaces and the neoliberal spaces of capitalism in the
late r99os and early 2ooos. How was the laboring of artistic practice indicative of a
wider movement in which culture became commodified øs work? The "immaterial
labor" described by Michael Hardt finds its purest example in the artist who receives
so-called "psychic rewards" and cultural capital rather than, necessarily, living wages;
in return, the artist is part of a service economy of translation, knowledge produc-
tion, administration, and the creation of afÏect.la
 22O I EPILOGUE

Within neoliberalism, which encourages individual entrepreneurship and self,

marketing, start-ups and software companies emulated the unstructured way artists
organize their time. This annexation of leisure into the workspace-the lack of a de-
marcation between being on or offthe clock-paradoxically contributed to an atmo-
sphere of constant work, with no downtime, masquerading as "leisure." A height-
ened interest in an "artsy" workforce, especially in the information and design sectors,
resulted in new kinds of quasi-artistic workplaces in which, say, advertising execu-
tives are called "creatives" and aspire to studio situations within the bland confines
of their corporate offices. How does art making within this economy distinguish
itself from the commercial advertising that threatens to absorb itl
ln ry99 Andrew Ross argued that the idealization of flexible labor drew explicit
inspiration from the artistic sector.

It is clear that the mentality of artists' work is more and more in demand. . . . Indeed,
the traditional profile of the artist as unattached and adaptable to circumstance is surely
now coming into its own as the ideal definition of the postindustrial knowledge worker:
comfortable in an ever-changing environment that demands creative shifts in commu-
nication with different kinds of clients and partners; attitudinally geared toward production
that requires long, and often unsocial, hours; and accustomed, in the sundry exercise of
their mental labor, to a contingent, rather than a fixed, routine of selÊapplication.ls

The worþlace, in short, began to mold itself around the specific contours of artistic
labor. It might be, then, that the recognition of artists as a special sort of knowledge
worker has had repercussions in the broader discourse of the workplace. In addition
to Ross, thinkers such as Brian Holmes and Paolo Virno have commented on how
artistic labor provided a usable model for a rapidly reorganizing corporate sector.16
In recent years, as globalism has promoted the merging of art, sewice economies,
and commerce, artistic practice has increasingly thematized art making as "work."
Some contemporary artists' projects include the antisweatshop collaborative kniiting
of CaIMazza, Christine Hill's conceptual art salesroom "Volksboutique," and Andrea
Fraser's numerous pieces regarding the art/service industry.l7 ln zoo4 Taiwanese
artist Hsin-I Eva Lin, recalling Lozano,undertook a personal forty-five-day art strike
to "call attention to the insecurity of labor in a global economy."18 That so many of
these projects are bywomen indicates the lasting importance of feminism to current
understandings of labor. Some artists have explicitly ironized art making as postin-
dustrial knowledge work. To cite but one example, in zoo6, Oakland-based artists
Sean Fletcher and Isabel Reicher launched a corporation, "Death and Taxes," that
 EPILOGUE I 221

managed their daiþ affairs. Under the motto "Our business is our lives," their offi-
cial quarterly reports detailed previously private transactions to make visible the cor-
poratization of art making and the seepage of its fixations on the bottom line into
everyday life.
To conclude, let me invoke one final performance of artistic labor: on November 14,

1969, the day of a nationwide anti-Vietnam War moratorium, members of GAAG

dumped red liquid on the lobby floor of the Whitney. The artists then produced
sponges and mops and began furiously to scrub the bloodied floors, intentionaþ
spreading the crimson pigment as far as possible. GAAG's labors were accompanied
by two scripted lines of dialogue, which they muttered as their hands became stained

with fake blood: "We've got to clean this place up. This place is a mess from the war."1e
In so doing, they castigated the museum for its failure to respect a nationwide anti-

war moratorium. (This demand was a compromise: GAAG in fact wanted all muse-
ums to shut down entirely for the duration of the Vietnam War.)20
Unlike other works by GAAG, in which museum visitors hung back to watch the
spectacle unfold, the Whitney scrubbing piece inspired other museumgoers to join
in: two young women and a man who were in the lobby also crouched down, blood-
ying their own clothes in order to begin swabbing. Here museum patrons were tac-
itly invited into the script of the action: Poppy fohnson (the one \Moman artist par-
ticipating in this performance) brought enough sponges to go around.21 GAAG
rendered their efforts utterþ manifest-by making a mockery of cleaning, they vis-
ibly worked at dirtying the floors. It was a performance inflected with gendered labor,
to be sure, but GAAG also wanted to hit home their polemic about the art institution
as implicated in the war-sullied, even-despite its purported neutrality. But their
alignment with labor only went so far. When a Whitney worker approached them to
ask what their demands were and identified himself as part of the repair and main-
tenance team, someone in GAAG replied, "That's not enough, we want to see an offi-
cial representative of the museum ."zz They waited until the director of public rela-
tions came to take their leaflet, and then they abandoned their buckets and rags and
left the museum, leaving a wide swath of shiny, slippery liquid behind for the cleanup
crew. This refusal to deal with the worker who would be responsible for cleaning up
their mess exemplifies the frequently tense affiliation between the artists' identifica-
tions as art workers and the "actual" working class. Such a contradiction demonstrates
the vexed nature of artistic labor øs løbor in this moment.
As I write this book, as in the late i96os and earþ rg7os,the United States is again
engaged in an intractable, brutal war. GAAG's performance raises many questions.
 222 I EPILOGUE

i
What if we took the strident calls of these art workers seriously and tried to reimag-
'i,
ine all spheres of artistic production and circulation as bound up in this military J

conflictl What kinds of cross-class organizing might be possible in an economy of

ï

flexible knowledge work and in a time of heightened financial uncertaintyl And,

finally, what kinds of responses to this historical moment are possiblel How might
vr'e account for the art workers' utopian rhetoric and their important interventions
that insisted that artistic work mattersl Should we stand back and watch, applaud, I

call security, or drop to our knees and join inl

i
I
 Notes

The following abbreviations are used throughout the notes:

AAA Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
AWC ArtWorkers'Coalition
GAAG Guerrilla Art Action Group
GRI Getty Research Institute Library, Los Angeles
MoMA Museum of Modern Art, NewYork
RMA Robert Morris Archive, Gardiner, New York
TGA Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, Tate Gallery Archive, London

¡NTRODUCTION

Typed flyer signed 'An art worker," |une 1969, New York, Lucy Lippard Papers, Museum
of Modern Art file, AAA.
Lil Picard, "Protest and Rebellion," Arts Møgøzíne,May t97o, r8t9.
These feministinterventions-both U.S. based and not-include thewritings found in Mary
KeIly, lmøgine Desire (Writing Art) (Carnbrídge, MA: MIT Press, 1997),and Martha Rosler,
Decoys ønd Dísruptíons, Selected. Writings, 1975-2cc1 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zoo4).

4 For one clarion call that includes many of the significant feminist scholars working in this
vein, see the statement "Transnational Feminist Practices against the War-A Statement,"
by Paola Bacchetta, Tina Campt, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Minoo Moallem, and Jen-
nifer Terry, issued in October zoor and later publishedin Mertd.íøns: Feminism, Røce, Trønsnø-
tíonølism z (zoozl: 3oz-8.
5 Francis Frascina has helpfully charted many antiwar art activities of this time inhis Art,
Politícs, ønd Dissent: Aspects of the Art Lefr in Síxties Arnericø (Manchester: Manchester

223
 224 I NOTES TO PAGES 3-8

University Press, 1999). Artist Andrea Fraser has written about the AWC in terms of ser-
vice economies and artistic autonomy; see "What's Intangible, Transitory, Mediating, Par-
ticipatory, and Rendered in the Pubiic Sphere, Part II," ín Museum Hi.ghli.ghts: The Wntings
of Andreø Frøser, ed. Alex Alberro (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zoo5), 55-8o. Gregory
Sholette has also written extensiveþ about collectivity and new models of work; see his "State
of the Union," Artforum 46 (March zoo8): r8r-82.
6 Caroline lones, Møchine ín the Studio: Constructing the Postwør Americøn Artíi (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1996).

7 Helen Molesworth, "Work Ëthic," in Work Ethic, exh. cat., ed. Helen Molesworth (Univer-
sity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, zoo3l,25.
8 For an earþ influential articulation of this shift, see C. Wright Mills, "Letter to the New
Lefr," New Lef. Review r (September-October 196o): 18-23. See also Chapter r.

9 An accountof thergTzformalton of the British Artists'Union canbe foundin ]ohn A. Walker,

Lefi Shif.: Rødícøl Art in ry7os Britøín (London: I. B. Tauris, zooz,lt for more on Argentine
artists' organizing in the r96os, see Andrea Giunta, Avønt-Gørd.ø, lntemøtíonølism, ønd Pol-
ilics,Irans. Peter Kahn (Durham: Duke University Press, zooT). While the membership of
the AWC was primarily limited to New York, the group went on to inspire similarþ named
organizations in Boston and Atlanta in the late r97os.
IO Other regional U.S. histories regarding art and politics have been exploredby Patricia Kell¡
ry68: Art ønd Politícs in Chicøgo (Chicago: Depaul University Art Museum, 2oo8), and Pe-
ter Selz, Art of Engøgement: Vísuøl Politics ín Cølíþmíø ønd Beyond (Berkeley: University of
California Press, zoo6).
II For more on Fluxus in this regard, see Robert E. Haywood, "Critique of Instrumental La-
bor: Meyer Schapiro's and Allan Kaprow's Theory of Avant-Garde Art," in Experíments in
the Everyd.øy: ,4lløn Køprow ønd RobertWøtts-Events, Objects, Documents, ed. Benjamin H. D.
Buchloh and fudith F. Rodenbeck (New Yorh: Miriam and Ira D. Waliach Art Galler¡ Co-
lumbia University, 1999), 27-46; aîd Hannah Higgins, Fluxus Experíencø (Berkeley: Uni
versity ofCalifornia Press, zooz). Sally Banes's look at fudson dance is an invaluable chron-
icle of the city that slightJy predates the moment I am looking aI; Greenwich Villøge, ry6j:
Avønt-Gørde Performøncø øndthe Efervescent Bod.y (Drxham: Duke University Press, 1993).
Catherine.Wood s smart, focused study on Yvonne Rainer insightfi-rlly investigates questions
of labor; Yvonne Røiner: The Mind Is ø Muscle (London: Afierall Books, zooT).
T2 "End Your Silence," New York Tírnøs, April r8, 1965, sec. 4,87.
13 Frascina, Art, Polítics, ønd. Dissent.
r4 An in-depth account of the 1966 Peøce Tower is found in Francis Frascina, "'There' and
'Here,' 'Then and'Now': The Los Angeles Artist's Tower of Protest (1966) and lts Legacy,"
inhis Art, Politícs, ønd Díssent,57-ro7.

15 Art Berman, "Sunset Strip Project: Art Tower Staded as Vietnam Protest," Los AngelesTimes,

lanuary 28, ry66,3.

r6 Therese Schwartz, "The Politicization of the Avant-Garde," Art in Americø 59 (November-
December ry7tl:.99.
17 Susan Sontag, "Inventing and Sustaining an Appropriate Response (Speech at the Artists'
Tower Dedication)," Los Angeles Free Press,}llarch 4, ry66, 4.
r8 'Ad Reinhardt: Art as Art," interview by |eanne Siegel, broadcast on WBAI, New York,
 NOTES TO PAGES 8-9 I 225

Itne ry, 1967 published in Jeanne Síegel, Artword.s: Díscourse on the 6os ønd 7os (New York:
De Capo, 1985), 28.
r9 Quoted in fames Aulich, "Vietnam, Fine Art, and the Culture Industry," in Víetna.m Im-
øges: War ønd Representøtion, ed. feffery Walsh and |ames Aulich (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1989), 73.
20 Lucy Lippard s A DíferentWør: Víetnømíli Arú (Seaüle: Real Comet Press, r99o) is the most
comprehensüe account of Vietnam War-related visual art. Other exhibition catalogs in-
clude C. David Thomas, ed., As Seenby Both Sídes: Amerícan øndVietnømese Artí#s Look øt
the Wør (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, r99r) and Maurice Berger, ed., Røp-
resentíng Vietnøm. ry6j-ry7j: The Antiwør Movement in Arnericø (New York: Hunter Col-
lege, Bertha and Karl LeubsdorfArt Galler¡ 1988).
2T Hal Foster, "The Crux of Minimalism," ín The Retum of the Reøl (Cambndge, MA: MIT
Press, r996), 68.
22 Herbert Marcuse, Countenevolutíon ønd Revolt (Boston: Beacon Press, r97z\, rzz.
The military conflict between the United States and North Vietnam from 1959 to 1975 is
known colloquially as the Vietnam War. However, an official declaration of war was never
issued, and the conflict's deadly impact was felt far beyond Vietnam, throughout Southeast
Asia, including Laos and Cambodia. (In Vietnam, it is known as "the American War.") For
a basic history, see David Elliot,TheVíetnøvnWør: Revolution ønd Changeinthe MekongDeltø,
1g3o-1g75 (New York: M.E. Sharpe, zoo3). For more on the antiwar movement, see
Michael S. Foley, Confronting the Wør Møchine: Drøf. Resistønce during the Víetnøm Wør
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, zoo3); Rhodri f eflreys -lones, Peøce Now!
Arnericøn Society ønd the Endíng of the Víetnøm \7'ør (New Haven: Yale University Press,
rggg); arà Tom Wells, The Wør Wíthín: Amencø's Bøttle over Vietnøm (New York: Henry
Holt, 1994).
24 The challenge ofperiodization is addressed by Fredric Jamesonk "Periodizing the Sixties,"
in The 6os without Apology, ed. Sohnya Sayres et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1984), ry8-2o9.
25 Numerous usefirl overyiew texts address these subjects, including Thomas Crow, The Ríse
of the Sixtíes: Amencøn ønd. Europeøn Art in the Erø of Dissent (New York: Harry Abrams,
r996); Ërika Doss, Twentieth-Century Americøn Arl (New York: Oxford University Press,
2oo2); Patdcia F{ills, Mod.ern Art in the USA: lssues ønd Controversíes of the zoth Century
(Upper Saddle River, Nf : Prentice Hall, zooi); David foselit, Americøn Art sínce ry45 (Lon-
don: Thames and Hudson, zoo3l; and Anne Rorimer, New Artínthe 6os ønd 7os: Redefin-
ing Reølity (London: Thames and Hudson, zoor). In addition, ne\¡/ monographic studies
have thoughtthrough the connections between the artistic forms and politics of the r96os;
for instance, Branden W. |oseph, Beyond the Dreøm Synd.icøte: Tony Conrød ønd. the Arts øf-
ter Cøge (NewYork: Zone Books, zooS); Carrie Lambert-Beatt¡ BeíngWøtched:Yvonne Røíner
ønd. the ry6os (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zooS); and Pamela Lee, Chronophobiø: On Art
íntheTíme ofthe ry6os (Carnbridge, MA: MIT Press, 2oo4). Recent exhibition catalogs have
also contributed to this literature; see Ann Goldstein and Anne Rorimer, eds., Reconsider-
ingthe Objec|of Art: ry65-ry75 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995); Ann Goldstein and Lila
Gabrielle Mark, eds., A Minímøl Future? Art øs Object, ry58-ry68 (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, zoo4); and Cornelia H. Butler and Lisa Gabrielle Mark, eds., WACK! Art øndthe
Fewúníst Revolution (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zooT).
 226 I NOTES TO PAGES 9-14

26 For instance, Carter Ratcliff, Out of the Box: The Reínvention of Art, ry65-ry75 (New York:
Allworth Press, zooo).
27 Tony Godfrey, Conceptuøl Ari (London: Phaidon Press, 1998), r5.

28 See Michael Lind, Vietnøm, the Necessøry Wør: A Reinterpretøtion of Amerícø's Most Disøs-
trous Milítøry ConJlict (New York: Free Press, 1999).
29 The literature on this era is immense. Its memory has been reconstructed, rehearsed, and
rehabilitated in academic writings, television, fiim, and fiction. For some examinations of
the decade that emphasize its battles both overseas and within U.S. culture, see David An-
derson and |ohn Ernst, eds., The Wør Thøt Nwer Ends: New Perspectíves on the Vietnøm Wør
(Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, zooT); Terry Anderson, The Movement ønd Ihe
Sírfiøs (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Alexander Bloom, ed., LongTírne Gone:
Sixlíes AmencøThen ønd. Now (New York: Oxford University Press, zoor); M. |. Heade, Thø
Sirties in Amencøn Hístory, Polítics, ønd Protest (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborne, 2oor); David
Maranniss, They Mørched.into Sunlíght: Wør ønd PeøceinVietnøm ønd Amerícø, October ry67
(New York: Simon and Schuster, zool\; and Maurice Isserman and Michael I(azin, Amer-
icø Divided.: The Civíl Wør of the r96os (New York: Oxford University Press, zooo).
3o David Steigerwalð,, The Sixties øndthe End. of Arnericø (New York: St. Martins Press, 1995),
ro8.

3r Fredric ]ameson, Postmod.emísm, or, The Culturøl Logíc of Løte Cøpítølísn't (Durham: Duke
University Press, 199r), r59.

foseph Kosuth argues that the collapse of r96os idealism led to an increasingly critical en-
gagement with the commodity; see his "t975," Fox,no. z (19751: 94.

1. FROM ARTISTS TO ART WORKERS

I Flyer reproduced in AWC, Documents r (New York: AWC, r97o), r.

2 The Marxist basis of William Morris's conceptions of aesthetics and art production is ex-
plored in Caroline Arscott, "William Mor¡is: Decoration and Materialism ," in Mørxísm ønd
the History of Art: Fronx Williøm Morns to the New Lef., ed. Andrew Hemingway (London:
Pluto Press, zoo6l, 9-27.

3 Members of both the BECC and the AWC included Faith Ringgold, Benny Andrews, and
Tom Lloyd. The Hørlem on My Mind exhibition was criticized by black artists and Harlem
residents, not least because it was organized with no community input. For more on the
BECC, see Benny Andrews, "Benny Andrews' ]ournal: A Black Artist's View of Adistic and
Political Activism," in Mary Schmidt Campbell, \iødition ønd Conflíct: Imøges of ø Turbu-
lentDecøde,ry$-ry7j (NewYork: StudioMuseuminHarlem, ry851,69-73. Foranespe-
ciaþ detailed look at the debates about the Metropolitan Museum show, see Bridget Cooks,
"Black Artists and Activism: Hørlem on My Mind (tg6S\," Atnericøn Studies 48 (Spring
zooT\:5-39.
4 More detailed-and not entirely compatible-histories include |ulie Ault, ed., Altemøtive
Art, New York, ry65-ry85 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, zooz); Alex Gross,
"The Artists' Branch of the 'Movement,"' unpublished manuscript; Francis Frascina, Art,
Politics, ønd Dissønt: Aspects of the Art Lefr in Sixties Americø (Manchester: Manchester
 NOTES TO PAGES 15-20 I 227

University Press, 1999); Lucy Lippard, "The Art Workers' Coalition: Not a History," in Gøt
the Messøge? A Decøde of Artfor Socíøl Chønge (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1984), ro-zo; Beth
Anne Handler, "The Art of Activism: Artists and Writers Protest, the Art Workers' Coali-
tion, and the New York Art Strike Protest the Vietnam War" (PhD diss., Yale Universit¡
zoor); Bradford Martin, TheTheøter Isinthe Streets: Politics ønd Public Perforrnøncein Six-
ties Amencø (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, zoo4); and Alan W. Moore,
'Artists' Collectives: Focus on New York, r975-2ooo," in Collectivism øf.er Mod.emism: The
Art of Socíøl lmøgrnøtíon øfier t945, ed. Blake Stimson and Greg Sholette (Minneapolís: Uni
versity of Minnesota Press, 2oo7l, r9z-22r.

5 Lippards awareness ofher critical writing as work, discussed in Chapter 4, is a case in point.
6 " Statement of lanrary 9," reproduced in AWC, Documents L
S, 196 5.

Hans Haacke, interview, Aprlll zt, zoo7.

8 Transcripts of the AWC hearing are printed in AWC, An Open Heøring on the Subject: What
Should Be the Progrøm of the Art Workers Regørd.ing Museum Reþrm ønd to Estøblish the Pro-
grømof ønOpen ArtWorkersCoølition (NewYork: AWC, r97o).

9 Alexander Albencis Conceptuøl Art øndthe Politics of Publicity (Cambrídge, MA: MIT Press,
zoo3) discusses the artist's rights contract at length and cogently maps the emergence of
conceptual art as intellectual property.
IO Perreault, in AWC, Open Hearíng, statement 52.
II Lozano, in AWC, Open Hea.ring, statement 38.
t2 Lozano, however, rejected any identification with the women's movement; after leaving the
art world altogether, she subsequently moved to Dallas and commenced a project in which
she refused to speak to women. For a persuasive reading of this rejection, see Helen
Molesworth, "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out: The Rejection of Lee Lozano," Art Joumøl 6r
(Winter zooz'¡:64-73.
IJ fean Toche, in GAAG, GAAG, the Guerríllø Art Action Group, ry69-76: A Selection (New
York: Printed Mattea 1978), n.p.
r4 To some extent, this branching out into communities happened without the participa-
tion of already-established museums, as in the r968 opening of the Studio Museum in
Harlem.
r5 Robert Katz, Nøkødby theWínd.ow: The Føtøl Mørnøge of Carl Andre ønd Anø Mend.ieLø (New
York: Atlantic Press, r99o), zz9.
t6 Alex Gross, "Black Art-Tech-Art-Prid< Art," Eøst Vílløge Other, Aprll z, t969, n.
77 Lippard,'Art Workers' Coalition," zo.
r8 Gene Swenson, "Fromthe International Liberation Front," ca. t97o,Lttcy Lippard Papers,
AAA, Swenson file.
r9 These include the AWC's symbolic funeral procession through the streets of New York car-
rying banners with the names of Vietnamese and American casualties; Tosun Bayrak's three-
block-long street theater that was a riot of fighting, sex, animals, food, and bodily excre-
tions; and Yayoi Kusama's naked peace protests in the MoMA sculpture garden. These events
are recounted in Lippard, Get the Møssøge? and Martin, Theøter.

20 Francis Frascina,"MyLaí, Guemicø, MoMA, andthe Art LeÍ1, ry69-7o," inArt, Politícs ønd
Dissent, t7.
 224 I NOTES TO PAGES 21-26

27 Lucy Lippard, phone interview, September 14,2,oo4.

22 "Guerrilla Art Action in Front of Guemícø on 3lanuary r97o," in GAAG, GAAG, n.p.
For more on the controversy surrounding the AWC postet see Frascina, Art, Politícs, ønd
Dissent, 16o-2o8, and Amy Schlegel, "My Lai: 'We Lie, They Die'or, a Small History of an
Atrocious' Photograph," Thírd. Text 3r (Summer ry 9): 47 -66.
24 PaulWood, "Introduction: The Avant-Garde and Modernism," in The Chøllenge ofthe Avønt-
Gørde, ed. Paul Wood (New Haven: Yaie University Press, 1999), 13.

25 Lil Picard, "Protest and Rebellion," typed draft manuscript, 5. Lil Picard Papers, AAA.
z6 Grace Glueck, 'Artists Vote for Union and Big Demonstration," New York Times, Septem-
ber 23, r97o,39. These unionizing efTorts would continue past the demise of the AWC;
see, for instance, Howard Ostw'ind, "We Need an Artists Union," Art'Workers Nøws, May-

lrne ry74, z-3.

27 Hilton Kramer, 'About MoMA, the AWC, and Political Causes," New York Times, February
8, t97o, ro7.
z8 Alex Gross, 'Anti-Culture Day: October zo," EøstVilløge Other, October rJ, r"97o, r1'.
29 This major strike involved over r5o,ooo government employees; see Stephen C. Shannon,
"Wori< Stoppage in Government: The Postal Strike of r97o," Monthly Løbor Reviewu (luly
t978):4-zz.
3o |ean Toche, interview September 2r,2oor.
JT Tom Hayden, Port Huron Støteynent (Ann Arbor: Students for a Democratic Society, 196z). !
I
See also Philip S. Foner, U.S. Løbor ønd the Vietnøm Wør (New York: Intemational Pub- ;

lishers, rg7g); Peter Levy, The New Lefi ønd Løbor in the ry6os (Urbana: University of llli I

nois Press, i994). :

j
Herbert Marcuse, An Essøy on Liberøtíon (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 15. t
I

)) Ibid., Yiii. I

J4 Michael Harrington, "Old Working Class, New Working Class," tn The World of the Blue-
Collør Worker, ed. Irving Howe (New York: Quadrangle Books, r97z), r35; and Herbert Mar-
cuse, One-Dirnensíonøl Møn: Studies in the Id.eology of Ad.vønced. Industriøl Soaefy (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1964).

35 Carl Oglesby, "The Idea of the New Left," in The New Lefi Reøder, ed. Carl Oglesby (New
York: Grove Press, 1969), r3.

36 Ibid., r8.

t,/ Lawrence Alloway, "Art," Nøtíon, October t9, r97o,18t.

38 Lippard, Get the Messøge? 24.

39 Hans Haacke, statement in "The Role of the Artist in Society Today," Art Joumøl 41 (Sm-
mer 1975):328.

4o On the first free day at MoMA the museum tripled its attendance, and, as reported in the
New YorkTimes, "Ilte crowd . . . was 'younger and less white'than usual, and included many
family groups," "Art Notes," New York Tirnes, Febntary rr, rg7o,5r. The free day still exists
today, though for many museums it has been limited to a free evening, often branded by
corporate sponsors, as in MoMA's "Target Free Friday Nights."

4r See Therese Schwartz, 'AWC Sauces Up MoMAs PASTA," New York Element, November-
December r97r, z-3, 16. PASTA MoMA officially afñliated with Distributive Workers of
 NOTES TO PAGES 26-29 I 229

America, Local r, Museum Division, inMay r97t. Their r97r strike, which lasted from Au-
gust 20 to September 3, focused on a wage increase, job security, and a greater voice for
staff in policy decisions.

42 Andrea Fraser, "What's Intangible, Transitory, Mediating, Participatory, and Rendered in

the Public Sphere, Part II," in Museum Hi.ghli.ghts: The Writíngs of Andreø Frøser, ed. Nex
Alberro (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zoo5), 71.

4J Michael Baxandall, Pøinting ønd. Experíence in Fif.eenth-Century Itøly: A Prirnør in the Sociøl
Hístory of Pictoriøl Style (Oxford: Oxford University Press, t97zl. ln addition, Deborah |.
Haynes's fascinating book Thø Vocøtion ofthe Artist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997) connects religious history to theories of artistic production and the ethics of vision-
ary imagination in order to atalyze artistic work in relation to the notion of a "ca11."

44 This long-standing theoretical problematic can only be alluded to here; it has been most re-
cently and intelligently mapped by fohn Roberts, The lntøngíbilitíes of Forrn: Skíll ønd
Deskillíngin Art øfrer the Reødymøde (London: Verso, zooT).

45 See especially Karl Marx, The Grund.nsse, ed. and trans. David Mclellan (New York: Harper
and Row, r97r).

46 Karl Marx, "Productivity of Capital/Productive and Unproductive Labor," in Theories of Sur-

plus Vølue, pt. r (London: Lawrence and Wishart, ry69), 4ot.
47 Karl Marx, "Labour as Sacrifice or Self-Realization," in Grund.rísse, n4. lean Baudrillard
critiques Mar/s reliance upon a binary ôf work and nonwork (or play), insisting that non-
work is just "the aesthetic sublimation of labour's constraints." |ean Baudrillard, The Mír-
ror of Produaíon,traîs. Mark Poster (St. Louis, MO: Telos Press, 1975),35-5r.

48 The Russian precedent is explored in more depth in Chapter z.

49 Two studies that consider this movement are Leonard Folgarait, Murøl Pøínting a.nd Sociøl
Rwolutíon in Mexíco, 1g2o-194o (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); and An-
thony W. Lee, Pøíntíng on the Lefi: Diego Ríverø, Rødicøl Polítics, ønd Søn Frøncísco's Publíc
Murøls (Berkeley: University of Caiifornia Press, 1999).

5o Andrew Hemingway, Artists on the LejÍ: Americøn Artísts ønd. the Cornrnunist Movetnent,
ry26-ry56 (New Haven: Yale University Press, zoozl, zo. Other indispensablè accounts
of this phenomenon in the r93os in particular are Patricia Hills, 'Art and Politics in the
Popular Front: The Union Work and Social Realism of Philip Evergood," in The Social ønd
the Reøl: PoliticøI Art of the ryjos ín the Westem Hemísphere, ed. Alejandro Anreus, Diana
Linden, and fonathan Weínberg (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
zoo6); Helen Langa, Rødicøl Art: Printma.king ønd the Lefi in ryjos New York (Berkeiey:
University of California Press, zoo4); and A. Joan Saab, For the Millions: Arnericøn Art ønd
CulturebetweentheWørs (Philadelphia: Universityof Pennsylvania Press, zoo4).

5r Quoted in Francis O'Connor, Federøl Support for the Visuøl Arts: The New Deal ønd. Now
(Greenwich, CT New York Graphic Society, 196Ð, 47.

52 Robert Morris, interview, May 26, zoo6. His marked concern circa r97o with labor history
stands in contrast to his previously disengaged attitudes, as when in 1968 he claimed to
have no interest in politics; Robert Morris, intewiew by Paul Cummings, March ro, 1968,
AAA.

53 Lippard,'Art Workers' Coalition," r7.

 230 I NOTES TO PAGES 29-30

54 fim Hulley, "What Happened to the Artists Union of the r93osl" Artworkers Newsletter,
May-|une ry74,3.
55 Barbara Rose,'ABC Art," Artin Arnerícø 53 (October-November 1965): 69.

56 Max I(ozlofl 'American Painting during the ColdWaa" Artforum n (May ry731: 43-54. Eva
Cockcroft followed up on Kozloff's work in her 'Abstract Ëxpressionism: Weapon of the
Cold War," Artforum rz (fune ry74\: 39-4t. These debates are most extensively, and ele-
gantly, chronicled by Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the ldeø of Mod.em Art: Abstrøct
Ê,xpressionísm, Freed,om, øndthe ColdWør,trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1985).
57 This term first appeared in Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, "The Culture Industry:
Enlightenment as Mass Deception," in Diøleaíc of Enlightenment (1947), trans. |ohn Cum-
ming (New York: Continuum, t99tl, tzo-67.
58 Rose,'ABC Art," 66.
59 Guy Debord, "Theses on Cultural Revolution," Intemøtionøle sítuøtionniste r (]une 1958):
2r; trans. |ohn Shepley, reprinted in Tom McDonough, Guy Debord ønd the Situøtionist In-
temøtionøl: Texts ønd Documents (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zooz), 62.
6o The Grundrísse (1857-58) was known primarily in the United States only in excerpts until
it was translated by David Mclellan and published by Harper and Row in r97r. Martin Nico-
laus discussed the work in his widely read article "The Unknown Marx," New Lef. Review
48 (March-April 1968): 4r-6r, reprinted in Ogelsby, New Lef' Reøder.Works by Marx that
were available in Ënglish included Econornic ønd Phílosophícøl Mønuscrípts, trans. Martin
Milligan (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, ry59); PrecøpitøIist Economic For-
møtíons, introd. Eric Hobsbawm (London: Lawrence and Wisehart, ry64); a:nd Capital, vol.
r, ed. Friedrich Engeis, trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling (London: Lawrence and
Wishart, 1969).
6t Adolfo SánchezYázquez, Art ønd Socíety: Essøys in Mørxist Aesthøtícs (London: Merlin Press,
r9n), q. A further way to map artistic labor in a Marxian vein is to understand art objects
as paradigmatic fetishes. Althoughtheylack an instrumental use, they accrue surplus value
and as such are ur-commodities that circulate smoothly in market economies.
6z T.f.Clark, lmøgøofthePeople:GustøveCourbetønd,theú4SRevolutíon$973;repr.,Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, r98z), 8o. Linda Nochlin, however, offers a counterpoint
that crucially pushes labor in gendered directions that Clark overlooks; see her "Morisot's
Wet Nurse: The Construction of Work and Leisure in Impressionist Painting," in Women,
Art, ønd Power ønd Other Essøys (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 37-56.

$ While writers such as Max Raphael, Arnold Hauser, and Meyer Schapiro practiced versions
of Marxist art history before the r96os, social art history as a movement was consolidated
with the publication of works such as T. ). Clark, "On the Social History of Art," ín Imøge
of the People, 9-zo, and his "Conditions of Arlistic Creation," Tírnes Literøry Supplement,
May 24, 1974, 56v62. See Max Raphael, The Detnønds of Art (London: Routledge, 1968);
Arnold Hauser, Thø Sociøl History of Art,trans. Stanley Goodman (NewYork: Vintage Books,
r95r); and Meyer Schapiro, "The Social Bases of Art," first presented at the First American
Artists' Congress in 1936 and reprinted in Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, eds., Art ín
Theory, tgoo-tq9o (London: Blackwell, 199z), 5o6-ro.
 NOTES TO PAGES 31-34 I 231

64 For example, Antonio Gramsci, The Modem Prince ønd. Other Wrítings, trans. Louis Marks
(London: New Left Books, 1957); Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Appara-
in Lø Pensée (r97o) and reprinted in Lenin ønd Philosophy ønd Other
tuses," first published
Essøys, trans. Ben Brewster (London: New Left Books,tgTr),andFor Marx,hans. Ben Brew-
ster (London: Ailen Lane, 1969).
65 Herbert Marcuse, Eros ønd Civilizøtíon: A Phílosophicøl Inquiry into Freud. $955; repr., Boston:
Beacon Press, 1966), r96.
66 Marcuse, EssøyinLibørøtíon,andCountenevolutionøndRevolt(Boston:BeaconPress,rgTz).
67 Harry Braverman, Labor ønd. Monopoly Cøpitøl: The Degrød.øtion of Work ín the zoth Century
(New York: Monthly Review Press, rg74l,38.
68 Studs Terkel, Working: People Tølk øbout Whøt They Do All Døy ønd. How They Feel øbout
\VhøtThey Do (NewYork: Pantheon Books, r97z).
69 fean Baudriilard, For ø Critique of the Politicøl Economy of the Si.gn, trans. Charles Levin (St.
Louis, MO: Telos Press, r98r).

7o Carole Pateman, Pøfücípøtíon ønd Democrøtic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, r97o), 55.

71 U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Work ín Amerícø: A Report of ø Speciøl
Tøsk Force to the Secretøry of Heølth, Ed,ucøtíon, ønd Welfure (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
t973); Lafayette Harter and fohn I(eltner, eds., Løbor in Americø: The tlníon and Employer
Responsestothe Chøllenges of Our Chøngíng Socíefy (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press,

ry66).
72 Raymond Williams, "Work," in KEwords: A Vocøbuløry of Culture ønd. Society (New York:
Oxford University Press, ry761,284; see also his "Labour" entry, 145-48.
See, for instance, the various commentaries that decry the younger generation's lack of a
work ethic in the glossy coffee-table book zoo Yeørs of Work ín Americø: Bicentenniøl Issue,
Think: The IBM Møgøzíne, No. j, July 1976 (New York: IBM, 1976).

74 Patricia Cayo Sexton and Brandon Sexton, Bluø Collørs ønd Hørd-Høts: The Working Cløss
ønd. the Future of Amerícøn Polífícs (New York: Random House, r97r), 35.

75 Gary Bryner, testimon¡ Senate Subcommittee on Ëmployrnent, Manpower and Poverty,

Worker Alienøtion: Heøríngs before the Subcom,mittee on Ernployment, Mønpower, ønd Poverty
of the Committee on Løbor ønd Public Welfure, gznd Cong., znd sess., 1972,8. For more on
the Lordstown strike, see Starrley AronowíIz, Følse Prornises: The Shøping of Amøricøn Work-
ing Cløss Conscíousness, rev. ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, r99r).

76 Details about the frenzy of strikes in r97o are in Chapter 3.

77 P. K. Edwards, Stnkes ínthe tJnited Støtes, ß87-ry74 (New York St. Martin's Press, r98r), r74.
78 U.S. Senate Subcommittee, Worker Alíenøtíon.

79 Marcuse, Counterrwolution ønd Revolt, zr. Marcuse cites several mass media artides that
note rising rates of worker absenteeism and sabotage.
8o Clark Kerr et al., Industríølism ønd Ind.ustríøl Møn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, r96o).
8r Berteli Ollman, Alienøtion: Fundømentøl Problems of Mørxism (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni
versity Press, r97r); István Mészâros, Marx'sTheory of Alienøtion (London: Meriin Press, r97o).
 232 I NOTES TO PAGES 35-37

8z Terkel, Working, xi.

83 U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Work in Amerícø, x.¡-x.'ti.
84 Ibid.,38.
85 The Intemational Wages for Housework Campaign was founded in r97z; feminist writers
such as Shulamith Firestone and Kate Millett examined the devaluing of women's work in
the earþ r97os. Shulamith Firestone, The Diølectic of Sex: The Cøsefor Femíníst Revolutíon
(NewYork: Morrow Press, r97o); Kate MilTeIl, Sexuøl Politics (NewYork: Doubieday, r97o).
86 Sexton and Sexton, Blue Collørs ønd Hørd-Høts, to3.
87 Christine þpy, Working Cløss Wør: Amerícøn Combøt Soldiers ønd Vie|nørn (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1993,).
88 The precise phrase and exact periodization are a matter of much debate. Ernest Mandel ar-
gues that late capitalism is not "post-"-that is, after-industrialism but "constitutes gener-
alized universal industrialism for the first time in history." Emest Mandel, La,te Cøpitølisrn
(t972; repr., London: Verso, 1978), 387. While he dates the arrival of this new era to about
1945, most other theorists place it in the r96os and r97os. See Fredric |ameson, Postmod-
emísrn, or, The Culturøl Logíc of Løte Cøpitølísrn. (Durham: Duke University Press, r99r); David
Harvey, The Conditíon of Postmod.emíty (London: Blackweil, 1989); Mike Davís, Prisoners of
the Arnericøn Dreøm: Politics ønd Economy ín the History ofthe U.S. Working Cløss (New York:
Verso, 1986); IGishan Kumar, Prophecy ønd Progress: The Sociology of Industríøl ønd Post-ín-
d.ustriøl Soøety (London: Penguin Press, 1978); Perry Anderson, The Ong¡ns of Postmod'er-
níty (London'. Verso, r998).
89 Alain Touraine, The Post-índ.ustriøl Society, Tom,orrow's Sociøl History (New York: Random
House, r97r), originally published as Lø société post-índustrielle (Paris: Denoël, 1969); and
Daníel 8e11, The Comíng of the Post-índustriøl Erø (New York: Basic Books, 1973).

9o Hal Foster, "The Crux of Minimalism," in The Retum of the Reøl (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press,r996), 36.
9r |ameson, Postmodemísrn, 44. For more o11 the Vietnam War era and postrnodernism, see
Michael Bibb¡ ed., The Vietnøm Wal ønd Postmodemíty (Amherst: University of Massa-
chusetts Press, 1999); and Marianne DeKoven, LJtopiø IJnlímíted.: The Sifües øndïhe Emer-
gence ofthe Postmodem (Durham: Duke University Press, zoo4).

92 On printed postcard sent by Andre in ry76, David Bourdon Papers, Andre file, AAA. For
another example, see Alex Gross, "The Artist as Nigger," Eøst Villøge Othør, December zz,
r970.

9J Faith Ringgold, We Flew over the Bridge: The Memoírs of Føíth Ríngold (Boston: Bullfinch
Press, 1995), 176.

94 Michele Wallace, Invisibílíty Blues: From Pop to Theory (London: Verso, r99o), r95.

95 Thomas Crow, The Ríse of the Sixties: Amencøn ønd, Europeøn Art in the Érø of Dísseiaú (New
York: Harry Abrams, ry961,n.
96 Harold Rosenberg, "Defining Art," New Yorker, Febrwary 25, ry67, reprinted in Gregory
Battcock, Minímøl Art: A Crítícøl Anthology (1968; repr., Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1995),3o3,.

97 Howard Singerman, Art Subjects: Møking Afüsts in the Americøn University (Berkeley: Uni
versity of California Press, 1999).
 NOTËS TO PAGES 37-43 I 233

98 Brian Wallis, "Public Funding and Alternative Spaces," in At¿lt, Altemøtive Art, New York, r74.

99 These arlists received grants averaging $75oo each. "Individual Artists Who Have Received
Awards from the NEA through November zo, 1968," Misc. Correspondence file, Lucy Lip-
pard Papers, AAA.
roo Betty Chamberlaín, The Artíst's Guide to Hís Market (New York: Watson-Guptili, r97ol.
IOI Harold Rosenberg, The Anxíous Object: Art Todøy ønd. lts Aud.iences (New York: Horizan,
ry671,t3-
ro2 Diana Crane, The Transformøtion of the Avønt-Gørde: The New York Art \x/orld, ry4o-tg85
(Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1987), 6.
ro3 Cited in ibid.,4.
704 Sophy Burnham,The Art Crowd (NewYork: David Mcl{.ay,t973),y.
ro5 Richard F. Shepard, "Ford Fund Glum on Arts Outlook," New York Times,Marcfi 2, 1969,47.
ro6 Russell Lynes, "The Artist as Uneconomic Man," Søturdøy Review, February 28, ry7o, z5-
28,79.
r07 Ibid.,26.
ro8 Lippard, phone interview, September 17, zoo8.
ro9 Alex Gross, 'Arts Disaster Kills Thousands," Eøst Villøge Other, November 17, r97o, t.

2. CARL ANDRE'S WORK ETHIC

Colín Simpson, "The Täte Drops a Costly Brick," Sund.øyTimes (London), February 15, ry76, g.
2 Laura Cumming, 'A Floored Genius," Guørdíøn,þtIy 6, zooo,23.
) Robert Semple fr., "Tate Gallery Buys a Pile of Bricks-Or Is It Art?" New York Times,Feb-
tuary 20, ry76,7o.

4 Sandy Ballatore, "Carl Andre on Work and Politics," Artweek,luly 3, ry76, ¡ zo.
5 Untitled, unsigned opinion column, Westem Døily Press, February zt, 1976, "Tate Bricks"
file, TGA.
6 I(eith Waterhouse, Døily Minor,February t9, 1976, quoted in Carl Andre, "The Bricks Ab-
stract: A Compilation by Carl Andre," October 1976, reprinted in Minimølísm, ed. fames
Meyer (London: Phaidon Press, zooo), z5r.
Carl Andre, letter to the editor, Artforum rr (April r9n): 9.
8 These biographical facts are repeated in most interviews with Andre; see David Bourdon,
"The Razed Sites of Carl Andre," Artforum 5 (October ry661: ry-ry: |eanne Siegel, "Carl
Andre: Artworker," Studio Intemøtíonalr79 (November r97o):175-79,reprinhedínArtwords:
Díscourseonlhe6osønd.7os(NewYork: DeCapoPress,rggz), r29-4o (all furtherpageci-
tations are to reprint); and David Sylvester, lnterviews with Amencøn Ariists (New Haven:
Yale University Press, zoor). Andre's biography proves contentious because ofthe 1985
death of his wife, Ana Mendieta, an important feminist Cuban-born artist. Mendieta's death
has haunted Andre's reputation-as weli as hers, of course-and continues to frame many
discussions of his work in the United States. For more on their relationship, see Laura
Roulet, 'Ana Mendieta and Carl Andre: Duet of Leaf andStone," Art Joumø|63 (Fallzoo4):
8o-ror.
 234 I NOTES TO PAGES 43-47

9 See Bourdon, "Razed Sites," 16.

IO Carl Andre, Quincy Book (Andover, MA: Addison Gallery of Americarr Att, r973l.
II Barbara Rose, "The Lively Arts: Out of the Studios, On to the Barricades," New York, No-
vember ry7o,55.
T2 David Bourdon, "Carl Andre Protests Museological'Mutilation,"' VilløgeVoíce,May 3t,1976,
r r8.
13 Thomas Hess, "Carl Andre Has the Floor," New York Møgøzine,lune 7, ry76; reprinted in
Paul Feldman, Alistair Rider, and Karsten Schubert, eds., About Cørl And.re: Crítícøl Texts
since ry65 (London: Ridinghouse, zoo6), ry4. This book includes an especially astute read-
ing of Andre and the literature on his work. Alistair Rider, introduction to Feldman, Rider,
and Schubert, About Cørl And.re,8-t8.
r4 Siegel, "Carl Andre," r3r.
r5 Peter Fuller, "Carl Andre on His SculptureIl," Art Monthly,|une 1978,5-rr, reprinted in
Cuts: Carl Andre Texts, 1g5g-2oo4, ed. |ames Meyer (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zoo5),
48 (a1l further page citations are to reprint).
r6 Paul Cummings, ArtistsínTheir OwnWords: Intervía¡ts (NewYork: St. Marlin's Press, 1979), zr.

17 Douglas Crimp, "Redefining Site Specificity," in On the Museum's Ruíns (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, t9%), r57.
r8 Richard Wollheim, "Minimal Art," Arts Møgøzíne, lamtary i965, reprinted in Gregory
Battcock, Mínírnøl Art: A Critícøl Anthology (1968; repr., Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1995), l8Z-gg (al1 further page citations are to reprint).
19 Ibid.,395.

fames Meyer's genealogy of this term suggests that the longevity of the phrase mínimøl
ør¿had less to do with Wollheim's specifically labored connotations than with the reduced
physical properties of the art itself; yet he also plots minimalism as a contested discursive
field. James Meyer, Mínimølism: Art ønd Polemics in the Sixties (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, zoor).
2T 'A Symposium on 'The New Scuipture,"' with Mark di Suvero, Donald Judd, I(ynaston Mc-
Shine, Robert Morris, and Barbara Rose, New York , May 2, 1966, unpublished transcript,
Aù^\r{. A condensed version of this appears in }. Meyer, Mínírnalísrnlzooo], zzo-zz.
Grace Glueck, 'Art Notes: Anticoliector, Anti-museum," New York Tímes, April 24, ry66,
xz4.
23 |ohn Perreault, "Union Made: Notes on a Phenomenon," Arts Møgøzine, Marút t967, 29.
Inhis MínimøIism (zoot), |ames Meyer cites the fashion-magazine coverage of "Prirnary
Structures" as the signature moment of minimalism's incorporation into the mainstream.
24 Yvonne Rainer, 'A Quasi Survey of Some 'Minimalist' Tendencies in the Quantitatively Min-
imal Dance Activity midst the Plethora, or an Analysis of Trio A," in Battcock, Minimøl Art,
-") / ).
25 Barbara Rose, "Shall We Have a Renaissancel" Art ín Ameicø 55 (March-April ry6fl: 3t.
26 Anne M. Wagner, Jeøn-Bøptíste Cørpøøux: Sculptor of the Second. Empire (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1986).
27 See fames Meyer, 'Another Minimalísm," in A Minírnøl Future? Art as Object, ry58-t968,
ed. Ann Goldstein and Lila Gabrielle Mark (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zoo4), y-49.
 NOTES TO PAGES 47-50 I 235

28 John Lobell, "Developing Technologies for Sculptors," Arts Møgøzíne, |une t97t,
27-29.
29 Caroline lones, Møchíne in the Stud.ío: Construc'tíngthe Postwør Americøn Afüst (Chicago
University of Chicago Press, 1996).

3o Robert Smithson,'A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects," ArtforumT (September

ry68):44.
3r See Dan Flavin to Barbara Rose, |une n-ry, 1966, Barbara Rose Papers, AAA.
Cummin gs. Arl.ísts, r87.

)) Uphold.íngthe Brícks,YHS, diected by Mark fames (Londoni Mark fames Production, r99o),
TGA.

34 Diane Waldman, Cørl Andre (New York: Guggenheim Museum, r97ol, zr.

35 Carl Andre, Michael Cain, Douglas Huebler, and lan Wilson, "Tíme: A Panel Discussion,"
Marchry, r969, moderatedby Seth Siegelaub as abenefitforthe StudentMobilization Com-
mittee Against the War, transcript edited by Lucy Lippard, 6, Lttcy Lippard Papers, AAA.
36 Upholdingthe Bricks.

)/ Quoted in Paul Wood, "On DifÏerent Silences: From'Silence Is Assent'to 'the Peace That
Passeth Understanding,"' in Cørl And.re and the Sculpturøl Imøginøtion, ed. Ian Cole (New
York: MoMA, ry961,25. Fullerversionpublishedas'ArtandValue" (1978) inJ. Meyer,Cuts,
44.
38 My thanks to Walter Bryan, metallurgist, for his help with questions about mining, milling,
rolling, and cuüing.
39 For a masterful take on this dilemma, see Alex Potts, "The Minimalist Object and the pho-
tographic Image," ín Sculpture ønd Photogrøphy: Envísíoningthe Thírd Dimensioia, ed. Geral-
dine A. |ohnson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), r8r-98.

4o Bourdon, "Razed Sites," ro3-8, also see Enno Develing, Cørl And.re (The Hague: Haags
Gemeentemus eum, ry69), 33.

4t David Bjelajac, Americøn Art: A Culturøl Hisfory (New York: Harry N. Abrams, zoorl,164.

42 Gregory Battcock, "The Politics of Space," Arts Møgøzine, February ry7o, 4o-4J.

43 John Coplans, "The New Sculpture and Têchnology," in Am.ericøn Sculpture of the ry6os,
ed. Maurice Tuchman (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Ãrt, ry6),4.

44 Barbara Rose, "The Politics of Criticism V: The Politics of Art, Part lI," Artforum 7 (lanu-
ary ry691:44-49.
45 The latter half of this chapter will challenge the assumption that his materials were in fact
"everyday," hence the use of scare quotes here.

46 Enno Develing, "Carl Andre: Art as a Social Fact," Arts Cønødø, December rg7o-lantnry
1971,47*49.
47 Gregoire Müller, "Carl Andre at the Guggenheim," Arts Magøzín¿, November rg7o,57.

48 Lucy Lippard, "The Dilemma," Arts Møgøzin¿, November r97o, reprinted in Gef the Mes-
søge? A Decøde of A*for Socia.l Chønge (New York: E. P. Dutton, ry841, 4-to.
49 Helen Molesworth, ed., Work Ethic, exh. cat. (University Park: Pennsylvania State Univer-
sity Press, zoo3).

5o Bourdon, "Carl Andre Protests," r18.

 236 I NOTES TO PAGES 50-53

5r Paul Wisotzki, 'Artist and Worker: The Labour of David Smith," Oxford Art loumøl zB (Oc-
tober zoo5):347-7o. Andrenotedthat Smith "considered himself redderthan Mao"; quoted
in Siegel, "Car7 Andre," rz9.
52 Camilla Gray, The Greøt Ë,xpenment: Russíøn Art, ß63-ryzz (London: Thames and Hud-
son, i96z).
53 For example, |ack Burnham, "System Esthetics," Artforum 7 (September 1968): 3o-35:
Ronald Hunt, "The Constructivist Ethos: Russia, r9r3-r932," Artforum 6 (September
ry671:4-29: and |ohn Elderfield, "Constructivism and the Objective World: An Essay on
Production and Proletarian Culhrre," Studio Intemøtíonøl ry9 (September ry7o): 73-8o.

54 For more on postrevolutionary Russian visions of artistic labor, see Guggenheim Museum,
The Greøt Utopiø: The Russíøn ønd. Soviet Avant-Gørd.e, ry15-1932 (New York: Guggenheim
Museum, r99z), and Michael Andrews, ed., Artifio Life: Russiøn Constructívísm, ry14-1g32
(New York: Rizzoli, r99o).

55 Vladimir Mayakovsky, How Are Verses Mød.e? (1926), trans. G. M. Hyde (London: f . Cape,
1970),57.

56 For two recent accounts of this moment, see Maria Gough, The Afü* øs Producer: Russíøn
Constructívísrnín Revolutíon (Berkeley: University of California Press, zoo5), and Christina
Kaier, lmøgtne No Possessions: The Sociølist Objec'ts of Russíøn Construclívísm (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, zoo5).
57 Willoughby Sharp, "Carl Andre: A Man Climbs a Mountain," Avølønche, Fa1l r97o, quoted
in |. Meyer, Cuts,22g. Maria Gough has examined the "constructivist" claims of Frank Stella
and Andre in "Frank Stella Is a Constructivisl," October n7 (Winter zooT): 94-tzo.
58 For more onlhe Equívølent sertes, see David Batchelor, "Equivalence Is a Strange \X/ord,"
in Cole, Ca.rl And.re, t6-zt.
59 "My cliché about myself is that I'm the first of the post-studio artists (that's probably not
true)." Quoted in Phyllis Tuchman, 'An Interviewwith Carl Andre," ArLforumS (fune r97o):
55. Caroline Jones discusses the linkage of "post-studio" work to postmodernism in "Post-
Stndio/Postmodern: Robert Smithson and the Technological FuÍne," in Møchine in the Stu-
dío,268-73.
6o Andre uses this term to describe the certificates of authorship that he generates when works
are sold; these then become the guarantees that someone's piece is "authentic." He recog-
nizes the irony of "authenticating" a work that could easily be reproduced: "I do not sign
the substance of my work but I am willing to give 'deeds of ownership to those who re-
quire them. That is probably a form of culture lag and a mistake." Andre Gould, "Dialogues
with Carl Andre," Arts Møgøzine,May t974, z7-28.
6r Rose, "Lively Arts," 54.
6z Carl Andre, intewiew, August 7, zooj.
63 Lucy Lippard, "Biting the Hand: Artists and Museums in New York since 1969," in Altemøtíve
Art, New York, ry65-ry85, ed. |ulie Ault (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, zooz), 84.
64 Lucy Lippard, phone interview, November r,,2oor.
65 Bourdon, "Razed Sites," 17.

66 Síegel, "Cari Andre," r34.

67 For Andre's most extensive statement about commodification and art, see Carl Andre and
 NOTES TO PAGES 53-58 I 237

feremy Gilbert-Rolfe, "Commodity and Contradiction or Contradiction as Commodity," Oc-

tober z (Surnmet rg76li roo-ro4.
68 |ames Meyer, "Carl Andre, Writer," in CuI.s, t7.

69 AWC, "Demonstrate Our Strength at MoMAI" flye¡ Political and Documentation/

Distribution Archive, AWC files, MoMA Archives.
7o Siegel, "Carl Andre," r3o. Andre's inclusion of collectors among art workers \ryas unusual
within the AWC. It is probably relevant that Andre's work was hotly pursued by collectors
in the United States and Europe at this time; see the records from his dealer Virginia Dwan,
Dwan Papers, AAA.

7r One of the earliest of these accounts is Annette Michelson's 'An Aesthetics of Tiansgres-
sion," in Robert Morris (Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1969), 7-75. It was re-
iterated by many minimalist sculptors themselves, particularly Morris.

72 See AWC, "r3 Demands," typewritten leaflet, submitted laruary 28, ry69,to Bates Lowr¡
director of MoMA, attached to the press release 'Artists Protest against Museum of Mod-
ern Art," March r4, 1969, signed by Carl Andre, Lloyd, and Hans Haacke, AWC file, Lucy
Lippard Papers, AAA.

/t Lucy Lippard, "The Art Workers' Coalition: Not a Histor¡" tn Gøtthe Messøge? 13.

74 See Grace Glueck" 'Artists Vote for Union and a Big Demonstralion," New York Tírnes, Sep-
tember 23, r97o, 1,g.

75 Quoted in Jay facobs, "Pertinent and Impertineît," Art Gøllery, November ry7o,7-8.
76 Lippard, 'Art Workers' Coaiition," 17.

77 Audiotaped recording of the AWC open hearing, ry69, Lttcy Lippard Papers, AAA.

78 Philip Leider, cluoted in Amy Newman, ed., Chøllengíng Art: Artforum, ry62-ry72 (NewYork:
Soho Press, zoool, 267-77.

79 Sophy Burnham , The Art Crowd (New York: David McKay, ry73) , 27.
8o Carl Andre, 'Art Now Class," transcript of talk, December rz, 1969, rr, Barbara Reise Pa-
pers, TGA. Editedversion appears in Peggy Gale, ed., ArtistsTølk, ry6g-ry77 (Halifax Press
of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, zoo4l, to-3r.
8r Andre, 'Art Now Class," rz-r4.
8z Audiotape of 'Art and Subsid¡" April 14, r97o, MoMA Archives.
83 In an interview in ry96, the former director of MoMA ]ohn Hightower recalled that he
wished he had said during the time of the AWC that the museum was established to show
artworks rather than to caretake and pay artists. fohn Hightower, interview by Sharon Zane,
April r996, transcript, Museum of Modern Art Oral History Project, MoMA Archives,
6z-63.
84 Paul Brach, interview by Barry Schwartz , r97r, ftanscript, n.p., AAA.
85 Karl Beveridge and Ian Burn, "Don fudd," Fox,no. z (t9751: ry8.
86 Carl Andre capsule review, ARTNøws,llLlay rg7r, ro.
87 Postcard from Andre to David Bourdon, April 4, 1976, Bourdon Papers, AAA.
88 Quoted in Studs Terkel, Workíng: People Tølk øbout Whøt They Do All Døy ønd How They
Feel øbout Whøt ThE Do (New York: Pantheon Books, r97z), loo<í.

89 Bourdon, "Carl Andre Protests," r18.

 23A I NOTES TO PAGES 59-65

9o Alex Alberro, Conceptuøl Art a.nd the Polítics of Publicity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
zoo8).
91 Liz Kotz provides a keen look at Andre's poetry in Words to Be Looked At: Lønguøge ín ry6os
Art (Carnbidge, MA: MIT Press, zooT).
92 David Raskin, "Specific Opposition: |udd's Art and Politics," Art History z4 (November zoor):
682-7o6.
93 "The Artist and Politics: A Symposium," Artforum 9 (September ry7o):35-39.

94 C. Wright Mllls, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956).
95 Statement by Takis, read at a panel moderated by Jeanne Siegel and broadcast on WBAI,
ApriIzg, 1969, reprinted in Siegel, Artwords,rzz.
96 A. H. Raskin, "Behind the MoMA Skike," ARTNews,laruary rg74, 37.

97 Guggenheim show postcard invitation, t97o, Carl Andre artist file, MoMA Library.

98 Quoted in Ballatore, "Carl Andre," r, zo.

99 Gregory Battcock, 'Art in the Service of the Leftl" in ldea Art: A Critícøl Anthology (New
York:E. P. Dutton, ry731, zr-p. See also his "Marcuse and Antiart," Arts Møgøzine, Surn-

mer 1969, ry-r8, and,Why Art: Cøsuøl Notes on the Aesthetics of the Immedíøfø Pøsf (New
York: DttIIon, ry77).
E. P.

roo Battcock, 'Art in the Service," 28.

IOI Herbert Marcuse, Countenevolution ønd Revolt (Boston: Beacon Press, t97z),87.
702 Ibid., 93.
703 Peter Schjeldahl, "One Takes Away, the Other Piles It On," Nsu; York Times, Apt'll 29, 1923, 2r.

104 Barbara Rose, 'A Retrospective Note," in David Bourdon, Cørl And.re, Sculplure, ry5g-1g72
(NewYork: Jaap Reitman, 1978), rr.
ro5 Herbert Marcuse, "Art in a One-Dimensional Societ¡" Arts Møgøzíne, May ry67, 261.
ro6 Baer was one of the first artists to withdraw her work from a museum show to protest the
bombings of Cambodia ín t97o; see her letter to K)¡naston McShine dated May 14, r97o,
Art Strike files, MoMA Archives. She recalls that she had no idea why her works were cho-
sen for this article. Jo Baer, e-maii, March zoo7.

707 Herbert Marcuse, An Essøy on Liberøtíon (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969).

io8 Herbert Marcuse, "Revolutionary Subjects and Self Government," Prøxis: A Phílosophícøl
I oumøl 5 (r969): 326 -29.
ro9 Phyllis Tuchman, "Background of a Minimalist Carl Andre," Artþrumß (March 1978):3o.
IIO Andre also researched where to locate his metals, usually from contacts he had with other
minimalists and fabricators. Carl Andre, interview August 7 zoo3. On his reading of Sci
entífic Amencøl¿, see Cummings, Artists, t77.
III Robert Smithson provides a cursory overview of steel production in "sedimentation of the
Mind," 44.
TT2 Carl Andre, interview, August 24,2ooj.
n3 Carl Andre, phone interview, February rr, zoo4. According to foshua Mack, List's heir and
the current owner of the piece, Ardre had to receive special permission from the govern-
ment to purchase the gold from Fort l(nox because from ryyunttI r97r U.S. citizens were
 NOTES TO PAGES 66-72 I 239

forbidden to buy gold bullion. Howeve¡ eighteen-carat gold (usedfor Gold Field.) isnotpure
buliion, so it is unclear if Mad< is correct about this narrative. foshua Mack, e,mail, De-
cember g,2oo1.
774 Rose, "Lively Arts," 55.

TI5 Carl Andre, phone intewiew, February rr,2oo4.

rr6 Cørl Andre (The Hague: Haags Gemeentemuseum, ry69),6.
r17 Hal Foster, "The Crux of Minimalism," ín The Retum of the Reøl (Cambndge, MA: MIT
Press, 1996). Rosalind Krauss articulates a similar viewpoint in "The Cultural Logic of the
Late Capitalist Museum," October 54 PaIlry9o):3-r7.
r18 In the r99o vtdeo Uphold.ing the Brícks, Andre mentions that he thought part of why the
British held special scorn for his brick works was because bricklayers are seen as lower class
and undignified. This is echoed in Cumming, "Floored Genius," 21,. Fot an insightful ex-
amination of craft as a mode of production and of the dialectic between handiwork and
conceptual work, see Glenn Adamson, Thínkíngthrough Crøfi (London: Berg, zooT).
IÏ9 Sharp, "Carl Andre," 24.
120 Sylvester, lnterviews with Americøn Artísts, 279.
I2I Siegel, "Carl Andre," r35.
722 Frank Gilbreth, Motíon Study: A Method for Increøsing thø Eficíency of the Workmen (New
York: D. Van Nostrand, rgrr).
r23 Potts notes that this intimate engagement with the work is one that Andre alone has ac-
cess to. Alex Polts, The Sculpturøl lmøginøtion: Fígurøtíve, Modemist, Minimøli* (New Haven:
Yale University Press, zooo), z3r. However, this tactile work importantþ inciudes the in-
staller and the assistant.
124 Ibíd.,327.
125 Siegel, "Carl Andre," r3r.
tz6 Éva Meyer-Hermann, "Here and Now in Retrospect: On the Paradox of Curating a Carl An-
dre Exhibition," in Cole, Cørl Andre, g-t5.
127 Siegel, "Carl Andre," t37.
rz8 Quoted in Sylvester, lnterviews with Amerícøn Artists, 275-77.
129 Mel Bochner, review of "Primary Structures," Arts Møgøzine,lune ry66,32-35.
r30 Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, "Michael Asher and the Conclusion of Modernist Sculpture," in
Neo-Avønt-Gørd.e ønd Culture Industry: Essøys on Europeøn ønd Annerícøn Artfrom ry55 to

ry75 (Cambríd.ge, MA: MIT Press, zooo), ro.

r3r Quoted in Frances Colpitt, Minitnøl Art: The Criticøl Perspective (SeaIIle; University of Vi/ash-
ington Press, 199o), 8.
r32 Rosalind E. Krauss, Pøssøges in Modern Sculpture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, i98r), 245.
r33 Giuseppe Panza files, Andre box r, GRI. This work was purchased by Panza in ry73 for
$zr,ooo.
r34 Andre to Giuseppe Panza, May ß, ry77, Giuseppe Panza files, Andre box r, GRI.
135 Dow made magnesium until the mid-r97os, when it sold its production plants to the Inter-
national Magnesium Association. Thanks to Chris Gilbert, then-curator at the Baltimore
Museum of Art, for facilitating my viewing of this piece.
 240 ¡ NOTES TO PAGES 72-77

B6 GAAG, Anim, and AWC to Flavin, December zz, 1969, AWC files, MoMA Archives. :..

r37 Battcock, "Politics of Space,"

4o-43.
r38 GuyWilliams, letter to the editor, ArtforumT (February ry6ç): 4-6. .

l
139 See Douglas Robinson, "Dow Chemical Office Picketed for Its Manufacture of Napalm," :

i
NewYorkTímes,May29,t966,z;"StudentsArrestedRecruilingatDow," NewYorkTimes, I

Marchzo, ry68,3. I'

740 Vl¡illiam O'Neill, ComingApørt: AnInJormølHístory of Arnericøinthery6os (NewYork Quad-

!

rangle/New York Times Book, r97r), 289.

747 Anthony Ripley, "Napalm Assailed at Dow Meeting," New York Tírnes,May 8, t969, n.
r42 Krauss, Pøssøges ín Modem Sculpture, t98.
143 Mike Davis, Prisoners ofthe Americøn Dreøm (London: Verso, 1986).
144 Donald Lippincott, phone interview ]une 23, zooj.
r45 See,forinstance,fohnNeely, PrøcticølMetøllurgyøndMøteriølsoflndustry(NewYork: Wi
rey,ry79l.
r46 Michael Newman, "Recovering Andre: Remarks Arising from the Symposium," in Cole,
Cørl Andre, n.
r47 MetalsDepot customer service, two phone conversations, October zr, zoo3, andl:uly z, zoo7.
r48 Anne P. Carter, "The Economics of Technological Change," Scienúrtc Amerícøn, Apri1t966,
6"9.
149 National Materials Advisory Board, Competítíveness of the U.S. Mínerøls ønd Metøls Indus-
tryin ø ChøngíngGlobøl Context (Washington, DC: Commission on Ëngineering and Tech-
nical Systems, r99o); W. O. Alexander, "The Competition of Metals," in Møteriøls: A Sci-
entif.c Amerícøn Book (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, ry671, ry6.
150 See the plans for this museum, which celebrates 'America's industrial achievements," at
www.nmih.org.
15I Andre's metals and bricks were intimately related; in fact, the limestone used for his bricks
can be a by-product of the steel manufacturing process.

152 Andre discusses selling his original 1966 bricks back to their manufacturer, and his sub-
sequent choice of bricks to remaL<e Equivølent,in a conversation with Tate curators and con-
servators held just after the Tate purchased his worl<. See "Carl Andre in Conversation with
Ronald Al1ey, Richard Morphet, Simon Wilson, Penelope Marcus, Angeles Westwater," tran-
script, May n, r97z, TGA, TAV r9AB.
r53 "Roundtalrle with Tate Curators," t972, TGA, ro. Andre used firebricks as a substitute for
the sandlime bricks, a costlier endeavor since each firebrick cost sixty cents as compared
to the nine cents each for the original bricks.
154 For more on Moses, see Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses øndthe Føll of New
York (New York: Vintage Books, 1975).

r55 Carl Andre, interview, A:ugt;Lst 7, 2oo3.

ry6 The quotation above is from Lippard, "Dilemma," 5.
r57 Irving Sandler, Antencøn Art ofthe r96os (New York: Harper and Row 1988), 267. For the
section epigraph, see "The Artist and Politics."
r58 Hilton Kramer, quoted in A. Newman, Chøllenging Art, zgg-joo.
 NOTES TO PAGES 77-85 I 241

159 Andre et a1., "Time: A Panei Discussion."

r6o f. Meyea Mínimølismlzoorl,263.
r6r Andre reportedly wore an antiwar button to the opening of Mínimøl Art. l. Meyer, Mini-
mølism lzootl, 261, y5 n. 83.
t6z Ursula Meyer, "De-Objectification of the Object," Arts Møgøzíne, Summer 1969, zo-zz.
ß3 Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, "Modernity and Modernism Reconsidered," in Modemísnt
in Dispute: Art síncethe Fortíes,ed. PaulWood et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993),
z16. Emphasis in the original.
ß4 Battcock, introduction to MínímøI Art,26.
r65 Lynda Morris, 'Andre's Aesthetics," Lístener, April 6, 1978, TGA.
ú6 f. Meyea Minirnalísm [zoor], r87.
167 Cummings, Artísts,t87.
r68 Quoted in Fuller, "Carl Andre," 9.
r69 Donald |udd, "Imperialism, Nationalism and Regionalism ," ín Donøld Judd: Cornplete Writ-
tg59-t975 (Halifax Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, igTS), 22r-22.
ings,

170 Charles Harrison, 'Against Precedents," Stud.ío Intemøtionøl ry8 (September 1969): 9r.
77f Robert Morris, interview, in Alex Alberro and Patricia Norvell, eds., Recording Conceptuøl
Ad (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, zoor), 64.
172 Carl Andre, phone intewíew, September 3, zoo3.
17) Quoted in Kenneth Ba7<er, Mínímølísm: Art of Circumstønce (New York: Abbeville Press,
1988), r38.
174 Philip Leider, "To Introduce a New Kind of Truth," New York Tímes, May 25, 1969, D4r.
175 Krauss, Pøssøges in Mod.em Sculpture, z7o.
176 Bourdon, "Razed Sites," 14. See also Didie Gust, 'Andre: Artist of Transportatíon," Aspen
Tímes,lttly 18, 1968, quoted in Develing, "Carl Andre," 47.
177 Quoted in P. Tuchman, "Interview with Carl Andre," 57.

3, ROBERT MORRIS'S ART STRIKE

There is some slippage between the Ierrns ínstøller andføbricøtorhere: fabricators are usu-
ally the actual constructors (welders, molders) of art objects, but since these works were as-
semblages of unaltered raw materials, their "fabricatiorl' became a matter of arrangement
and placement.
2 "Maxmizingthe Minimal," Tíme, Apríl 20, rg7o,54.
) Although the worker, Ed Giza, an employee of the art fabrication firm Lippincott Inc., was
rushed to the hospital, he suffered nothing more serious than bruising (Ed Giza, interview,
November zoo3).

4 |ack Burnham,'A Robert Morris Retrospective in Detroit," ArtforumS (MarchryTol:66-75.

5 Morris to Marcia Tucker, December r4, 1969, RMA.
6 Morris to Tucker, December 28, 1969, RMA.
 242 I NOTES TO PAGES 85-91

Marcia Tucker, Robert Morris (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, r97o), pres-
ents an overview of Morris's earlier work.
8 Quoted in Sean H. Elwood, "The New York Art Strike (A History, Assessment, and Spec-
ulation)" (MA thesis, City University of New York, t98z),52.
9 Dore Ashton, "New York Commentary," Stud.io lntema.tionøl ry9 (lune ry7ol: 274.
IO Annette Michelson notes that Morris's r97o Whitney show followed directly on the heels
of Yvonne Rainer's dance Contínuous Project-,4ltered Daily (which took its title from a 1969-
70 Morris process piece) in that same location. Michelson suggested that the Morris ex-
hibit could be read as a subtle response to Rainer's piece. See Annette Michelson, "Three
Notes on an Exhibition as a Work," Artforum 8 (fune ry7ol:64. For an incisive, thoughtfirl
consideration of Rainer's work, including political resonances that Morris might have been
attuned to, see Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Beíng Wøtched.: Yvonne Røíner ønd. the ry6os (Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press, zooS).
II Maurice Berget Løbyrínths: Robert Morris, Mínimølísn't, ønd. the ry6os (New York: Harper
and Row, rg89l, %.
I2 Stanley Aronowitz, "When the New Left Was New," in The '1oswíthout Apology, ed. Sohnya
Sayres et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), zo.
13 While the literature on performance has dealt with the methodological problem of his-
toricizing the ephemeral, the art-historical writing on destroyed process works and mini-
mal sculpture has undertheorized this problem. For two helpful models, see Alex Potts,
The Sculpturøl lrnøginøtíon: Fígurøtíve, Modemist, Mínimølist (New Haven: Yale University
Press,zooo),andPamelaLee's ObjecttoBeDestroyed:TheWorkofGordonMøItø-Clørk(Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press, zooo).
14 Grégoire Müller and Gianfranco Gorgoni, The New Avønt-Gørdø: lssues for the Art ofthe Sev-
øntíes (New York:, Praeget r97z).
r5 E. C. Goossen, "The Artist Speaks: Robert Morris," Artín Americø 58 (May-fune r97o): ro8.
t6 Christopher Andreae, "Portrait of the Artist as a Construction Man," Christiøn Science Mon-
itor,May 6, t97o, tz.
17 Peter Plagens, capsule rcview, Artforurø 8 (Apri1 r97o): 86.
r8 For an overview of the historical context of how the "hardhal" came to be an emblem of
masculinity, see Joshua B. Freeman, "Hardhats: Construction Workers, Manliness, and the
r97o Pro-War Demonstrations," Joumøl of Sociøl History z6 (Summer ry93):725-39.
r9 RobertMorris, "SizeMatters," CrítícølInquíryz6 (Springzooo): 474-87. AnnaC. Chave's
seminal "Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power" also considers the gendering of mini
malism and the macho claims of some minimalist artists (Ar-fs Møgøzine, lanuary t99o,
44-ql.
20 The racíalizing of the working class is discussed in Stanley Aronowitz, Følse Promises: The
Shøping of Americøn Workíng Cløss Conscíousreøss, updated ed. (Durham: Duke University
Press, r99z).
2I Maurice Berger, "Morris Dancing: The Aesthetics of Production," in Løbynnths,8r-ro5.
22 Richard Meyer, "Pin-Ups: Robert Morris, Lynda Benglis, and the Erotics of Artistic lden-
tity," unpublished manuscripl, r9gr,6. For more on the masculinity performed by Mor-
 NOTES TO PAGES 91-93 I 243

ris, see Amelia lones, Body Art/Perforuningthe Subjøct (Minnesota: Universityof Minneapolis
Press, 1998).

|ulia Bryan-Wilson, "Hard Hats and Art Strikes: Robert Morris ín t97o," Art Bulletín (Iúîe
zooT): y3-59.
24 Typed draft of Morris's wall text, RMA.
25 Robert Morris, "Notes on Sculpture, Part 3," Artþrum 5 (fune 1967): z4-29, rcpnnted in
Continuous Project Altered Døíly: The Wrítings of Robert Monís (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
r9%1, n (a11 further page citations are to reprint).
z6 Morris, 'Anti Form," Arrforum 6 (Aprii ry68): y-35, reprinted in Continuous nro¡ect. J6.
Morris later distanced himseif from this term, which was given to his article by Artforurn
editor Phiiip Leider. One comprehensive look at "antiform," as well as crucial notions of
dematerialization, and revolution in sculpture at this time, is provided by Richard J.
Wi7íarns, Afier Modem Sculpturø: Artínthe IJnited Støtes ønd Europe, ry65-tg7o (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, zooo). Suzaan Boettger has also provided a helpful consid-
eration of "antiform'vis-à-vis the Vietnam War and reactions against minimalisrnin Eørth-
works: Art ønd the Løndscøpe ofthe Sixties (Berkeley: University of California Press, zooz_).
,,
Robert Morris, "Some Notes on the Phenomenology of Making," Artforum 8 (April r97o):
6z-66, reprinted ín Continuous Project Altered Døí|y,87 (al1 further page citations are to
reprint).
z8 In Løbyrinths, Berger focuses on Maicuse's emphasis on desublimation and libidinal re-
pression; I expand on his account to make labor and class more central. I am also indebted
to James Meyer's lucid Mínimølisyn: Art ønd Polemics in the Sixtíes (New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press, zoor), which touches on the U.S. reception of Marcuse in the late r96os, and
to Williams's accountin Af.er Modem Sculpture.
29 Herbert Marcuse, 'Art in the One-Dimensional Society," Arts Møgøzine,May ry67, z9-3t.
Marcuse is not entirely of one mind about the possibilities of art to create new modes of
thinking and living. Charles Reitz labels the first major period of Marcuse's thinking on
these matters as "Art-against-Alíenation' $yz-72) and his subsequent phase as 'Art-as-
Alienation," a phase that started with the publication of Counterrwolutiow ønd Revolt
(Boston: Beacon Press, r97z) and was consolidated in his The Aesthetíc Dim.ension: Toward.
a Critiqueof Mørxist Aesthetics (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978). See Charles Reitz, Art, Alien-
øtion, ønd.theHumønitíes: ACritícal Engøgementwíth HerbertMørcuse(Nbany: SUNY Press,
zooo). See also f ohn Bokina and Timothy f. Lukes, eds., Mørcuse: From New Lefi to the Next
Lef. (Lawrence: University of I(ansas Press, 1994); and Douglas Kellner, Herbert Mørcuse
ønd the Crisís of Mør rísm (Berkeley : University of California Pres s, r9 84).

3o Herbert Marcuse, An Essøy on Liberøtion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 9r.

3r Donald Lippincott, phone interview June 23,2oo3.

Morris to Michael Sylvester, lamtary 19, r97r, Robert Morris file, TGA.
)) Morris himself was paid a flat fee (the exact amount is not available in any records). The
installers, many of them employees of Lippincott Inc., worked for hourþ wages that were,
according to the recollections of owners Donald and A,lfred, cluite desirable and competi-
tive. The Lippincotts did not kept detaíled records of the pay schedules of the workers, but
they could remember vague \¡/ages and benefits; phone interview with Donald Lippincott,
 244 I NOTES TO PAGES 94-100

lrne 23, zoo3, and with Alfred Lippincott, March ro, zoo6. These terms were negotiated
by Morris in a series of letters to Tucker and induded the provision that "the funds ordi
narily spent on booze, guards, other expenses of the opening" be used on materials and
the cost of the installation. Morris to Tucker, February z, r97o, RMA.

34 Gregory Battcock, one of the most avid followers of Marcuse's theories as well as an in-
fluential art critic, wrote that the heart of "antiart" (which he renamed "outlaw art" so as to
maintain its status as art) was the denial of "art as a marketable item." Gregory Battcock,
"Marcuse and AntiArt," Arts Møgøzíne, Summer ry69, ry-r9.
35 Marcuse, Essøy on Liberøtíon,49.

36 For a distinction between use value and exchange value, see Karl Marx, "The Fetishism of
Commodities and the Secret Thereof," inCøpítøl: ACrítíque of Politicøl Econon'ry,vol. r, trans.
Ben Fowkes (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), originally published in 1867.

)/ See, for instance, Pierre Bourdieu, Distinc-tion: A Socíøl Critique of the Judgement of Tøste,

trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).

38 Michelson, "Three Notes," 6r.

39 Goossen, 'Artist Speaks," rro-rr.

4o Michelson, "Three Notes," Ø-6+.

4r Cindy Nemser, 'Artists and the System: Far from Cambodia," Villøge Yoicø, May 28, ry7o,
zo-zr. This is echoed byTucker, who remembered it as the "most expensive show" she cu-
rated, quoled in Elwood, "NewYork Art Strike," 52.

42 Ashton, "New York Cornrnenlary," 274.

4i "Reviews and Previews," ARTNews, Summer ry7o,65-66.

44 Michael Fried, 'l\rt and Objecthood," Artforum5 $tnery67'1:rz-z3.lncontast, Morris lauded
the "situational" aspect of minimal art that was a function of íts scale within the particular
gallery space; see Robert Morris, "Notes on Sculpture, Partr," Artþrum 4 (February ry661:
4z-44. Branden W. ]oseph has recently examined the theatrical basis of Morris's work and
inteiligently linked it to questions of power in "The Tower and the Line: Toward a Geneal-
ogyof Minimalisrn," Grey Room z7 (Spring zooT): 58-8r, reprinted ín Beyond. the Dreøm
Syndicøte:TonyConrødøndtheArtsøf.erCøge(NewYork:ZoneBooks, zooS),rc9-52.

45 Goossen, 'Artist Speaks," ro8.

46 Michelson, "Three Notes," 64.

47 Robert Morris, statement on poster insert, in Michael Compton and David Sty'vesIer, Robert
Morris (London: Tate Gallery, i97r).

48 Robert Morris, "Three Folds in the Fabric and Four Autobiographícal Asides as Allegories
(or Interruptions)," Art in Americø77 (November ry891: r44.

49 See, for example, f ohn Perreault, "Union Made: Report on a Phenomenon," Arts Møgøzine,
March 1967, z6-3r.

5o See Robert Murray's 1967 letter to Barbara Rose in her "Questions about Sculpture," Bar-
bara Rose Papers, AAA.

5r On Milgo and its clients, see fohn Lobell, "Developing Technologies for Sculpture," Arts
Møgøzine,ltne r 97 r, z7 - z 9.
52 Barbara Rose, "Blow Up: The Problem of Scale in Sculpture," Art in Arnericø 56 (|uly-August
1968): 87.
 NOTES TO PAGES 100-105 I 245

53 Ibid.,9o.
54 Donald Lippincott, interview, in Hugh Marlais Davis, Artíst ønd. Føbrícøtor (Amherst: Uni
versity of Massachusetts Press, 1975), 4o.

55 Dore Ashton, "The Language of Technics," Arts Møgøzine, May t967, n.

56 Barbara Rose, "Shall We Have a Renaissancel" Art ín Amørica 55 (March-ApriI ry6): y.

57 Morris, "Notes on Sculpture, Part3," 27.

58 Harry Braverm an, Løbor ønd Monopoly Cøpítøl: The Degrød.øtíon of Work in the Twentíeth Cen-
føry (NewYork: Monttriy Review, 1974).

59 Morris, "Some Notes," 92.

6o |oseph Kosuth , "1975:' Fox, no. z (19751: 95. Emphasis in original.
6t "Place and Process," reviewed byWilloughby Shary, Artþrum8 (November r 969): 46-49.
6z Grace Glueck, "Process Art and the New Disorder: Robert Morris Exhibits Works at Whit-
ney," New York Times, April rr, ry7o, 26.
63 Karl Marx, Economic ønd Phílosophicøl Mønuscripts of ß44, in The Mørx-Engels Reøder, ed,.

Robert C. Tucker (New York: Norton, ry781,7r.

64 Robert Morris, handwritten entry in notebook, October ry, ry7o.
65 Carter Ratcliff, "New York Lehter," Art Intumøtionø\, Summer ry7o,46.
66 Capsule review, ARINøws, Summer ry7o,66.
67 Morris to Michael Compton, lantary rg, igTr,Robert Morris füe, TGA.
68 For more on questions of physical violence, active viewership, and the Vietnam War, see
Frazer Wardk "Grey Zone Watching Shoot," October 95 (Winter zoor): rr5-3o.
69 Carole Pateman, Pøfücípation ønd Democrøtic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, r 97o).

7o f on Bird compellingly claims that the r97r Tate show was Morris's effort to come to terms

with questions of play. Moreover, he suggests that in retreating from "work" to leisure, Mor-
ris reintroduced the figure of the female within his art, as Neo-Cløssíc, the film made of the
Tate show, demonstrates the different activities as performed by a naked woman. f on Bird,
"Minding the Body: Robert Morris's rgTrTate Gallery Retrospective," in Rewriting Concep-
tuøl Art, ed. Michael Newman and |on Bird (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), ro6.

7f According to curator Michael Compton, visitors suffered from sprained fingers, crushed
toes, torn slcin, and more; Compton to Morris, May 13, ry7t,TGA. See also Robert Adam,
"Wrecked Tate Sculpture Show Closed," Døily Telegrøph, May 4, r9V; and Richard Cork,
'Assault Course at Tate Gallery," Evening Stand.ørd, April 3o, r97r, both in Robert Morris
file, TGA.
Glueck, "Process Art," 26. Berger also erroneously calls the Whitney show "participatory"
in Løbyrínths,rt6.
/) |oseph IGye, "Museum Agog over a Morris Exhibit," Kønsøs Cíty Stør, April zz, t97o,88.
74 Robert Morris, interview, May 26, zoo6. He elaborated, "ln retrospect my employment of
process and chance seems quite circumscribed in that Whitney sho\ff." E-mail, December
tz, zoo6.
75 Ashton, "New York Commenrary," z7 4.
76 Morris to Tucker, February z, t97o,RMA.
 246 I NOTES TO PAGES 107-r'r 3

See, for example, Goossen, 'Artist Speaks," ro5. See also a more recent interview in which
he summarizes his biography: "Up from the working class. Maniac for work. W'ork ethic.
'Workmanlike in the beginning."
Quoted in "Goiden Memories: WIT Mitchell Talks with
Robert Morris," Artforum 3z (Apúl ry9$:89.

78 Glued<, "Process ArI," 26.

79 Al Blanchard, "Bridge to the ArtWorld," Detroit Free press, January r5, ry7o,8A, Det¡oit In-
stitute of Arts Papers, AAA.
8o Morris, "Size Matters," 478.
8r Burnham, "Robert Morris Retrospective," 7r.
8z Morris to Wagstaff, October t9, r97o, Samuel Wagstaff Papers, AAA.
83 Daniel Berg to Wagstafl March zr, r97o, Samuel Wagstaff Papers, AAA.
84 Freeman, " Fi'ar dhats," 7 25.

85 Molly Martin, ed., Hørd,-Høtted. Women: Storíes of Struggle ønd Success in the Trødes (Seattle:
Bay Press, 1988).

86 Homer Bigart, "War Foes Here Attacked by Construction Workers," Nøw York Times, May
9, r97o, r.
87 rbid.
88 This is maintained by Peter Lerry, The Nøw Lef. ønd Løbor ín the ry6os (Urbana: University
of Illinois Press, 1994).
89 Richard Rogin, "Why the Construction Workers Holler, 'U.S.A. All the Way!' |oe Kelly Has
Reached His Boiling Point," New York Times Møgøzíne,lvne 28, r97o, r79.

9o For the classed nature of the draft, see Christian Appy, Working'Cløss Wør: Atnerícøn Com-
bøt Soldíers ønd Vietnørn (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993).

91 Mike Lamsey, "Blue Collar 'Workers May Be Next to Strike," WøshingLon Posi, April 5, ry7o,
3o.

92 Patricia Cayo Sexton and Brendon SexIon, Blue Collørs ønd Hørd-Høts: The Workíng Cløss
and. the Future of Amerícøn Políúics (New York: Random House, r97r), 5.

93 See the chapter on labor in Rohodri |eflreys-fones, Peøce Now! Amerícøn Socíety øndthe
Endíng of the Vietnørn W'ør (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).

94 Internal White House memo, H. R. Halderman to Charles Colson, May r97o, cluoted in
Tom Wells, The Wør Within: An'rerícø's Bøttle over Vietnam (New York: Henry Holt, 1994),
447.

95 Anonyrnous Nixon aide, quoted in ]ames M. Naughton, "U.S. to Tighten Suweillance of

Radicals," New York Times, ApÅl 12, r9Z o, r.

96 P. K. Edwards, Strikes ín tha United Støtes, ß8rtg74 (New York: St. Martins Press, r98r),
r8o.

97 |eremy Brecher, Strike!(San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, ry72), 249.

98 "Scorecard on Labor Trouble," New York Tímes, Aprll 5, rg7o, tj9.
99 Nicholas von Hoffman, 'A Real Bummer," Wøshíngton Post,May 6, r97o, Cr.
roo 'Wells, Wør Withín,
429.
IOI Artists participating in UsingWøllsincTuded Richard Artschwager, Me1 Bochner, Daniel Bu-
ren, Craig Kauffman, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, and Lawrence Weiner.
 NOTES TO PAGES 113-119 I 247

'Whitney Museum, unpublished press

ro2. release, May ry, t97o, protest file, Whitney Museum
Archives.
ro) See GeraldM. Monroe, 'Artists on the Barricades: The Militant Artists Union T?eats with
the New Deal," Archives of Americøn Art J oumøl r8, no. 3 (1978): zo - 23.
ro4 Nemser, "Artists and the System," 64.
ro5 Poppy |ohnson, intewiew, September zooz. For a blow-by-blow account of the New york
Art Strike, see Elwood, "NewYork Art Strike"; Grace Glued<, "Art Community Here Agrees
on Plan to Fight War, Racism, and Oppression," New York Tímes, May r9, r97o, 3o; arrd.
Therese Schwartz and Bill Amidon, "On the Steps of the Met," Nøw york Ëlement, ltne-
lrtly ry7o,3-4, r9-zo. See also |ulie Auit, 'A Chronology of Selected Alternative Structures,
Spaces, Artists' Groups, and Organizations in New York City, 1965-1985," ín Altemøtive
Art,NøwYork,ry65-ry85,ed. |ulie Ault (Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota press, zooz),
17-78. Glueck's article ftom r97o was accompanied by a photo of a scruffy-looking Mor-
ris standing at a podium and addressing the assembled crowd; displayed prominently be-
hind him is a poster reading "WORKERS."
ro6 Ëlizabeth C. Baker, "Pickets on Parnassus," ARTNews, September r97o,32. Morris, em-
bracing figuration in the immediate aftermath of the Art strike, made his "war Memori-
als" series of lithographs that same year, some of which he exhibited as protest posters-
for instance, in Lippard's Colløge of Ind.ignøtíon ll show at the New York Cultural Center in
r970.
ro7 Corinne Robins, "The N.Y. Art Strike," Arts Møgøzíne. September-October r97o,
z7-28.
ro8 Nemser, 'Artists and the System," zr.
ro9 Ibid., 64.
IIO Lil Picard, "Teach Art Action," Eøst Vílløge Other,l:une 16, t97o, rr. Emphasis in original.
III Schwartz and Amidon, "On the Steps," r9.
712 International Cultural Revolutionary Forces, flye¡ May 3r, r97o, Protests and Demonstra-
tions file, MoMA Archives.
r73 Irving Petlin, quoted in "The Artist and Politics: A Symposium ," Artforumg (September
t97ol:15.
7r4 Marcuse, Essøy on Liberøtíon,25.
rr5 Ibid., vii.
rr6 See Gregory Battcock's "Marcuse and Anti-ArtII," Arts Møgøziøø, November t969, zo-zz.
f17 Marcuse, Essøy on Liberøtíon,83.
r18 Robert Morris, notebook page, ca. r97o, RMA.
II9 Lucy Lippard, "The Art Worker's Coalition: Not a History," in Get the Møssøge? A Decøde of
Artþr Sociøl Chønge (NewYork: E. P. Dutton, ry84), ú.
120 Barbara Rose, "The Lively Arts: Out of the Studios, On to the Barricades," New york Møg-
øzíne, AugusIro, rg7o, 54-57.
I2T ]ohn B. Hightowe¡ type\ryïitten statement, May zz, rg7o, Att Strike file, MoMA Archive.
ï22 Art Strike to Hightower, May 25, r97o, AtL Strike file, MoMA Archive.
r23 Baker, "Pickets on Parnassus," 32.
 248 I NOTES TO PAGES 119-125

124 Grace Glueck, 'Artists to Withdraw Work at the Biennale," New YorkTimes,lttne 6, ry7o,27.
725 Michele Wallace wrote a scathing letter claiming that the Art Strike was a racist action that
had nothing to do with real battles for inclusion and diversity within the art world: "Black
art workers denounce art strike . . . as a racist organization which is designed to project SU-
PERSTARANTI-HUMAN ARTISTS." Seetypedlettertothe Art Strike, ]une r4, r97o, RMA.
In effect, she asked: What does it mean to demand the withdrawal of all artistic labor when,
as a disenfranchised person of color, that labor has never been valued in the first placel For
more on this, see Michele Wallace, "Reading 1968: The Great American Whitewash," in
Invísíbility Blues: From Pop to Theory (London: Verso, r99o), r95.
n6 Pete Hamill, quoted in Herbert Gutman, Work, Culture ønd Society in Industríølizing Amer-
icø (New York: Knopf, ry76), t4.
r27 Quoted in Ralph Blumenfeld, "Daily Closeup: Show Mustn't Go On," New York Post,lune
4' 1970' 37.
rz8 This is recounted by Lucy Lippard in A Dffirent Wør: Vietnøvn in Art (SeatIJe: Real Comet
Press, r99o), 53.

129 Nemser, 'Artists and the System," zo-zr.

IJO Marcuse, C ounterrevolutíon ønd Rev olt, 8.
I3T Robert Morris, notebook, June 19, r97o, RMA.
t32 Robert Morris, handwritten addendum to unpublished "Politics" statement, ca. r97o, RMA.
r33 TheArtworkers N¿wswas affiliated, notwiththe AWC, butratherwiththe National Art Work-
ers Community, an organízalton that focused on practical issues for arlists such as listing
grant agencies. See Alex Gross, "The National Art Workers Communit¡" Art in Arnencø
59 (September-October t97r): 23.
134 "Two-Man Guildl" Artworkers Nøus, Spring 1972,2,7.
135 EdKienholzalsoproposedanartisticwagelaborsysteminhis ConceptTøbleøux,datedt96y
67. In these works, he wrote descriptions of the works he would make, provided a collec-
tor paid him up front for materials and his time. Morris had a copy of one these tableaux
sent to him by a curator at the Corcoran in earþ r97o; I(enholz file, RMA.
IJ6 Robert Morris, undated typewritten proposal, ca. summer r97o, RMA.
137 Robert Morris, typewritten proposal, September zz, r97o,RMA
ry8 Guy Debord has of course been the most extensive theorist of the spectade; seehis Société
duspeaøcle$967),kanslatedintoEnglishas SocieïyoftheSpectøcle(Detroit:,BlackDogPress,
t97). An outstanding new account of Debord and the French Left is found in Tom Mc-
Donough, "The Beøutiful Lønguage of My Century": Reinventíngthe Lønguøge of Contestøtion
in Postwør Frønce, ry45-t968 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zooT).
r)9 Todd Gitlin, The Vlhole World ls Wøtchíng: Møss Mediø ønd the Møking ønd [Jnrnøking of the
New Lef. (Berkeley: University of California Press, r98o).

r40 Michelson, "Three Notes," 64.

74r The accident that hurt the worker and hence ended the public component of the Whitney
show is telling. The specter of bodily harm summoned by this injury-as well as those that
have occurred during the installing of Serra's pieces-raises troubling questions about artists
inhabiting the position of the "worker," as they are most often removed or distanced from
the bodily danger posed by the manipulation of equipment and heavy materials.
 NOTES TO PAcES 125-129 I 249

142 For instance, the exhibit is nowhere mentioned in the large-scale retrospective Robert Mor,
rís:TheMind/Body Problem(NewYork: Guggenheim Museum, 1994). This absence is noted
by Pepe lGrmel in his 1995 interview with the artist, "Robert Morris: Formal Disclosures,"
Art in Atnericø 83 (fune 1995): 88_95, n7, u9.
r43 Potls, Sculpturøl Imøginøtion, z5t.

4. LUCY LIPPARD'S FEMINIST LABOR

The epigraph is from Lucy Lippard, "The ArtWorkers' Coalition: Nota History, " Studio Intemøtíonø\,
November r97o, reprinted in Lucy Lippard , Get the Messøge? A Decøde of Artfor Socíøl Chønge (New
York: E.P. Dutton, ry841,t5.
r Lippard to ¡im Fitzsimmons, December n, ry64, Lucy Lippard papers, AAA.
z In Lucy Lippard, "Freelancing the Dragon: An Interview with the Ëditors of Art-Rite," Art-
Ríte, no.5 (Spring t9741, reprínted in Lucy Lippard, From the Center: Feminíst Essøys on
'Women's
Arf (New York: E. P. Dutton, ry76), ry (all further page citations are to reprint).
3 Ellen Willis, "R.adical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism," in The'\oswíthout Apology, ed.
Sohnya Sa)'res et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 94.

4 Barbara Ryan, Feminisrn ønd. the Women's Movement: Dynømics of Chønge in Socia.l Move-
ments, Ideology, ønd Actívísm (New York: Routledge,ry92), 42.
5 Ruth Milkman, ed., Wornen,Work, ønd Protest: ACentury of IJ.S.Women's Løbor History (New
York: Routledge, 1985).
6 Presidential Commission on the Status of \X/omen, Amerícøn Women (Washinston, DC: Gov-
ernment Printing Ofñce, 1963).

7 Alice l(essler-Harris, A Woma.n's Wøge: Historícøl Meanings ønd Sociøl Consequences (Lex-
ington: University Press of l(entudcy, r99o). An in-depth look at the comparable worth
movement in the United States can be found in Linda M. Blum's Between Feminism ønd La-
bor: The Signíf'cønce of the Compørøble Worth Movement (Berkeley: University of California
Press, r 99r).
8 For more on the distinction between cultural and radical feminism, see Alice Echols, Dør-
íngto Be Bød: Radicøl Fem,ínísm. in Amerícø, ry67-ry75 (Minneapolis: University of Min-
nesota Press, r989).

9 Redstockings, "The Redstodcings Manifesto," ín Ferninist Revolutíon, ed. Redstod<ings (New

Paltz: Redstockings, 19751, 4.
ro Anne M. Wagner, Three Artísts (ThreeWomen): Mod.emísm øndthe Art of Hesse, Krøsner, ønd
O'K"rfe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996) 238.
rT For a more comprehensive look at her turn away from formalism, see Laura Cottingham,
"Shifting Ground: On the Critical Practice of Lucy Lippard," in Seeingthrough the Swenties:
Essøys on Feminism ønd Art (Amsterdam: G and B Arts, zooo), r-46. Another examination

of her engagement with activism is found in |ayne Wark, Rødícøl Gestures: Femínism ønd
Perforrnønce Art in North Amerícø. lg7o-2ooo (Montreal: McGill Queens University Press,
zoo6).
12 For a lrook that follows this arc precisely, see Sara Evans, Personøl Polítics: The Roots of \xlomen's
Liberøtíon in the cívil Rights Movemønt ønd.the New Lefi (New york: vintage Books, 1979).
 250 I NOTES TO PAGES 129-134

13 Lucy Lippard, "Changing since Chøng1ng," in From the Center, z.

r4 Ibid., 3. Anna C. Chave has tracked how such dense social networks might have affected
the critical reception of minimalism (in "Minimalism and Biography," Art BulletinSz,no.
r [March zoool: 149-631.
r5 Robert Ryrnan, interview by Paul Cummings, transcript, Oral History Project, AAA, reel
3949'r.
r6 Lippard, "Freelancing the Dragon," 16.
17 lbid.., 17.

r8 Friedrich Engels, The Origin ofthe Førnily, Privøte Property, øndthe Støte (1884), ed. Eleanor
Burke Leacock (New York: International Publishers, r97z); Simone de Beauvoir, The Sec-

ond Sex (1949), trans. H. M. Parshley (New York: Penguin Books, r97z).
r9 Germaine Greer, The Fernøle Êunuch (New York: McGraw-Hill, ry7r1,25.
20 Lippard, "Freelancing the Dragon," 16.
27 Lucy Lippard, Chønging: Essøys in Art Críticism (New York: E. P. Dutton, ry7t), an.d "Chang-
ing since Chønging," z.
22 Lucy Lippard to MacDowell Colon¡ dated March rr, 1965, Lucy Lippard papers, AAA.
Amy Newman, introduction to Chøllenging Art: Artforum, ry62-ry74, ed. Amy Newman
(NewYork: Soho Press, zoool,7.
24 Irving Sandler, Amencøn Art of the r96os (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), rr5.
25 Lucy Lippard, preface to Six Yeørs: The Dernøteriølizøtíon of the Art Object, ry66-tg7z (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1997), 8. The unpublished transcript of the compiete
interview conductedwith Ursula Meyerin December 1969, is in Lucy Lippard Papers, AAA.
Many of the incidents that she recalls about her trip to Argentina were shared with me in
an ongoing series of interviews conducted between zool and zoo8.
z6 Lippard, From the Center, 3, and Get the Messøge? z.
27 In fact Lippards trip has been a point of contention in arguments about the influence of
South American on North American conceptual art; the Argentinean theorist Oscar Ma-
sotta used the term demøteriølizøtion a füI year before Lippard. See Oscar Masotta's "De-
spués del Pop, nosotros desmaterializamos" (After Pop, We Dematerialize), lecture presented
Instituto Di Tella in Buenos Aires, |uly zr, 1967 reprinted in Mari Carmen Ramírez
at the
and Héctor OIea, Inuerted Uïopíøs: Avønt-Gørd.e Art in Løtin Amerícø (Houston: Museum
of Fine Arts, zoo4), gz-33.
z8 Lippard herself sees the basic lesson ofthis trip as a "one-liner" about stopping art "when
tlre world is such a mess." Lippard, phone interview, September 17, zoo8.
29 Lucy Lippard, phone interviews, November ro and December 12,2oo3.
jo Lippard, preface to Six Yeørs, 8.

31 Lippard, Get the Messøge? z.

Lucy Lippard, phone conversation, Septembet 14,2oo4.

)) Lucy Lippard, phone conversation, November 26, zoo1.

34 Andrea Giunta , Avønt-Gørde, Intemøtionølism, ønd Polítícs: Argentíne Artinthø Sixties,Eans.

Peter Kahn (Durham: Duke University Press, zooT),269.

35 |uan Pablo Renzi et a1., "We Must Always Resist the Lures of Complicit¡" paper presented
 NOTES TO PAGES 134-138 I 251

in Rosario, 1968, trans. Marguerite Feitlowitz and reprinted in Listen! Here! Now! Argentine
Art ofthe ry6os:Wrítíngs ofthe Avønt-Gørde, ed. Inés l(atzenstein (Newyork: MoMA, zoo4),
295.

36 see the discussion of the debates around Dan Flavin's use of GE lightbulbs in chapter z.
t,/ Gregory Battcock, "Marcuse and Anti-Art II," Arts Møgøzine, November 1969, zo-zz.

38 Tucumón Bumshas been written about at greater length by Andrea Giunta, Alexander Al-
berro, and Mari Carmen Ramírez. See Giunta, Ayønt-Gørde,lntemøtiona,lísm,:Alexander Al-
berro, 'A Media Art: Conceptualism in Latin America in the r96os," in Rewritíng Concep-
tuøl Art, ed. Michael Newrnan and fon Bird (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), t4o-5r; and
Mari carmen Ramirez, "Tactics for Thriving on Adversity: conceptualism in Latin Amer-
ica, 196o-198o," in Ramírez and Olea, Inverted. tJtopiøs, 425-42.

39 The Nøw York Times reported that the region was "in a state of incipient rebellion." Mal-
colm W. Browne, 'Argentine Province Nears Revolt amid poverty and Repression,,, New
York Times, August 4, ry68, 4.
4o See the "Tucumán Burns" manifesto, by Maria Teresa Gramuglio and Nicolás Rosa,
reprinted in Alexander Alberro and Blake stimson, eds., conwtuøl Art: A criticøl Anthot-
ogy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zooo), 76-8r.

4r Eduardo Costa, Roberto facoby, and Raul Escari, 'A Mass Mediatic Art," in Rarnirez and
Olea, lnverted. Utopíøs. 53t.

42 Giunta, Avønt-Gørd.e, Intemøtíonalísm, z7 4.

4) Luis CamnitzeL Conceptuølisrn in Løtin Arnericø: Didøctícs of Liberøtíon (AusIin: University
ofTexas Press, zooT), 68.

44 Lippard, From the Center, 3.

45 A film about this event directed by Mariana Marchesi was shown at the ry99 Globøt Con-
ceptuølism show at the Queens Museum.

46 Lippard, preface Io Six Yeørs, 6.

47 Lippard, "Toward a Dematerialized or Non Object Art," typewritten transcript of lecture

given at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, November 29, t969, Lucy Lippard pa-
pers, AAA.

48 More about this exhibit appears in Chapter 5.

49 Blake Stimson, "'Dada-situationism/Tupanamos-Conceptualisrn: An Interview with

Luis Camnitzer," in Alberro and Stimson, Conceptual Art,4g9.

5o Ringgold recounts her involvement with and then detachment from the group in we Flew
Ringold (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995).
over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Føíth

5r Lippard to Martha Rosler, February 6, ry77, Lucy Lippard papers, AAA.

52 Ramírez has argued that Tucurndn Bumsis in fact more closely aligned with a heroic avant-
garde than with the neo-avant-garde, which alerts us to rethink how the avant-garde posi-
tions itself quite locally against the state and the institution. See Mari carmen Ramírez,
"Blueprint circuits: conceptual Art and Politics in Latin America," in Alberro and Stim-
son, conceptuøI Art, 55o-$. This statement also asks us to question the accepted peri-
odization of the transition from the avant-garde to the neo-avant-garde in the r96os and to
account for the diversity of these deveiopments internationally.

53 For more on Lippard's retrospective take on the AWC andwAR, see "Biting the Hand; Artists
 252 | NOTES TO PAGES 140-146

and Musenms in New York since 1969," in Altemøtive Art, New York, ry65-ry85, ed. ]ulie
Ault (Minneapolis: UniVersity of Minnesota, zooz), 7 9-tr4.
54 Lippard, statement for the April ro, 1969, open hearing, in AWC, Air Open Heøríng onthe
Subject: Vhøt Should Be the Progrøm of the Art Workers Regørd'ing Museunl Reform and to
EstøblishtheProgrømofønOpenArt'WorkersCoølition(NewYork: AWC,r97o),57.

55 Timothy Ferris, 'A Creepy Protest at Museum," New York Post,lantary ry, rgTr; Lucy Lip-
pard, "Charitable Visits by the AWC to MoMA and the Met," Elemenï,lanttary r97r, reprinted
in Get the Messøge? zt.
56 Jean Toche, interview September 2r,2oor.
57 Lucy Lippard, "The Dilemma," Arts Møgøzin¿, November r97o, reprinted in Get the Mes'

søge?4-to (a11 further page citations are to reprint).

58 Quoted in Lippard, "Sol LeWitt," in Sol LeWitt, ed. Alicia Legg (New York: MoMA, 1978).

59 Lippard, "Dilemma," 7.

6o Lippard, "Prefatory Note," in Get the Messøge? z.

6t This figure cited to me by Paula Cooper in an interview, Apnl z, 2oo2, was $ro,ooo, but
the gallery does not have complete records about what sold. Student Mobe file, Lucy Lip-
pard Papers, AAA.
6z Press release, "For Peace," Student Mobe file, Lucy Lippard Papers, AAA.
63 úid.
64 Grace Glueck, 'A Party That Includes You Out," New York Tímes, October 27, ry68, Dz6.
65 Gene Tulchin, phone interview November 12, zoo7.
66 Therese Schwartz, "The Politicalization of the Avant-Garde," Artin Americø 59 (November-
December r97r): 99-roo.
67 Lucy Lippard, phone interview, October rj,2ooj.
68 A comparable wage system had been worked out several years earlier by Ed Kienholz in his
series ConceptTøbløøux (t963-67). Kienholz, in his contract drawn up with gallerist Dwan,
stated that "the hourly wage shall be a sum equal to the combined hourþ union wage scale
for plumbers, electricians, and carpenters then prevailing in the Los Angeles area." See Ed
Kienholz, "Contract for the Purchase ofa Concept Tableau," Dwan Gallery file, Lucy Lip-
pard Papers, AAA.
69 Soi LeWitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," Artforum 5 (fune 1967): 83.

7o Bernice Rose, "Sol LeWitt and Drawing," ín Sol LeWitt (New York: MoMA, ry781,26.

7r Lucy Lippard, "Back to Square One: Remembering So1 LeWitt $928-zoo7)," Artin Amer-
ícø 95 (lune-luly zooT): 47.

7?, Sol LeWitt, "sentences on Conceptual Art," o-9, no. 5 (January ry691:3.

7) "Major Exhibition of Non-Objective Art, Oct. zz," press release, vertical fi1es, Smithsonian
American Art Museum Library.

74 See, for example, Ursula Meyer, "De-Objectification of the Object," Arts Møgøzíne, Sum-
rner tg6g, zo-zz.
75 Gregory Battcod<, 'Art: Reviewing the Above Statement," Free Press Critíque, October 1968,
Br.

76 Lippard, Six Yeørs, too.

 NOTES TO PAGÉS 148-153 I 253

77 Anonymous flyet ry69, MoMA file, Lucy Lippard Papers, AAA.

78 Lippard, "Dilemma," 9.

79 Suzaan Boettger discusses the multiple reframings of Smithson's woodshed in Eørthworks:

Art ønd the Løndscøpe of the Sixties (Berkeley: University of California Press, zooz).
8o Lucy Lippard, "(I) Some Political Posters and (II) Some Questions They Raise about Arr and
Politics," Døtø Arte, November-December 1975, reprinted in Getthe Messøge? 29.
8r Lippard, "Freelancing the Dragon," 25.
8z AWC, "The Art Magazines: Demands of the Publications Committee, AWC," Aprl. ry7o,
Virginia Admiral Papers, AWC file, AAA.
81 Paula Cooper, interview Apnlz, zooz.
84 Gregory Battcock, "Remarks Read to the Meeting of the ArtWorkers Coalition and the Crit-
ics from the International Association of Art Critics," November rc, 1969, Virginia Ad-
miral Papers, AWC füe, AAA.
85 Gregory Battcock, "Informative Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Att," Arts Møgøzine,
Summer rg7o,24-27.
86 For more on conceptuai profects in magazines, see Anne Rorimer, "siting the Page: Ex-
hibitingWorks in Publications-Some Examples of Conceptual Artin the USA," in M. New-
man and Bird,, Rewriting Conceptuøl Art, n-26.
87 foseph Kosuth, "lnhoductory Note by the American Editor," Art-Lønguøge 4 no. z (r97ol:

88 Ursula Meyer, Conceptuøl Art (New York: Ë. P. Dutton, ry7zl,vtä.

89 Lucy Lippard, interview by Ursula Meyer, December 1969, excerpted in the preface to Lip-
pard, Six Yeørs,7.

9o Lury Lippard, "Intersections," h Flypunkter/VøníshingPoints (Stockholm: Modema Museet,

ry841' t4-
9r Peter Plagens, review of "557o87," Artforum 8 (November ry691:64-67.

92 Lippard, Chønging, n.

9) Anne d'Harnoncourt and Kynâston McShine, eds., Ma,rcel Duchømp (New York: MoMA,
t9731, zoo-ztt.
94 Lucy Lippard, 'Absentee Information and/or Criticism," in Infonnøtion, ed.. Kynaston Mc-
Shine (New York: MoMA, t97o), 7 4-8r.
95 Lippard, preface to SixYeørs,5.

96 McShine, Informøtíon, z.

97 Barbara Reise to Lippard, lanuary 29, r97t,TGA

98 fudy l(emesrud, "Coming Wednesday: A Herstory-Making Event," New York Tímes Sun-
d.øy Møgøzine, August 2j, r97o, 4-ro.

99 This wave of strikes is discussed in Chapter 3.

roo Betty Friedan, quoted in Deirdre Carmod¡ "General Strike by U.S. Women Urged to Mark
rgth Amendment," New York Tírnes, March zr, r97o,20.
IOI Lippard, "Prefatory Note," 3.
ro2 Lippard, "Changing since Chønging," 4.
 254 I NOTES TO PAGES 154-157

703 C. Wright Mills, The Sociologpcøl Imøgínøtíon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959);
Carol Hanisch, "The Personal Is Political" (1969), reprintedín Ferninist Revolution (New
Paltz: Redstockings Press, 19751, zo4-5.
ro4 Sophy Burnham , The Art Croud (New York: David McKay, ry7), ú.
ro5 |uliette Gordon, "The History of Our WAR from the Beginnings to Today or Life under
Fire in the Art World Dear'Workers," Mønhøttøn Tribune,May z, t97o, reprinted in f acque-
line Skiles and |anet McDeviü, eds., A Docurnentøry Herstory of Women Artists ín Revolution
(New York: Women Artists in Revolution, rg7rlr, 4.
ro6 Lippard to |an (last name unknown), luly 27, 1975, Lucy Lippard Papers, AAA.
ro7 Harmony Hammond-another single mother-recalls Lippard coming to do a studio visit
in the earþ r97os, when both of them had their children in tow. "It was a tremendous re-
lief to be validated as a mother and a working woman by another woman in the same po-
sition." Hammond, interview, September 13, zoo8.
ro8 Clement Greenberg, interview, Montreøl Sføt November 29,1969, qtoted in Lucy Lippard,
"Prefaces to Catalogues," ín From the Centør, 4t.

ro9 Barbara Rose, 'ABC Art," Art in Americø 53 (October-November 1965): 57-69: Lttcy Líp-
pard, "New York Letter: Rejective Art," Art lntemøtionø\9 (September 1965): 58-63; and
Anneüe Michelson, 'An Aesthetics of Transgression," in Robert Morns (Washington, DC:
Corcoran Gallery of At,ry6$,7-75.
IIO Ti-Grace Atkinson, Arnøzon Od.yssey (New York: Putnam, ry74).
III fill ]ohnston, Lesbiøn Nøtíon: The Feminist S.olution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973).
I12 EchoIs, Døringto Be Bød, Jr7 rr.70. See Shulamith Firestone, The Díøleaic of Sex: The Cøse
for Ferníníst Revolutíon (New York: Bantam Books, r97o); I(ate Millett, Sexual Politics (Gar-
den City, NY Doubleday, r97o); and Patricia Mainardi, "The Politics of Housework,"
reprinted ín Sístørhood ls Poweful, ed. Robin Morgan (New York: Random House, r97o),
447-54.
113 Lippard, Get the Messøge? y
r74 Lucy Lippard, I See/You Meøn (Los Angeles: Chrysalis Books, 1979). Although Lippard has
wriüen other fiction, this remains her only published novel.
rr5 Working with this tiny press had its drawbacks. The book was published in a very limited
run (two thousand copies), the money was put up front by Lippard herself for the printing
costs, and the press did such a poor job of distributing it that she said she has "cases" of
the book in a closet somewhere. Lippard, phone interview, November ro,2oo3.
I16 Lippard, I See/You Meøn,6.
r17 Quoted in Susan Stoops, "From Eccentric to Sensuous Abstraction: An Interview with Lucy
Lippard," inMoreThønMínímøl: Femínist Abstrøctíoninthe r97os (Waltham, MA: Rose Art
Museum, Brandeis University, ry96), 27.
I18 Lippard, I See/You Meøn, t8.
II9 Lucy Lippard, "Escape Attempts," in Six Yeørs, r't.
120 Lippard, I See/You Meøn,4o.
r27 Ibid.,4t.
122 rbid., 8.
 NOTES TO PAGES 1 57-164 I 255

123 Roland Barthes, Cømerø Lucid.ø: RefleAíons on Photogrøphy, tans. Richard Howard (New
York: Hill and Wang, r98o).
124 Lippard, I See/You Meøn,44.
125 lbid.,5z.
tz6 For an outline ofconsciousness-raising practices, see l(athie Sarachild, "Radical Feminist
Consciousness Raising," speech given at the First National.Women's Liberation Conference,
Chicago, November 27, t968, reprinted in Shuiamith Firestone, ed., Notes from the Second
Yeør: Women's Líberøtion (New York: Tanner Press, r97o),295-3o9.
127 Anita Shreve, "The Group: Twelve Years Laler," New York Times Møgøzine,lvly 6, ry86, y
tz8 Lippard, I See/You Meøn, 43.
129 Ibid.,49.
r)o Lippard, "Changing since Chønging," 4.
I3I Ibid., z.
132 Grace Glueck, "Women Artists Demonstrate at the Whítney," New York Times, December
tz,r97o, At9.
r33 Handwritten postcard from Andre to Reise, January 14, rg7r, Reise papers, TGA.
134 Lucy Lippard, phone intewiew, November zoor.
135 Firestone, Diølectic of Sex,33.

\6 Quoted in A. Newman , Chøllengíng ert. ryt.

rj7 This letter is undated, but its unmistakable references to specific actions by the AWC to-
cate it sometime in r97o. Lucy Lippard Papers, AAA.

rl8 Lucy Lippard, "Twenty-Six Contemporary Women Artists," in Twenty-Six Contemporøry

'Women
Artists, eyJt cat. (Ridgefield, CT Aldrich Museum, r97r), reprinted in Lippard, "preÊ
aces to Catalogres," 4r (all further page citations are to reprint).

1)9 Lippard, "Changing since Chønging," t3.

r40 Lippard, "Twenty-Six Contemporary Women Artists," 4r.
r4r .lVomen: The Longest
fuliet Mitche1l, Revolution," New Lef, Review,no. 4o (December 1966):
15-27.
r42 See, for instance, the range ofperspectives represented in Ellen Malos, ed., The polítics of
Housework (New York: New Clarion Press, 1975).
r43 A-lice Kessler-Harcís,Women Høve AlwøysWorked.: AHístorícølOverview (OldWestbur¡ Ny:
Feminist Press, r98r), 4r.
144 Lippard, "Twenty-Six Contemporary Women Artists," 42.
r45 See the interview with four striking PASTA workers (a11 of them women) in Lawrence A1-
loway and fohn Coplans, "strike at the Modern," Artforum rz (December rynl 42.
r46 Lucy Lippard, "The Pink Glass Swan," in The Pink Gløss Swøn: Selected. Essøys on Fen'tinist
Arl (NewYork: New Press, t995),t23.
147 Cottingham, "Shifting Ground," 25.

48 Andrea Fraser has recently taken up the idea ofthe "service economy" of art, in all its reg-
isters; see Fraser, "How to Provide an Artistic Service: An Introduction," in Museum High-
lights: The Writings of Andreø Frøser lCambridge, MA: MIT Press, zooT), 153-62. See also
Steven Henry Madofl, "Seruice Aesthetics," Artforum, September zoo8, t65-69, 484.
 256 I NOTES TO PAGES 165-169

149 Mierle Laderman Ukeles, "Maintenance Art Manifesto' (1969), reprintedin Docurnents to
(Fall r996): ro.
r50 Helen Molesworth, "Cleaning Up in the r97os: The Work of |udy Chicago, Mary Kelly and
Mierle Laderman Ukeles," in M. Newman and Bird, Rewritíng Conceptuøl Art, :-r4.
I5I Hannah Arendt, The Humøn Condítion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 87.
752 Ibid., roo.
153 tbid., ú7.
154 Ukeles's later work would in fact investigate the worid of garbage collection; her Touch Søn-
itøtionpiece (r978-8o) involved her personally shaking hands with and thanking over 8,5oo
New York City sanitation workers.
r55 SeeGriseldaPollockandRozsikaParker, Old.Mistresses:Women,Art,øndldeology(NewYork:
Pantheon Books, r98r), and Rozsika Parker, The Subversiue Stitch: Embroidery ønd,the Møk-
íng of the Femínine (London: New Women's Press, 1984). The feminist history here is rich
and crucial; one galvanizing figure regarding craft womens workhas been fudy Chicago
as

and her Dinner Pørty FgZ+-Zgl. For more on this work's lasting importance, see Amelia
]ones, ed., Sexual Politics: Judy Chicøgo's Dinner Pørty in Feminí* Art History (Los Angeles:
UCLA, Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center/University of California
Press, 1996).

$6 Patricia Mainardi, "Quilts: The Great American Art." Fem.inist Art Joumøl z (WinÌer ry73):
t t8-21.
r57 FaíthWilding, "Monstrous Domesticity," inM/E/A/Nfl/N/G: An Anthology of Artífis'Writ-
ings, Theory, ønd Cntícísm, ed. Susan Bee and Mira Schor (Durham: Duke University Press,
zooo),87-to4. Formore on Womønhouse,see Arlene Raven, "Womanhouse," ínThePower
of Feminí*Art: The Arnerican Movement of the tg7os, Hístory ønd. lmpøct, ed. Norma Broude
and Mary D. Garrard (New York: Harry N. Abrams, ry9$, 48-65.
158 Lucy Lippard, "Fragments," in Frorn the Cønter, 63.

159 Elissa Auther, String, Felt, Threød ønd the Híerørchy of Art ønd Crøfi. in Arnericøn Art, ry6o-
r98o (Minneapoiis: University of Minnesota Press, zoog).
r6o Lucy Lippard, Evø Hesse (New York: New York University Press, t9761, zo9.
r6r Lucy Lippard, "Household Images in Art," Ms., March t973, repinled, in From the Center,
s6-ss-
t6z Lucy Lippard, "Making Something from Nothing (Towards a Definition of Women's 'Hobby
Art')," Heresíes, no. 4 ("Women's Traditional Arts and the Politics of Aesthetics"; Wínter
ry781,65-
16J Roundtabie discussion, "What Is Female Imageryl" Ms.,May 1975,2)-29.
164 For instances of this dialogical writing, see Lucy Lippard, "Six," Studio Intemøtíonølß1 (Feb-
ruary 1974): t8-zt, and "What, Then, Is the Relationship between Art and Politicsl" in Get
the Messøge? 3o-36.
r65 See Lucy Lippard and Candace Hill-Montgomery, "Working Women/Working Artists/
Working Together," Wotnen's ArtJoumø|3 (Spring-Summer r98z): r9-zo. This is just one
example; Mary Keliy and other British feminists also produced art collectively with work-
ing women frorr':lrgT3to r975,íncludingan extensive chronicle of the hours of unpaid do-
mestic iabor performed by female factory workers. Margaret Harrison, I(ay Hunt, and Mary
 NOTES TO PAGES 170-176 I 257

KeI7y,'Women ønd Work: A Document on the Divísion of Løbor in lndustry (London: South
London Art Galler¡ 1975). Lippard also worked directiy with unions beyond an explicitly
feminist context, in shows such as Artists Workingwith LJnions: IJnion Møde (1984), orga-
nized by |erry Kearns and Lippard for Bread and Roses, held at the District rr99 Cultural
Center in New York.
ß6 Nicolas Bourriaud, Esthétiquereløtionelle(Dljon: Lespressesduréel, 1998); Englished., Rø-

in Claire Bishop, ed., Pørtícipø-

løtionøl Aesthetícs, zooz; this translation by David Mace¡
tíon: Docutnents of Contemporøry Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 16o.
167 Lippard, preface to Síx Yeørs, 8-9.
r68 The emphasis I place on this trip departs from Lippards own sense of its importance in
her career. \Vhile I respect her account, I nevertheless wish to make an interpretive leap to
suggest that the implications of the Argentina visit were potentially far-reaching.

5. HANS HAACKE'S PAPERWORK

Jack Burnham, "Note on Art and Information Processing," in Sof.wøre: lnformøtíon Tech-
nology. lts Meøningfor Art, exh. cat. (New York: |ewish Museum of Art, r97o).
David Lamelas, conversation with author, Los Angeles, October r,2oo4.

3 Roberto facoby, "Message in the Di Tella," flyer distribute daspart of Experíencíøs 68. Cotu-
tesy of the artist. Translation by the author.

4 See Hans Haacke et a1., Frømíng ønd Beíng Frømed: 7 Works, ryZo-1975 (Halifax Press of
the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1975). The Haacke literature is rich and exten-
sive, induding Rosalyn Deutsche, "Property Values: Hans Haacke, Real Estate, and the Mu-
seum," in Evictions: Art ønd. Spøtiøl Polítícs (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), ry9-94;
Brian Wallis, ed,., Høns Høøcke: Unf.níshed. Business (New York: New Museum, 1986); the
numerous essays by Benjamin Buchloh, especially "Hans Haad<e: Memory and Institu-
tional Reason," Art in Arnericø 76 (Febtuary 1988), reprinted in his Neo-Avønt Gørd.e ønd
Culture lndustrl (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zooo), zo3-4r (aL page citations are to
reprint); and Matthias Flügge and Robert Fleck, eds., Høns Høøcke: For Reø\, Works, ry59-
zoo6 (Berlin: Richter, zooT).

5 Michael Hardt, "Immaterial Labor and Artistic Production," Rethinkíng Mørxisrn ry (April
zoo5'¡: 175-77. This concept has gained wide currency among many theorists and has been
written about in texts such as Marina Vishmidt and Melanie Gilligan, eds., Irnrnøterial Løbour:
Work, Reseørch ønd Art (London: Black Dog Press, zoo5); Maurizio Lazzanto, "Immater-
ial Labor," in Rød.ícølThoughtín ltøly: APotentiøl Politics,ed,. Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, zoo6). Extending and revising these ideas
within the realm of artistic production are the writings of Sabeth Buchmann, Brian Holmes,
and fohn Ro'berts; see, for instance, Sabeth Buchmann, "Under the Sign o{ Labor," in Art
øfier Conceptuøl Art, ed. Alexander Alberro and Sabeth Buchmann (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, zoo6), 179-95; "The Spaces of a Cultural Question: An E-Mail Interviewwith Brian
Holmes," zoo4, www.republicart.net/disc/precariat/holmes-ostenor-en.htrn; John Roberts,
The Intøngibilities of Form: Skill ønd Deskilling in Art øjier the Reød,ymød.e (London: Verso,
2oo7).
 25A I NOTËS TO PAGES 177-181

6 fack Burnham, "Systems Esthetics," Artforum7 (September 1968): 3o-35, and "Real Time
Systems," Artforum 8 (September ry69):49-55.

7 Pamela Lee, Chronophobíø: On Time ín the Art of the r96os (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
zoo4l,6z.
8 See Sabeth Buchmann, "From Systems-Oriented Art to Biopoliticai Art Practice," paper pre-
sented at the Tate Modern conference "Open Systems: Rethinking Art c. t97o," Septem-
ber t7, zoo5, http.//publication.nodel.org/From-systems-Oriented-Art-to-Biopolitical-Art-
Practice.

9 ]eanne Siegel, 'An Interview with Hans Haacke," Arts Møgøzine, May r97r, 19.
IO Haackek comments are in Carl Andre, Hans Haacke, |ean Perreault, and Cindy Nemser,
"The Role of the Artist in Today's Society," syrnposium at the Allen Memorial Art Museum
of Oberlin College, ApriI 29, 1973, publishedin Art Joumøl 43 (Summer ry75):327-28.
Haacke still uses the artists' contract; see Roberta Smith, "When Artists Seek Royalties on
Their Resales," New York Times, May 3t, ry87, Hz9-3o.
77 AWC, "Program for Change," AV¡C file, MoMA Archives.
I2 Hans Haacke, "Museums: Managers of Consciousness," in Wallis, Høns Høøcke, 6o-

r3 Yves-Alain Bois, Douglas Crimp, and Rosalind Krauss, 'A Conversation with Hans Haad<e,"
October 3o (Fall ry84\: 47.

t4 Deutsche, "Property Vaiues"; Buchioh, "Hans Haacke: Memory."

r5 Benjamin Buchloh, "Hans Haacke: From Factographic Sculpture to Counter-Monument,"
in Flügge and Fleck, Høns Haøcke,4z-59.
t6 Buchloh, "Hans Haacke: Memor¡" zrr.
77 Kirsi Peltomäki, 'Affect and Spectatorial Agency: Viewing Institutional Criticlue in the
r97os," Art Joumø|66 (Winter zooTl: 37-5t.
r8 Although he planned these polls in 1969, because of software malfunctions the first com-
pleted tabulations occurred in r97r. See Wallis, Høns Høøcke,83-85.
r9 Pierre Bourdieu and Alain DarbeI, The Love of Art: Europeøn Art Museums a.nd. Their Pub-
lic,itans. Caroline Beatty and Nid< Merriman (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994),
originally published as Løtnour dø l'ørt, les musées d'ørt européens et leur publíc (Paris: Edi
tions de minuit, ry661. Haacke recalls reading Bourdieus works by the early r97os in Ger-
man translations, in particular Foundøtíonsfor ø Theory of Symbolíc Violence and On the So-
ciologyofSymbolicForms;seeMollyNesbit, HønsHøøcke(London: Phaidonpress,zoo4),8.
20 Bourdieu and Darbel, Love of Art,7r.
2I SeePierre Bourdieu, The Field of Culturøl Production, ed. Randal fohnson (New york: Co-
lumbia University Press, r9%),37.
z2 Pierre Bourdieu and Hans Haacke, Free Exchønge,Itans. Randal |ohnson and Hans Haacke
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), originaþ published as Libre-échønge (paris: Le
seuil/Les presses du réel, ry94).
Bourdieu and Darbel, Love of Art, n3.
24 Rosalln Deutsche, "The Art of Not Being Governed Quite So Much," in Flügge and Fleck,
Høns Høøcke,69.
25 Jeanne Siegel, "Interview with Hans Haacke," zo.
 NOTES TO PAGES 181-184 I 259

z6 Lucy Lippard and |ohn Chandler, "The Dematerializatíonof Art," Art IntemøtíonøIn (Feb-
rvary t968):1v36.
Siegel, "Interview with Hans Haacke," zr.
z8 Herbert Marcuse, Countenevolutíon ønd. Revolt (Boston: Beacon Press, t97z),55.
29 See Paul Osterman et aI., Working in Americø: A Blueprint for the New Løbor Mørket (Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press, zoo3).

3o Benjamin Buchloh, "Conceptual Art, 196z-1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration

to the Critique of Institutions ," in Iiørt concøptuel: Une perspectiue, ed. Claude Gurtz (Paris:
Musée d art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1989), z5-y,repnnledin Octobør 55 pVinter r99o):
ro5-4J-
3t Howard |unker, "Idea as Art," Newsweek, August rr, 1969, 8r.

tz Sol LeWitt, "Serial Project #t," Aspen Møgøzíne, no. 5-6 $9671: n.p.
)) On EAT, see Lee, Chronophobía, and Anne Collins Goodyear, "The Relationship of Art to
Science and Technology in the United States, r957-r97r: Five Case Studies" (PhD diss.,
University of Texas, zooz).

)4 )ohn A. Walker, 'APG: The Individual and the Organizalton," Studio Intemøtíonøh85 (April
ry76):úo.
35 Lucy Lippard, interview by Ursula Meyer, December r969, unpublished draft, excerpts of
which were pubiished in Lucy Lippard, Síx Years: The Demøteriølizøtíon of the Art Object,
ry66-tg7z (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), "Concept Art" file, Lucy Lip-
pard Papers, AAA, 14.

16 Paul Eleey, "Context Is Half the Work," Frieze, November-December 2oo7, 154-59.

t/ Hans Haacke, statement in AWC, Open Heøring,46-47.

38 A chronology ofthese events is found in Benny Andrews, "Benny Andrews' Journal: A Black
Artist's View of Artistic and Political Activism, ry63-r973," in Mary Schmidt Campbell,
Tradition and Confliø: Imøges of ø Turbulent Decøde, ry6j-ry7j (New York: Studio Museum
in Harlem, ry85),68-73.
J9 For an incisive look at how "community" is marshaled for a variety of purposes but rarely
cogently delineated, see Miwon Kvton, One Pløce øfier Another: Site Specific Art ønd Locø-
tionøl Identity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zooz).

4o For an overview of the history of El Museo, see Fatima Bercht and Deborah Cullen, eds.,
Vocesyuisíones: Hi.ghli.ghtsfrom El Museo del Børrio's Permønent Collectíon (New York: Museo
del Barrio, zoo3).

4r Lucy Lippard, "Toward a Dematerialized or Non Art Object," typewritten lranscript of lec-
ture given at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, November 29, ry69, r3, Lucy Lip-
pard Papers, AAA.

42 Alan Moore has discussed GAAG as protojournalists in his "Collectivities: Protest, Counter-
culture, and Political Postmodernism in NewYork City Artists'Organizations, r969-r985"
(PhD diss., Ciiy University of New York, zooo). More on GAAG can be found in Bradford
Martin, The Theøter Is in the Streets: Polítícs ønd Publíc Perforrnønce in Síxtíes Am,ericø
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, zoo4).
.Ì) See GAAG, GAAG, the Guerrillø ArI Actíon Group, ry69-76: A Selection (New York: Printed
Matte¡ 1978), n.p.
 260 I NOTES TO PAGES 184-195

44 |on Hendricks, interview, October zooz.

45 GAAG, "Communiqué," in GAAG, n.p. For more on the antiwar theatrical events of this
time, see Norma M. NIet Vietnøm Protest Theøter: The Televísed. Wør on Støge (Blooming-
ton: Indiana University Press, 1996).

46 Bois, Crimp, and l(rauss, "Conversation with Hans Haacke," 47.

47 Because of the connections between Dow Chemical and Andre's magnesium plates, I at-
tempted to find out where Haacke got his magnesium, but he has no recollection of where
the metal might have come from other than "a supply store on Canal Street." Hans Haacke,
phone interview, October 27,2oo3.

48 eanne Siegel, "Carl Andre: Artworker," in Artwords: Discourse onthe 6os ønd 7os (New York:
f

De Capo, ry85), ry2.

49 Hans Haacke, intewiew, April zr, 2oo7. See also Tim Griffin, "Historical Survey: An In-
teruiew with Hans Haacke," Artforurn 43 (September zoo4).

5o Hans Haacke, "Proposal," ín lnformøtíon, ed. Kynaston McShine (New York: Museum of
Modern Art, r97ol,5Z.
5r ]ohn Hightower, interview by Sharon Zane, ApríI 1996, transcript, MoMA Oral History
Proiect, MoMA Archives, 6o.

52 |ohn Hightower to Gov. Nelson Rocicefellea |uly 2, rg7o, |ohn Hightower Papers, MoMA
Archives. The Rockefellers do not have fond memories of Hightower's brief (two-year) reign
as director of MoMA. David Rockefeller criticized how the museum turned "into a forum
for antiwar activism and sexual liberation," recalling a r97o show where viewers were in-
vited to have sex behind burlap curtains (certainly an apocrlphal tale) . Quoted in Keh Devine
Thomas, "From Little Men in Red Coats to 'Boy with a Red Vest,"' ARTNews, April zoo3,
rr8-r9.
53 Herlrert Marcuse, "Repressive Tolerance," ín A Crítique ofPure Tolerønc¿, ed. Robert Paul
Wolff,, Barrington Moore lr., and Herbert Marcuse (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 95-137.

54 For more on Foucault and governmentality in the case of the museum, see Tony Bennett,
The Birth of the Museum: Hístory, Thøory, Politics (New York: Routledge, 1995), and George
Yúdice, Fredric |ameson, and Stanley Fish, eds., The Expedienq ofCulture: IJses ofCulture
in ø Globøl Erø (Dtxharn Duke University Press, zoo3).

55 Typed statement from Hans Haacke "to all interested pariies re: cancellation of Haacke one-
man exhibition at Guggenheim Museum," April 3, r97r, z, Haacke personal papers, New
York.

56 'Asking the Right Questions," Scíence News,lttly n, rg7o, )r.

57 Siegel, "Interviewwith Hans Haacke," r9.

58 Hilton Kramer, "The National Gailery Is Growing: Risks and Promises," New York Tírnes,

lune 9, ry74, t37.

59 For an intelligent discussion of the Informøtion show, see Eve Meltzer, "The Dream of the
Information World," Oxford Art Iournøl 29, no. r (zoo6): rr5-35.
6o Hilton lkamer, "Miracles, 'Information,' Recommended Reading," New York Tímes, luly
n, t97o, Dt9.
6t Gregory Battcock, "lnformative Ëxhibition at the Museum of Modern Art," Arts Møgøzíne,
Summer rg7o,24-27.
 NOTES TO PAGES 195-204 I 261

6z Ibid.,zT.Inafootnote, Battcockcites R.W. Marks's TheMeøníngof Mørcuse (NewYork: Bal-

lantine Books, r97o).
63 Marcuse, Countenev olution ønd. Rev olt, 91.
64 Gregory Battcock, 'Art in the Service of the Leftl" in Id.eø Art (NewYork: E. P. Dutton, 1973),
18-29.
65 Lil Picard, "Teach Art Action," EøstVilløge Other,ltnet6,r97o,t.
66 Fþr reproduced in AWC, Documents t, r.
67 Blake Stimson has discussed the connections between conceptual art, power, and political
efficacy in his "Conceptual Art and Conceptual Waste," Díscourse z4 $pring zooz): rzt-
5r.
68 Cindy Nemser, 'A Revolution of Artists," Art JoumøI37 Pallry69\: 44.
69 |oseph Kosuth , "1975: Fox, no. z (1975): 94.
7o Kynaston McShine, "Essa¡" in McShine, lnformøtion, ry9.

7r Lucy Lippard, "The Dilemma," Arts Møgøzínø, November r97o,29.

Michael Arlen, Líving-Rooryt Wør (New York: Viking Press, 1969).
/t McShine, "Essay," r38.

74 Paul Blumberg, Ind.ustriøl Democrøcy: The Socíology of Pørticipøtion (London: Constable,

r
968).
75 Harry Braverman, Løbor øndMonopoly Cøpítøl: The DegrødøtíonofWorkintheTwentíeth Cen-
løry (New York: Monthly Review Press, rg74), 24.
76 David |enkins, "Democracy in the Factory," in Work or Løbor, ed. Leon Stein (New York:
Amo Press, r97Z),29-b.The move toward "industrial democracy" inwhichworkers shared
some of the decision making is also chronicled in Blumberg, Industriøl Democrøcy, t968.
77 Barbara Rose, "The Problems of Criticism VI, Politics of Art III," ArtforumT (May 1969):
46-ï.
78 Quoted in Jack Burnham, "Steps in the Formation of Real-Time Poiitical Art," in Haacke
eta1., Frømíng ønd Being Frømed, r3r.

79 ]ohn Murphy, "Patron's Statement lor When Attítudcs Becorne Form: Works, Processes, Situ-
øtions" $9691, reprinted in Conceptuøl Art: A Criticøl Anthology, ed. Alexander Alberro and
Blake Stimson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, zooo), n6-27
8o GuyWilliams, letter to the editor, Artforum 7 (February ry691: 4-6.
8r Betty Chamberlaín, The Artíst's Guíde to His Mørket (New York: Watson-Guptil1 , ry7o), 9t.
8z Hans Haacke, intewiew, April zr, zoo7. Unfortunately for the art historian, no sketches or
preparatory drawings ofthis proposed configuration remain; Haacke dislikes keeping such
artifacts for fear they will ossify into valuable adifacts.
83 Robert McFadden, "Guggenheim Aide Ousted in Dispute," New York Times, ApriI27, t97t,

84 For instance, Deutsche, "Property Values," rS9-94: Fredric fameson, "Hans Haacke and
the Cultural Logic of Postmodernism," in Wallis, Høns Høøcke,38-5t.
85 Grace Glueck, 'A Kind of Public Service," in Høns Haøcke: Bod.enlosf Bottomless, ed,.Walter
Grasskamp et al. (Stutigart: Edition Canlz, t9931,7r.
86 Hans Haacke, interview ApriI zr, zoo7.
 262 I NOTES TO PAGES 204-216

87 Quoted in fack Burnham, 'A Clarification of Social Reality," ín Høns Høøcke: Recent Work
(Chicago: Renaissance Society, rg7 Ð, 4.
88 Thomas Messer, "Guest Editorial," Arts Møgøzine, Stmrner r97t,5.
89 fameson, "Hans Haacke," 46.
9o From Hans Haacke, "Statement on Cancellation," ApnI1, r97t, Haacke personal files, New
York.

9r Karin Thomas, "Interuiew with Hans Haacke," in Kunst-Prøxis Heute (Cologne: DuMont
Schauberg, t97z),roz.
92 Leo Steinberg has called Shøpolsky "murlcy" and suggested that it expresses an underlying
anti-Semitism; see his "Some of Hans Haacke's Works Considered as Fine Art," in Wallis,
Høns Høøcke, t6.

93 |oseph I(osuth, The Síxth Investígøtion ry69, Propositíon 4 (Cologne: Gerd De Vries/Paul
Maenz, r97t),n.p.

94 Buchloh, "Hans Haacke: Memory," zrr.

95 Mark Godfrey, "From Box to Street and Back Again: An Inadequate Descriptive System for
the Seventies," in Open Systems, Rethínking Art c. t97o, ed. Donna De Salvo (London: Tate
Galler¡ zoof¡,36.
96 Briony Fer, The Infinite Line: Re-Møking Art øfier Mod,emisnl (New Haven: Yale University
Press, zoo4).

97 See also various fact sheets, clippings, letters, and a "Petition to Censure Director Thomas
Messer," Box r r/r9, Haacke file, Lucy Lippard Papers, AAA; and in Haacke s personal archive,
New York.

98 Hans Haacke, phone interview, October zZ,2oo).

99 "Metropolitan Is Host to Antagonists," New York Times, Ocrober zt, r97o,38.

ïoo Alex Gross, e-mail to author, December tz, zoo7.
tor "Metropolitan Is Host," 38.
ro2 |ack Burnham, 'Art and Technology: The Panacea That Fai1ed," ín Myths of lnfortnøtion:
Technology ønd. Postindustriøl Culture, ed. Kathleen Woodward (Madison, WI: Coda Press,
r98o), reprintedin Video Culture, ed. f ohn Hanhardt (New York: Visual Studies Workshop
Press, 1986), 4z-48.
IOJ Walter Grasskamp, "Rea1 Time: The Work of Hans Haacke," in Walter Grasskamp et al.,
Høns Høøcke (London: Phaidon Press, zoo4),42.
ro4 Andre et a1., "Role of the Artist," J27-3r.
ro5 Ibíd.,328.

EPILOGUE

Martha Rosler, "The zoo6 Whitney Biennial," Artþrum 44 (May zoo6): 285.
2 Daniel Birnbaum, "The 2006 Whitney Biennial," Artforurn 44 (May zoo6): 283.
Kirsten Forkert, 'Art Workers' Coalition (Revisited)," Joumøl of Aesthetícs ønd Protest 5 (FaI7
zooTl:94.
 NOTES TO PAGÊ.s 217-221 I 263

4 See the WAGE "wo/manifesto' at www.wageforwork.com.

5 Goran Dordevió, "The International Strike of Artistsl" Berlin, Museum fìir lSublKultu¡
ry79,n.p., A'rtStrike files, MoMA Archives. Similarþ Gustav Metzger called for an art strike
frornr977 to r98o, and U.S. and British anarchists held an art strike from r99o to rgg)to
"free the artist and the artistk product from the chain of commodity." They called on "all
cultural workers to put down their tools and cease to make, distribute, sell, exhibit, or dis-
Art Strike Fire," ComíngtJp!
cuss their work." See Rachel l(aplan, 'Adding More Fuel to the

lanuary ry89,29. Such strikes have not garnered much attention as a large-scale protest
strategy.
6 Postcard dated March zr, rg79, in Dordevió, "International Strike of Artistsl"
]u1ie Ault, "For the Record," in Altemøtive Art, New York, ry65-t985, ed. |ulie Ault (Min-
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, zooz), 5.
8 Lucy Lippard, "No Regrets," Artin Arnericø 95 (June zooT):75; this is a revised text ofthe
keynote talk that opened the MoMA symposium The Feminist Future (lantary z6-27, 2oo7).
To be fair, she calls herself a "recovering, post-feminist artworker," indicating some level
of distance from the phrase.

9 Lawrence Alloway, "Museums and Unionizatíon," Artforurn 13 (February rgTS): 4.

IO Lucy Lippard, "Biting the Hand: Artists and Museums in New York since 1969," in Ault,
Altemøtive Art, Nevì York, 9r.
II Gregory Sholette, Dørk Møtter: Rødicøl Sociøl Productíon ønd the Míssing Møss of the Con-
tetlporøry ArtWorld (London: Pluto Press, zoog).
T2 Lane Relyea, "Your Art V/orld: Or, the Limits of Connecfívl|y," Afterøll r4 (Autumn-Winter
zoo6): 3-8.
r3 Irving Sandler, Am.encøn Art oftha r96os (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 82.
r4 Sabeth Buchmann, "Info-Work and Sewice Wbrk," trans. |amie Owen DanieI, October 7t
(Winter r995): ro3-8.
r5 Andrew Ross, "Mental Labor," Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, 1999,
www.yerbabuenaarts.org/ed/essays/mentallabor.html, anð, No-CoIlør: The Humøne Work-
pløce and Its Hídden Cosfs (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, zoo4).
r6 Brian Holmes, "The Flexible Personality: For a New Cultural Critique," in Hieroglyphs of
thø Future (Zagreb: Arkzin Press, zoo3), r17; Paoio Virno, AGrammør ofthe Multítud.e,trans.
Isabella Bertoleüi, |ames Cascaito, and Andrea Casson (Brookll'n: Semiotext[e], zoo4).
17 See Andrea Fraser's writing on the AWC and art as a service in Museum Hi.ghli.ghts: The
Writings of And.reø Frøser, ed. Alex Alberro (Cambrídge, MA: MIT Press, zoo5).
r8 Quoted in Lippard, "No Regrets," 87. This work was then parodied in Lin's De-StrikeNeI-
installation atthe zooT Venice Biennale.
based interactive

r9 Recounted as 'Action Number 4," in GAAG , GAAG, the Guenillø Art Acilon Group, ry69-
76: A Seleaion (New York: Printed Matter, 1978), n.p.
20 "Manifesto for the Guerrilla Art Action Group," ry69, in GAAG, GAAG, n.p.
27 Poppy ]ohnson, interview, Greenport, Long Island, October 8, zoor.
22 GAAG,'Action Number 4," n.p.
 lllustrations

PLATES
(followingpøge n8)

I Panels for rhe Peøce Tower, detall, 1966

2 Ar:tists Poster Committee, Q And Bøbies? ry7o

3 Art Workers' Coalition, At Atticø ønd øt the Mod.em, Rockefeller Cølls the Shots, t97r
4 Carl Andre, j7 Pieces of Work, 1969
5 Carl Andre, Gold Field, ry66
6 Carl Andre, reverse side of magnesium plate frorn Møgnesíum-Zinc Pløin, ry69
7 Installation shot of Robert Morrís: Recent'Works at the Whitney Museum of American
Art, NewYork, r97o
8 Robert Morris , Untítled [Timbers], r97o

9 Robert Morris, Untítled [Concrete, Timbers, Steel], daaiI, ry7o

IO Hans Hacke, News,t97o
II Hans Haacke, Gallery-Goers' Birthpløce ønd Residence Prof,le, Pørt 4 detail, ry69
T2 Hans Haacke, MOMA-Poll, ry7o

FIGURES

I Susan Sontag atthe dedication ofthe PeøceTower,1966 6

2. Art ín Amerícø cover, November-December r97r, featuring the Peøce Tower 7

265
 266 I LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

) Art Workers' Coalitíon, flyer for the open hearing at the School of Visual Arts, April
rc,ry69 15

4 |oseph I(osuth, forged Museum of Modern Art Visitort Pass, designed for the Art
Workers'Coalition,1969 i8
5 Tom Lloyd's son at the Art Workers' Coalition and Black Emergency Cultural Coalition
protest, Museum of Modern Art, May 2, rgTo t9
6 Art Workers' Coalition demonstration in front of Picasso's Guemicø, Museum of
Modern Art, r97o zI
Art Workers' Coalition, "One Blood Dollar," ca. r97o 23

8 |ean Toche and Alex Gross supporting the New York postal worker strike, March r8,
r97o 25

9 Artists' Union Rally, ca. 1935 z8

IO "The Artist's Own Business," brochure for seminar led by Calvin ]. Goodman,
1971 39
II "What a load of . . . art work, Bob," Luton Evening Post,February ry, ry76 42
Carl Andre, EquívølentVIII,ry66 42
13 Carl Andre and Robert Morris at the New York Art Strike Against Racism, War,
and Repression,}l4ay zz, r97o 45
r4 Carl Andre, Wooden Piøce, t959 5r
r5 Alexander Rodchenko, Spøtiøl Construction, rgzo 5r
r6 Art Workers' Coalition flyer, "Demonstråte Our Strength at MOMA!" March
1969 5)
17 Installation shot of Carl Andre's exhibition, Dwan Gallery, New York,
7971 57
r8 Art Workers' Coalition, "The Days of Moratoriurn' flyer, r97o 6o
19 Article by Herl¡ert Marcuse in Arts Magøzíne,}ilay ry67,wíth |o Baer's Primøry Líght
Group: Red, Green, Blue 63

20 Carl Andre, Møgnesíum-Zinc Pløin, ry69 65

2I Carl Andre, Lever,t966 68
22 Frank B. Gilbreth, illustration {rorn Motion Study, tgtt 68
23 Carl Andre, Reef,ry66, remade 1969 7r
24 Dan Flavin, entry in catalog for Spøces erJúbition, Museum of Modern Art,
ry69-7o 73
25 MetalsDepot catalog price list cover, 2ooJ 76
zG Advertisement congratulating "the people of Viet Nam," Art-Rite, ry75 79
Installation shol of Robert Morrís: Recent Works,Wbitney Museum of American
Art,r97o 84
z8 'Workers
install Morris's Whitney exhibition, r97o 84
2,9 Robert Morris drives a forklift as he installs his Whitney exhibition, r97o 87
3o Robert Morris and workers assemble tJntítled [Concrete, Tímbers, Steel], ry7o 88
31 Richard Setra, Søwing Bøse Pløte Meøsure þz Fir Trees), ry69 89
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS I 267

Robert Morris , Box with the Sound of lts Own Møking, ry6r 90
))
'Workers install Morris's
Untitled [Concrete, Tímbers, Steel], r97o 9r
34 Rol¡ert Morris, Steel Pløte Suite, r97o 96
35 Robert Morris, Untitled, ry7o 97
36 Museum visitors watch installers assemble Morris's Steel Pløte Suite, r97o 97
t/ Advertisement for Lippincott lnc., r97o ror
38 Robert Murray works on his sculpture Duet aI Bethlehem Steel Shipyard, 1965 ro2
39 Rolrert Morris, Ac-t-Move, ca. r97o ro6
4o To-scale floor plan of the third floor of the Whitney, with Morrist drawings
and notations, r97o ro6
4r Morris consults his floor plan drawing, r97o ro6
42 Robert Morris, Untítled [5 Studies using Steel Pløtes, Tímbers, Graníte, ønd Stones],
1969 ro7
43 Robert Morris , Untítled, r97o, installation, Detroit Institute of Arts ro9
44 "Hard-hatted construction workers breaking up an antiwar ralþ at the Subtreasury
Building," New York Times,May 9, r97o rrr
45 Robert Morris at New York Art Strike Against Racism, War, and Repression,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, ry7o .rr5

46 On the steps of the Met at the New York Art Strike, r97o 116

47 Art Striker Art Coppedge,tlday zz, r97o r16

48 Professional and Administrative Staff Association (PASTA) of the Museum

of Modern Art on strike, August 30, i97r r2o
49 Robert Morris, "The Peripatetic Artists Guild Announces Robert Morris," r97o rz2

5o Rosario Grorp, Tucumán Ard.e [Tucumón Bums], Argenbna, 1968 ryS

5r Rosario Grottp, Tucumdn Ard.e [Tucurnón Bums], Argenltna, 1968 ry7

52 Kestutis Zapkus, Lucy Lippard, ]ean Toche, and others breakup a trustees'dinner
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 12, r97r ry9

53 Exhibition to benefit Student Mobilization Committee to Ënd the War in Vietnam,

1968 r4r
54 Exhibition to benefit Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam,
1968 r4r

55 Price list "for peace," Student Mobilization Committee benefit show, 1968 r4z
56 New York's Angry Arts Week, Colløge of Indígnøtion, detal7, ry67 r43
)/ Sol LeWitt, Wøll Drøwing #r Drøwing Seríes II t4 (A ønd. B), ry68 q4
58 Flyer objecting to Lucy Lippard's show Number Z, 1969 r47

59 Installation shol of Colløge of Ind.ígnøtíon II, orgarizedby Lucy Lippard , rg7o-71 r48
6o Lucy R. Lippard, I See/You Meøn, 1979, cover 156
6t Lucy R. Lippard, I See/You Meøn, t979, page r2r 158
6z Lucy Lippard at Ad Hoc Womens Committee protest, Whitney Museum
of American Art, ry7t 16r
 264 I LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

63 Women Artists in Revolution flyer, "Museums are Sexist!" r97o 16r

64 Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Hørtford Wøsh: Wøshíng, Trøcks, Møintenønce:
Inside, ry73 165

65 Faith Vrilding, Crocheted Envíronrnent (Womb Room), at Wonnønhouse,

rgTr-72 ú7
66 Poster for Working'Women/Working Artísts/Working Together, r98z r7o
67 Hans Haacke, News, ry69 ry4
68 David Lamelas , Ofice of Infonnøtíon about the Vietnøm Wør on Three Levels:
Vísuøl lrnøge, Text, ønd Aud.io, ry68 r74
69 t968
Roberto lacoby, Mensøje en el Di Tellø, rZ5

7o Hans Haacke, Condensøtion Cube, ry63-65 r77

71 Hans Haacke, GøIlery-Goers' Birthpløce ønd Resídence Profile, Pørt 4 ry69 ryg
Guerrilla Art Action Group, A for the Immediøte Resignøtíon of All the
Cøll
Rockefellersfromthe Boørd of Trustees of the Museum of Mod.em Art, r85 ry69
,/) Guerrilla Art Action Group, A Cøllfor the Imnted.iøte Resignøtion of All the
from the Boørd of Trustees of the Museum. of Modem Art, ry69 r85
Rockefellers

74 Guerrilla Art Action Group, A Cøll for the Imrnedíøte Resigna.tíon of All the
Rockefellers from the Boørd of Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art, ry69 186

75 Art Workers' Coalition, 'AWC Research' flyea ca. r97o r88

76 Hans Haacke, On Socíøl Greøse, delaíl, 1975 r88

77 Informøtion, edited by Kynaston L. McShine, r97o, back cover r90

78 Infonnøtíon, edited by Kynaston L. McShine, r97o, page r42 r9r
79 Hans Haacke, MOMA-Poll,ry7o ry4
8o "Information!" Art Strike flyet, r97o 196
8r Sketch for museum featuring announcement that it "takes the following
stanceagainstthewar," ca. r97o 196
8z Informøtíon, edited by Kynaston L. McShine, r97o, page r8r 2oo
83 Hans Haacke, Shøpolsky et ø1. Mønhøttøn ReøI-Estøte Hold.íngs, ø Reøl-Time Socíøl
Sysïem, øs of Møy t, t97t, detail, t97t zo)

84 Art \Vorkers' Coalition protest against the Guggenheim Museum's cancellation

of Haacke's show, May r, r97r zo6
85 Art Workers' Coalition protest against the Guggenheim Museum's cancellation
of Haacke's show, May r, r97r zo6
86 Hans Haacke, Solomon R. Gugenheírn Museum Boørd of Trustees, d'..i.:aiI, ry74 zo9
87 Art Workers' Coalition poster featuring trustee Roswell Gilpatrick, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, t97o zro
88 Art Workers' Coalition poster "Met Pays for Art with Death Earnings," rgTo 2ro
89 Alex Gross speaks at protest, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, ry7o 2ro
9o Hans Haacke, News, zoo5 ziz
9r Lee Lozano's text from r969, read at a public reenactment, 2oo7 ztí
 lndex

Note: Itølícízed pøge numbers ind.icøtø illustrøtions.

abortion rights, 16o 69-7o; Marxism of,5z-54; materials o{, 5,

abstract art: elitism of 62, u4; political expression 48, 56, 64-77, z38mro; on museums, 36, ryr
in, 49,62-64,4o 9z; NEA grant for, 37: poetry of, 59, 48n9t;
abstract expressionism, z9-3o, z3on56 political context of, 6o-$,77-h, 79; post-
Adamson, Glenn, z39nrr8 industrial context of 66,74-76; as "post-
Ad Hoc Women's Committee, p6, t6o, t6t studio" artist, 52,46n59; prices for works
Admiral, Virginia, 16o of , 55-57 ; on proletarianiz arion, 5o, 6 4, 6 9;
Adorno, Theodor, z9-3o, 78 reputation of, 59-6o; on sculpture as place,
A.l.R. (women's cooperative gallery\, ríz 8r; on serenity and stillness, 146; "security
Alberro, Alexander, 59, 227î9 drafts" of 52,58, 46n6o
Aldrich Museum, 163 Crib,7v7z; at Dwan Gallery, 56-
alienation, 2r9, z4jn29; Andre on, 57 - 58, 67,
-rvoRKS:
57, 57,58,65; Equivølents (series), 48, 76,
6 9-7 o; Marx on, r-34,
5Z; Morris on, 9 9 24or::::52-53; Equivølent Vlll,4t, 42, 43,
Allende, Salvador, zo8 7 6 -77 ; Gold Field, 65- 66, 8o, 48-39ntry,
Alloway, Lawrence, z5 Pløte 5; Lever, 67, 68, 69; "Leverwords," 59;
Althusser, Louis, 3o-3r Møgnesium-Zinc Pløin, 65, 65,72, Pløte 6; in
Amidon, Bill, rr5 Number 7, 46; 44 , lum.inum Pløin,75; in
Andre, Car1, vz,4v8r, t8t, zo7; on alienation, Prímøry Structures, 46, 68, 44n4; euinq
57 -58, 67, 69-7 o; appearance of , 44, 45, Book, 43-44: Reef, V, 7t; 64 Steel Squøre,7o;
z4rnt6t; artistic labor as radical practice for, in Student Mobilization Committee exhil¡i
4, 8-9, tr, 49,77; artTsts' rights issues for, 58- tion, r4r, 4z; j7 Píeces of Work,4o,48, Pla,te 4;
59; on art strike idea, zr7; art worker defined Wooden Piece,5r, 5t
by, 5l-5C,56,4o, 47n7o; and AWC, 14, r5, Andrews, Benny, 36 -37, zz6n3
ß,52-64, ry8, úo, zr5; background o{, 43- Angry Arts Week,41 143-44
44,75, 43n8; bricklaying by, 4r-45, 66-69, antiform, 9z- 93, z43nz6
z39mr8; on commodificalion, 56-57 ; on antiwar movement: artistic labor in, 9-rr; AWC's
"communistic" art, r4o; on concephralism, role in, 18; companies targeted by, 7z-74; "Ënd
7o-Z\ on "hand" work, 66-67; on installers, your silence" letter of, 5; escalation of, 59, nz-

269
 27O I INDEX

antiwar movement (conlinued') artists' rights and contracts, t5-t7, 26, 54-55, 5 8-
r3; exhibitions to support, r4o-49,141,142, 59,227n9
44;labor context of 4-5,34; Morris's Whitney Artists' Rights Association, zr8
show and, 98-99; refusal as strategy in, rr8- Artists' Tower of Protest. See Peace Tower
19; workers vs., 98, rro-rz, tll, rr4, r2o, r97; Artists' Union (r93os), 3, 4, z8-29,28, ry8;
see ølso Art Srnke; Peøce Tower Britishversion, zz4n9;logo, zrr; strike, rr4
APG (Artists Placement Group), r8z artists' unions, 23-24, 54, ry8, zt8; economic
Aptekar, Bernard, 4j, t44 context of, 38-39; see ølso Artists' Union
Arendt, Hannah, 166 art making, 86, ry6; gender vs., 9o-9r; as knowl-
Argentina: artistic lal¡or in, 4; Artists' Union of, edge work, 2zo-zr; "minimal" effort in, 46;
zz4n9; Experíenøøs 68 in, ry5-76; inslalla- new models of,94-95; as political project,
tions in, 45, tj7;Lippardin, n9,42-38, r7o, r49, r97 -98; as vocation vs. vade, z6-32,
z5onnzT -28, 257r.:168; repression and censor- 44-45; see ølso factory fabrication; installers;
ship in, r34, ry6, ry5, r99,2o1 materials
Arko Metal, roo art market: Andre on, +g, 56-58; call for eradi-
Arlen, Michael, r98 catLng, r7-zo; conflicting claims in, 36-38;
Aronowitz, Stanle¡ 86 discrepancies in, 55-56; grant funding in, zz-
Arscott, Caroline, zz6nz z3; institutionalization of rjr-32; "star system'
Art and Technology (exhlbtronl, 7 3, z o z of,39; see ølso capitalism; commodity and com-
art criticism, 44, 46, r5o-52; professionalization modification; galleries; museums
of , ryt-32; reiection of formalist, 157-58; as ARTNews,96, rc4, ry5
women's work, 164-66; see ølso arlpress; Art of the Reø|, The (exhibition), 78
feminist art criticism; specific cntics art press: AWC on, r49-5r; on fabrication and
Artforum, 9, r33, r4g- 5o, r55; Morris's'Anti materials, 47,72; onin|egrating art and
Forrn'in, z43nz6; on Morris's Whitney show, politics, r4o; see ølso specif.c publicøtions

95; PAG adín, Pz Art-Rite,78,79

Art Front, z8 Arts and Crafts movemenT, 14, 27, t66. See ølso
Art in America, 7, roo Morris, Vr'illiam
Art lúernøtionø\, rc4, n7, î29, ry3 Artschwager, Richard, z46mot
artisan: use of term, 69 Arts Møgøzine: on factory fabrication, 47; on
Afülr ønd Føbricøtor (exhibition), roo integrating art and politics, r4o; Marcuse in,
artistic and critical lal¡or, 49,86-87, u7, t76, $-64,6j,93; on sources of malenaIs,Tz
zt6-zz; art organizations linked to, 3-4; of Art Strike (New York A¡t Strike Against Racism,
'War,
critics and curators, n7-28, r29, r3r, ry8-39, and Repression), 7,39, ir7-21, r25, 2ot,
r5o-52; dematerializatton of , 93-94, n8; 2t7; criTicislnn of , 37, n8, ry9, z48ntz5; flyer,
politicization of, 9-rr ry5, ry6: identity of worker in,4-5; origins
artists: changing definitions of, rz, r5o-5t; of, 99, n4; participants in, vz, 44,4j; protest
as information workers, 176, t8t-83, zr3; atMet, n4-t5, tt5, n6
prestige of , 37 -38; proletarianization of, art workers: art collectors as, 53-54, r5o,237n7o;
z7-28,5o,64, 69; as workers, 99-ro2, art critics and curators as, rz7-3r, ry8-39,
z48nt4r; see a.Iso afüsß' rights and con- r1o-52, zr8,263n8 art dreamers vs., r7-r8,
üacts; artists' unions; art workers; specífc zt6; art vs. work and, z6-32; Art Strike and,
øfüsts rr7-r8; collectivity implied by term, 56; contra-
Artists' Community Credit Union, zr8 dictions in, t4-t5, rt9-2r, rz4-2j, zo5; defini
Artists for Economic Action, zr8 tions ol r-5, 9-rr, t4-ß, ryS-39;Iabor context
Artists Internati onal, xo for, y-35; legacy of, z16-zz; Marcuse's influ-
Artists Meeting for Cultural Change, zr8 ence on, 3o-3r; postindustrial context for, 36-
Artists Placement Group (APG), r8z 39; in post-revoiutionary Russia, 5o-5r
Artists Poster Committee. See Q And Bøbies? Art Workers' Coalition (AWC), Z 39, r25, 2r3;
Artists' Protest Committee. See Peøce Tower anarchic nature of, zo, 5z; art worker defined
'Artist's Resewed Rights Transfer and Sale by, 4-5, t4-r5,53-54, ry8-39: exclusions by,
Agreement," t7,58-59 r5o; funding for, zz-23; legacy of, 26, zt6-
 INDEX I 271

zz; members of, vz, zz6n3; minimalism's Barthes, Roland, r57

influence in, 59,6t 62-$, r97; Morris's Battcock, Gregory: on Andre, 49;onarrtiart,
Whitney show and, 98-99; origins of, r4, 5o; 244r'34; on art critics, r5o; on art and war,
proto-union component of z3-z5i research 78; at AWC open hearing, 16; on corporate
methods of, ß7 ß8, r89; Rosario Group and, sponsorship, r34; on Informøtion eïJ1lbÌtiorl
I37-38 194-95; on minimalism and Marcuse, 62,
oNs: benefit exhibition, 46 - 48, 47 ; 63; on sources ofmaterials, Tz; on Student
-Acrr
flyers and leafleTs,22-23, 5j,59, 6o,62, r87, Mobilization Committee exhibition, 146
ß8, zo8, Pløte j; forged museum pass, r8, 19; Baudrillard, I ean, 3r, 22 9n47
"One Blood Dollar," zz, zj; openhearing, ry, Baxandall, Michael, z6 - z7
r5-r8, 139, r83 (restaged, 2o9, 21o,2rr,2r5- Bayrak,Tosun, zz7m9
t6, n6l; posters, 12,20-22, r58, r87 rgo,1g1, Beauvoir, Simone de, r3o
zo8-9, zrz, Pløte 2; "Program for Change," BECC (Black Emergency Cultural Coalition),
ry8-79; protests at Met, r39-4o, t39, :16o; t4, 19, r83, zz6n3
protests at MoMA, 19, 2r-22, 21, 227rú9 8e11, Daniel,35
r s c u s s r o N To p r c s : abstraction and politics, Bell Laboratories, r8z
-D
r4o; art press, r49-5r; elitism, 6v6z; gender, Berger, Maurice,86, 9o, 93, z43nz8
t53-54, ßo; Marxism, 2g-3o, 52-54; museum Bethlehem Steel Company, 75-76, rco, tot, toz
syslem, ry8-79, r89; racial equily, t9, r9-zo, Beveridge, Kar1, 56
36-37, rt5, r83; sources of materials, 72, 79- Bírd,lon, z45n7o
8o; wages, 54-56 Bjelaiac, David,49
Art \d/orl<ers Guild, r4 Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC), 14,
Artworkers News, 29, rz3,248nry3 ry, r83, zz6n3
Ashton, Dore, roo Black Panthers, r9-zo
Atkinson, Ti-Grace, r55 Black Power, ro, r9
Atlanta Art Workers Coalition, zr8 Blum, Linda M.,249n7
Attica prison riots, zz-23, Pløte j Blumberg, Paul, r99
audience: activated by minimal art, 54,69-7o, Bochner, Mel, 7o, 46, ryo, z46ntot
98; homogeneity of r83; in GAAG Whitney Boettger, Suzaan, z43nz6, 253n79
protest, 22r; Haacke's poll of , ryz, rgo-g4, 1g4, Bollinger, BIII, 4¡ t4z
2ot-2, 2o5, Pløte n; Haacke's profile of r79- Boston Visual Artists Union, zr8
8o, ryg, Pløte t\ interaction in construction Bourdieu, P ierce, 94, r8o-8r, 2o5, 258î19
process, \,88, 97, ro4; participation and Bourriaud, Nicoias, r7o
democratization of, r99-zor; as social system, boycotts, 22,7j, rr7, r34, 2or; see ølso Art SLnke
r8o-8r; workers as, ro9-ro Brach, Paul,56
Ault, |ulie, zr7-r8 Brancusi, Constantin, 49
authenticity and authentication, 52, 58, 46n6 o Braverman, Hany, 3r, roz
Auther, Elissa, 168 Brazil, repression in, r99, zor
automation, 92-93 Bread and Roses, 256-57nr65
autoworkers: artists compareð. to, 44; strikes of Breed,Bob,4t,4z
33-34,112-13 bricldaying, 4t-45, 49mr8, z4ont5r; facrory
Avølønche, roo-ror, 101 closures and,76-77; hand work of, 66-67, 69
AWC. S¿¿ Art Workers' Coalition (AWC) Brody, Selma, 16
Bronx Museum of Art, zr8
Bacchetta, Paola, zz3n4 Bryner, Gary,33-34
Backer, Otto, ro8 Buchloh, Benjamin, r8z; on Andre, 70,24;on
Baer, fo, 37, rt7, 48rro6; Primøry Light Group: Haacke, r79,zo5-6
Red, Green, Blue, 6j, 63-64; in Student Mobi- Buchmann, Sabeth, 257n5
lízation Committee exhibition, r4t, 141, 142 Buren, Daniel, z46mot
Banes, Sally, zz4nrr Burn,Ian,56
Baranik, Rudolf, 79 Bumham, lack, ry3, r77,2t3; on Morris, 85, ro8
Barr¡ Ro'bert, t6, r4:r, t4z Burnham, Sophy, r54
 270 I TNDEX

antiwar movemerÍ. ( continued ) artists' rights and contracts, t5-t7,26,54-55, 58-

13; exhibitions to suppot, r4o-49,141,142, 59,227n9
r44; labor context of, 4-5, 34; Morrist Whitney Artists' Rights Association, zr8
show and, 98-99; refusal as stretegy in, rr8- Artists' Tower of Protest. See Peøce Tower
r9; workers vs., 98, uo-rz, 111, rr4, r2o, r97i Artists' Union (r93os), 3,4, z8-29,28, r78;
see ølso ArtSfiike: PeøceTower Britishversion, zz4n9;logo, zrr; strike, rr4
APG (Artists Placement Group), r8z artists' unions, 23-24,54, q8, zr8; economic
Aptekar, Bernard, 43 r44 context ol 38-39; see øIso Artists' Union
Arendt, Hannah, 166 art making, 86, ry6; gender vs., 9o-9r; as knowl-
Argentina: artistic labor in, 4; Artists' Union of, edge work, 22o-2r; "minimal" effort ín, 46;
zz4n9; Expeienciøs 68 ir', ry5-76; tnstalla- new models of , 94-95; as political proiect,
tions in, ry5, g7;Lippardin, n9, ryz-38, ryo, r49, r97 -98; as vocation vs. frade, z6-32,
z5onnzT-28, z57nt68; repression and censor- 44-45; see ølso factory fabrication; installers;
ship in, r34, ry6, ry5, r99,2oI materials
Arko Metal, roo art market: A¡dre on, 49,56-58; call for eradi
Arlen, Michael, r98 caling, r7-zo; conflicting claims in, 36-38;
Aronowitz, Stanley, 86 discrepancies in, 55-56; grantfundingin, zz-
Arscott, Carolíne, zz6nz 23; institutionalizarton of, r3r-32; "star systern'
Art ønd Technology (erhibitionl,73, zoz of,39; see ølso capitalism; commodity and com-
art criticism, ry4, q6, r5o-52; professionalization modifi cation; galleries ; museums
of, ryv3z; rejection of formalist, 157-58; as ARTNews,96, rc4,45
womerfs work, ß4-66; see ølso afipress; Art of the Reøl, The (exhibition), 78
feminist art criticism; specif'c cntics art press: AWC on, r49-5r; on fabrication and
Artforum, 9, r33, r49-5o, r55; Morris's 'Anti materials, 47,72t on integrating art and
Forrn'in, z43nz6; on Morris's Whitney show, politics, r4o; see ølso specíf.c publicøtions
95; PAG adin, Pz Art-Rite,78,79
Art Fron\, z8 Arts and Crafts movement, 14,27, t66. See ølso

Art in Atnerícø, 7, roo Morris, V/illiam

Art lfiernøtionø\, rc4, n7, n9, ry3 Artschwager, Richard, z 46mo t
artisan: use of term, 69 Arts Møgøzine: on factory fabricallon, 47; on
Afü$ ønd. Føbricøtor (exhibition), roo integrating art and politics, r4o; Marcuse in,
artistic and critical labor, 49, 86-87, n7 ry6 , $-64, 6j,93; on sources of rnatenals, 7z
zt6-zz; art organizations linked to, 3-4; of Art Strike (New York Art Strike Against Racism,
'War,
critics and curators, rz7-28, r29, r3r, ry8-39, and Repression), 7,39, rr7-2r, r25, 2or,
r5o-52; dematerialization of, 93-94, n8; zr7; criticism of,37, n8,48, z48mz5; flyer,
politicization of, 9-rr t95, ry6; identity of worker in, 4-5; origins
artists: changing definitions of, vz, r5o-5t; of, 99, n4; participants in, vz, 44,4j; protest
as information workers, 176, r8v83, zr3; alMet, n4-r5, tt5, u6
prestige of , 37 -38; proletarianization of art workers: art collectors as, Sj-54, r5o, 237n7ot
z7-28, 5o, 64, 69; workers, 99-ro2,
as art critics and curators as, n7-3r, ry8-39,
z48nt4t; see ølso afüsts'rights and con- t5o-52, zr8,263n8; art dreamers vs., r7-t8,
tracts; artists' unions; art workersi specifc zt6; arlvs. work and, z6-32; Art Strike and,
ørtists rr7-r8; collectivity implied by term, 56; contra-
Artists' Community Credit Union, zr8 dictions ín, r4-r5, rr9-2r, i24-25, zo5; defini
Artists for Economic Action, zr8 tions of, r-5, 9-rr, t4-ß, ry8-39;1abor context
Artists International, zt o for, 33-35; legacy of, z16-zz; Marcuse's ínflu-
Artists Meeting for Cultural Change, zr8 ence on, 3o-3r; postindustrial context for, 36-
Artists Placement Group (APG), r8z 39; in post-revolutionary Russia, 5o-5r
Artists Poster Committee. See Q And Bøbíes? Art Workers' Coalition (AWC), 7 39, r25, 2r3;
Artists' Protest Committee. See Peøce Tower anarchic nahrre of, zo,5z; artworker defined
'Artist's Resewed Rights Transfer and Sale l:y, 4-5, r4-r5,53-54,98-39; exclusions by,
Agreement," 17, 58-59 r5o; funding for, zz-23; legacy of, 26, zt6-
 INDEX I 271

zz; members of, vz, zz6n3; minimalism's Barthes, Roland, r57

influence in, 59,6t 62-63, ry7; Morris's Battcock, Gregory: on Andre, 49; oî antiarl,
Whitney show and, 98-99; origins of,4,5o; 244n34; on art critics, r5o; on art and war,
proto-union component of, z3-25; research 78; at AWC open hearing, 16; on corporate
methods of, ß7, ß8, r89; Rosario Group and, sponsorship, t34; on Infownø¿ion exhibition,
I37-38 r94-9j; on minimalism and Marcuse, 62,
benefit exhibition, 46- 48, 47 ;
oNs: 63; on sources ofmaterials, 7z; on Shrdent
-Acrr
flyers and leafleTs,22-23, 5j,59, 6o,62, ß7, Mobilization Committee exhibition, 146
ß8, zo8, Pløte j; forged museum pass, r8, 19; Baudrillard, I ean, 3r, 229r'47
"One Blood Dollar," zz, zj; openhearing, ry, Baxandall, Michael, z6 - z7
r5-r8, 139, r83 (restaged, 2og, 21o,2rr,2r5- Bal'r'ak, Tosun, zz7nr9
ß, zßl; posters, D,2o-22, r58, i87 r9o,1g1, Beauvoir, Simone de, r3o
zo8-9, ztz, Plate 2; "Prcgram for Change," BECC (Black Emergency Cultural Coalition),
ry8-79; protests at Met, r39-4o, tj9, t6o; 14, tg, r83, zz6n3
protests at MoMA, 19, zr-22, 21,222nr9 8e11, Daniel,35
r s cu ssr o N
abstraction and politics,
To p r c s : Bell Laboratories, r8z
-D
r4o; art press, r49-5r; eiitism, 6r-62; gender, Berger, Maurice, 86, 9o, 93, z43nz8
t53-54, ßo; Marxism, 29-o,52-54: museum Bethlehem Steel Company, 75-76, rco, ror, 7o2
system, 178-79, r89; racial equily, t9,r9-zo, Beveridge, IGrl, 56
36-37, tr5, r83; sources of materials, 72,79- Bird,lon, z45n7o
8o; wages, 54-56 Bjelajac, David,49
Art Workers Guild, 14 Biack Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC), 14,
Artworkers News,29, tz1, z48nl¡3 ry, r83, zz6n3
Ashton, Dore, roo B1ack Panthers, r9-zo
Atkinson, TiGrace, r55 Black Power, ro, r9
Atlanta Art \Vorkers Coalition, zr8 Blum, Linda M.,249n7
Attica prison riots, zz-23, Pløte j Blumberg, Paul, r99
audience: activated by minimal art, 54,69-7o, Bochner, Mel, 7o, 46, ryo, z46ntot
98; homogeneity of, r83; in GAAG Whitney Boettger, Suzaan, z43nz6, 253n79
protest, 22r; Haacke's polJ' of, ryz, r9o-94, 1g4, Bollinger, BlX, r4r, t4z
2or-2, 2o5, Pløte n; Haacke's profile of, r79- Boston Visual Artists Union, zr8
8o, ryg. Pløte tt;interaction in construction Bourdieu, Pierre, 94, r8o-8r, zo5, z58ntg
process, $,88,97, ro4; participation and Bourriaud, Nicolas, r7o
democratization of, r99-zot; as social system, boycotts, 22,73, rr7, r)4,2or: see ølso ArtSfiLke
r8o-8r; workers as, ro9-ro Brach, Paul, 56
Ault, Julie, zr7-r8 Brancusi, Constantin, 49
authenticity and authentication, 52, 58, 46n6o Braverman, Hany, 3t, toz
Auther, Elissa, 168 Brazil, repressionin, t99, zor
aÍto1r'alior', 92-93 Bread and Roses, 256-57n165
autoworkers: artists compared to, 44; strikes of, Breed,Bob,4t,4z
33-34, rr2-f3 bricklaying, 4r- 45, 49mt8, z4om5r; factory
Avølønche, roo-ror, rol closures and,76-77; hand work o{, 66-67, 69
AWC. See Art Workers' Coalition (AWC) Brody, Selma, 16
Bronx Museum of Art, zr8
Bacchetta, P aoIa, zz3n4 Bryner, Gary,33-34
Backer, Otto, ro8 Buchloh, Benjamin, r8z; on Andre, 7o,74; on
Baer, |o, 37, tt7,48mo6; Prirnøry Líght Group: Haacke, r79,zo5-G
Red., Green, 6j, 63-64; in Shrdent Mobi
Blue, Buchmann, Sabeth, 257n5
lization Committee exhibition, r4r,41, 142 Buren, Daniel, z46mot
Banes, Sally, zz4nrr Burn, Ian,56
Baranik, Rudolf, 79 Burnham, lack, t73, i77,2r3; on Morris, 85, ro8
Barr¡ Robert, t6, r4r, t4z Burnham, Soph¡ r54
 272 I INDEX

California Institute of the Arts, ß1 ú5 constructivism, 5o-5r, 166; Stella and Andre and,
Cambodia bombing protests, 98, rro, rr2, ir4, 46n57
rr7,238r11c6 Cooper, Paula, ryo, z5zn5y see ølsoPaula Cooper
Campt,Tina, zz3n4 Gallery
capitalism: aiienation ir:., 34, 57 t artists' profes- Coppedge, Art,3617, rt5, tt6
sionalization linked to, 37 -39; artists' union Corcoran Gallery, 85, 95
as counter to, 23-24; artvs. labor in, r,22,32, corporations: artists in, r8z; art materials from,
2rg-2ïi individualistic nature of, t8, z6-27, 72,73-74,79, r34, z6on47; art sponsorship of,
32, 39; Marcuse on, r18; postindusIrial,3639, r34,2or-2, zz8n4o; conceptual art embraced
z3zn88; see ølso afimarket; commodity and by, r33; war involvement of, 8, r8, 184-87 r89,
commodifi cation; galleries; museums rgr-92, r95, zo8-9, ztt
Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste, 46 Costa, Ëduardo, 136
Castle, Frederick, 16 Cottinghám, Laura, 164, z49mt
Castoro, Rosemarie, 14 craft and handiwork, 66; antisweatshop efforts in,
Chave, Anna C., z4znt9, z5ont4 2zo-2ri bricklaying as, 6 6 -67, 6 9; conceptual
Cherry, Herman, 43, r44 art vs., z39nrr8; as feminist an, ß6-69,
Chicago, ltdy, ß9, 256rn55 256il55
Chicano rights, ro, 33 Crane, Diana,38
Chicano Moratorium, 34 Crimp, Douglas,45
Chrysalis Press, r55 critics: changing definitions of, r5o-5r; gender
CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations), z8 of, 44-55; union organizing of , ry4; see ølso
c. 75oo (exhibition), r63, r65 art criticism; art press; feminist art criticism;
Clark, T. f.,3o spøcif.c crítics
class: Andre's, 43-45; artlsts' movement across, crocheting, ß7-68
3r-32; changing attitudes toward, rzr; Morris's Crow, Thomas,37
appeal across, ro9-ro; of museum audiences, culture industry: concept of, z9-3o
r8o-8r Cummings, Paul, r3o
Cla¡ |ean, ry2, 133-34,2or
coalition: polítical, 13-26; use of term, 14; seø ølso Darbel, Alain, r8o-8r, z58nr9
Art Workers' Coalition Darboven, Hanne, zo7
Cockcroft, Eva, z3on56 Davis, Mike,74
Cold War art as weapon in, 29-30 Death and Taxes Corporation, zzr
Colløge of lnd.ignøtion (mural),41 143-44 Debord, Guy,3o,z48n48
Colløge of Ind.ignøtíow II (exhibilronl,48, 148-49, Defender Industries, 7r
z47nto6 demateríalization, ry3, ry7-98, zor, zt9: of
collectors: as art workers, 53-54, r5o,2J7n7o; artistic labor, n3-94, rr8; decentralization
pricing adjusted to income of, 56-57 of museums and, 183-84; definitions of,
commodity and commodification: art criticism ry:-, r3Z,25on27; of LeWitt's wall drawings,
as, r34; Kosuth on, zz5n3z; process as, roJ; r44-41t see a.lso conceptual art
resistance to, 86, gl-gq, ry7, 144-45; see ølso democratization , rg9-zoo; Pateman on, ro4
art market; fetishism Denmark: artists'union in, z3
Compton, lrl{ichael, z 45n7 t Detroit Free Press, to8
conceptual art, 24, 46-47; accessibility of, Detroit Institute of Arts, 85, ro8-n, rcg
183-84; antiwar politics and, 9, r98; art as Deulsche, Rosalyn, r79, r8r
labor idea in, j,2o5; art criticism and, r5r; Dia: Beacon,76
corporate embrace ol r33; dematerializa- Distributive Workers of America, 6t, zz8-z9n4t
tion of, 93-94, rr8, r98; handiwork vs., dí Suvero, Mark, 16, 46; and Peøce Tower, 5-8,
z39ntr8; Infonnøtíon as survey of, 189-95; 6, 7, Pløte t
as intellectual property, 17,227t79; of Lippard's Dordevió, Goran, zr7
book, r55, 157-58; reproducibility of 58-59; Dougherty, Frazier, e, Plate z
transportable nature of, ry2-33: see ølso specif.c Dow Chemical Corporation, 72, 73-74, 79,
øfürts z6on47
 TNDEX I 273

Duchamp, Marcel, 52, r5r, r89; readpnades of, Foster, Hal, 8,36,66
45, 46,70 Foucault, Michel, r9z
Dutschke, Rudi, r8r-82 Frampton, Hollis, 16
Dwan, Virginia, 77 Frascina, Francis, 5, 223- 24r'5
Dwan Gallery, 77, z5zn68; Andre at, 56-57, 57, Fraser, Andrea, 26, zzo, z23-24n5,255rn48
58' 65 Freeman, Joshua 8., no, z4znt8
Fried, Michael,8o, 96
EAT (Ëxperiments in Art and Teclrnology), r8z Friedan, Betty, rz8. rz9, 153

Echols, Alice, r55 Fry, Edward, zo3

Edmonton Art Gallery, roJ
Eleey, Peter, r8z GAAG. Guerrilla Art Action Group (GAAG)
S¿¿
El Museo del Barrio (Harlem), r83, zr8, zz7nt4 - 48, 176 ; alternatives for, 16 z; as
galleries, r47
Emergency Cultural Government, 14, 17, rrg, r2o artists'work sites, rr7-r8; boom in,36,38-
Engels, Friedrich, r3o 39; commissions of, t4z; women's cooperative,
Equal Pay for Eclual Work Act (1963), rz8 r5z; see ølso specif.c gølleríes
Equal Rights Amendment, rz8 Gallery rr99 (NewYork), 169-7o, t7o
Escari, Raul, 136 gay rights, ro
Esso, 18z Geldzahler, Henry, zz, z3
Evans, Sara, z5onrz Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, 78
Experiencíøs 68 (exhibition), 175-76 gender, 3; art making vs., 15, 88-89; 9o-9r,
Experiments in Art and Technology (EAI), r8z in AWC, 153-54, úo; in labor's meanings,
15, rz7-28, r5z-59; of minimal art, 242rrr9;
fabricator: use of term, roo,24rîr of museum staff, t64; and race ineclualities,
factory fabrication, g9-ro7; artist and worker in, 33, 35, j6-37, n8 (see ølso racisrnl
99-ror; information on, 47, 72; of materials, General Electric, 47,72, 23,74, 21o
44-5o, z3&nnr General Motors, 33-34
Farman (artist), 14 Gilbreth, Frank 8., 67, 68,69-7o
Favario, Eduardo, 136 Gilpatrick, Roswell, zo8, zo
feminist art: collective activity in, t6z; craftin, Gitlin, Todd, rz4
ß6-69, z56nt55; working women and, 169- Giunta, Andrea, 136, zz4n9
7o,256-57nt65 Giza,Ed, z4n3
feminist art criticism: condescension toward, 16z- Glueck, Grace, ro3, 143, 2o3
63: on craft, ú8-69,256m55;1abor cluestions Godfrey, Mark, zo6
of, 3, tz7-32; see ølso Lippard, Lrtcy R. Godfrey, Tony, 9
Ferninist Art Joumø| 16z gold: Andret use of, 65-66, 48-39ntl¡, Pløte 5
Ferninist Future, The (symposium), 263n8 Goldman, SoI, zo3-4
feminist movement, rc, n9, n8-29, t5z- Golub, Leon, ú,49,r99
53,22o-2r; artistic labor definedby, n7; Goodman, Calvin f ., j7-38,39
consciousness-raising in, r59; Lippards turn Goossen, E. C., 96, 98
Io, ryr, r53, t55-59, ß3-64, r7r; personal is po- Gordon, Juliette, r54
litical in, 17, 153-54; protests of, n6, t6o, ßt Gorgoni, Gianfranco, 87,87,88,9r, 9t,ro5, rc6
Fer, Briony, zo7 Gorgh,Maria,46n57
Ferrari, León, 4.5, 13516, 47 Graham, Dan, 16, 46,ryo
fetishism, 94-95, 4on6t Gramsci, Antonio,3o
Firestone, Shulamith, ry5, t6z, 42n85 Grasskamp, Walter, zr3
Flagg,J.M.,24, z5 Gray, Cami11a, 5o-5r
Fløg Show (exhibition), 37 r93 Greenberg, Clement, 62,49, t54-55, ß2, ú4
Flavin, Dan, 37, 46, 7 2, 73, 141, 1 42; rnaterials of, Greer, Germaine, r3o
72,79-80 Gr ew ú., Inð.erpal, zz3n4
Fletcher, Sean, zzo-zt Gross, Alex, 16, 24, 25, 2rj: on artists' income, 38;
Fluxus,4-5, 15-16 on artists'unions, z3-24,54; atMeT, zto, ztr
Forkert, Kirsten, z15-16 Group Material, zr8
 274 I INDEX

Grupo de Artistas de Vanguardia. S¿ø Rosario Harrison, Margaret, r69

Group Hauser, Arnold., z3o 1n63
Guerrilla Art Action Group (GAAG), )7,2r-22, Hayden, Tom,24, z5
2r1,,22r,259n42; AWC and, ry; Cøllfor the Haynes, Deborah 1., zz9n43
Immed.íøte Resígnøtion of All the Rockefellers Heartfield, fohn, r8o
fromthe Boørd. of Trustees of the Museum of Helman, C.8.,79
Mod.em Art, t84-87, ß5, 186; postal workers Hemingway, Andrew, z7 -28
supportedby,24, z5 Hendricks, |on: arrest of, 37, t93; on artrsls'
Guerrilla Girls, zr9 strikes, rr7; antiwar posters, n, zo-zz, r58,
Guggenheim Museum: Andre's works at,40,48, t87, ryo, ryt, zo8-9, ztz, Pløte z; GAAG
62, 7t Pløl.e 4; AWC protest at, zoÇ;board of performance, ú4-85, ß5, ß6; and Haacke!
trustees, zo8-g, zo9, err; Haacke's critic¡ue of, cancelled show, zo6, zo7
zo8-9, zo9, zrr; Haacke's Shøpolslq cancelled Heresíes, ú9, r7t
at,2o3-4, zo6, zo7: Morris's retrospective at, Hesse, Eva,5, 168-69
249nr42 Hightower, John, 55-56, n8-t9, r9z,237n83,
Guilbaut, Serge, z3on56 z6on5z
guild: use of term, r2r, 122, r23 Hill, Christine, zzo
Hill-Montgomery, Candace, ß9-7 o
Haacke, Hans, r-2, i4, r73-2ryi artistic labor Hitler, Adoll r18
as radical practice for, 4,8-9, rr, r8r-82; art hobbies: use of term, 166
worker idea embraced by, t79; and AWC, 15, Hoffman, Abbie, rz4, r98, zu
ú,26, q6, ry9, ß3, zr3; on Bourdieu, z58nt9; Holland, artists'union in, 23, 54
contract used by, ry, z58nto; Guggenheim Holmes, Brian, zzo, 257n5
show canceiled, zo3-4, zo6, zo7; information housework: art criticism as, ú4-66; feminist
concerns of, ry3, ry6, ß3-84, ß7 ß8, ß9- critique of , 163-64; redefinition of,35,42n81
94, zoz-/) institutional critique of,44, ry8- stoppage of, r53; wages for, n8-29, z3zn85
79, t8o, ß3-84, ß7 r89, zo8-ry; materials Howard Wise Gallery, 14; Haacke's works at, r73,
of , t89, z6on47; on polls, ry3-94; "systems" t79, r79-8o, Pløte tt
interests of, ry6-78; work withdrawn b¡ as Hsin-i Eva Lin, zzo
protest, 2or Huot, Robert, 16,37, r4o, r4i, 141, t4z, r43,46
Chickens Høtching, ry7-78; Conden- Hurrell, Jim, z9
-woRKS:
søtion Cube, ry7, t&o, r9o; Free Exchønge (with Hutchinson, Bob, ro8
Bourdieu), r84 Gallery-G oers' Birthpløce ønd,
Resid.ence Profile, Pørt t, r79-8o, t79, Pløte tt; information, t8v84, zrz; Art Strike flyer as, r95,
MOMA-Poll, 172, r9o-94, 194, 2or-2,2o5, 196; GAAG's performance utilizing, Å4-87;
Pløte p; News, r73, t74, ry6, r89, ztz, Pløte rc; Haacke's embrace of, ry3, ry4, 176, r78, r79-
Norbert, ry8; in Number 7, 146; On Sociøl 8o, ry9, r89, ztz, Pløtes rc-tt; museum as
Greøse, r87, ß8; Shøpolsky et ø1. MønhøTtøn center for, ry5, ry6, r9Z-99; quotations as,
Reøl-Estøte Hold.ings, zoz-6, zoj, zo6, zo7; ß7,ß8,ß9
Solomon R. Gugenheim Museum Boørd, of lnformør.ion (exhibition), 47, t89-99; caIalog,
Tiustees, zo8-9, zog, zrt r5r-52, r89-9o , 1go, 191, t98, zoo; Haacke's
Haeberle, Ron, rz, zo-zz, tgt, Pløte z MoMA-Poll in, ry 2, rg o - 94, 194, 2or-2, 2o 5,
Hammond, Harmon¡ 214:nro7 Pløte p; Lippard's contribution to, r5r-52
handiwork. See craft and handiwork Insley, Will, r4r. r4z
Hanisch, CarcI, ry4 installers: of Andre's w ork, 67, 6 9-7o; masculine
hard hats (workers), rz5; as audience, ro9-ro; rhetoric and, 88-89; of Morris's Whitney
berets vs., ror; protesters attacked by, 98, rro- exhibit,83, 84,85;use of term,24rnr; wages
12, 111, rr4, r:.o, r97; symbolísm of, 7,89, no, of,243-44ry3
fi9, tzo, z4zm8 Institute of Contemporary Art (London), ry3,l1.4,
Hardt, Michael, ry6, zr9,257n5 202
Hørlem on My Mind (exhibition), 14, r39, zz6n3 Institute of Contemporary Arts (Philadelphia),
Harrison, Charles, 78, 8o r55
 TNDEX I 275

Instituteo Torcuato Di Tella, q 5-7 6 KoTz, L|z, z38n9r

institutionalization of art, 3r, t8v8z; Andre on, Koz1off, Christine, 146
57-58; market system in, r3r-32; opposition Kozloff,loyce, zvzz
to,20,24 Kozloff,lll4ax,4, z9
International Association of Art Critics, r5o Kramer, HiIton, 23,77, rg4, rgs
International Coalition for'Wages for Housework, Krauss, Rosalin d, 7 t, 7 4, i55, 239nir7
n8-29, z3zn85 Kunsthalle (Beme), r33
International Cultural Revolutionary Forces, r r7 Kunsthalle (DusseIsorfl, ry3, ry4
Iraqwar, zt2,2r5,222 Kusama, Yayoi, zz7m9

|ackson State (Fla.), 98, rro, rrz Iabor,33-39; art criticism and domestic, 164-
facobs, Ëdward "Deyo," z8 66; feminist critique o{, ß3-64; gendered
facolry, Roberto, ry6, ry5 ry5-76, ry7 meanings of, n7 -28, t52-Sg; as immaterial,
fameson, Fredric, ro-rr, 36, zo4, zz5nz4 ry6, 257n5; Morris's display of, 83, 85-86,
|avits, Jacob, rr8 ro3-7, rro; postindustrial conditions of, 36-
fewish Museum: antiwar informalioîir¡ r97; 39; of prostitute, ryo-3r; visibility of ro8-ro;
Primøry Structures at, 46, 68; Sofiwøre at, ry3, women's craft as, 166-69; work distinguished
rc; UsingWølls at, n3
Pløte fuom,3z, t66; see also artistic and critical labof
Johnson, Poppy, n4-r5, tt5, t53, :16o: perform- hard hats; strikes; work
ances with GAAG, ß4-85, ú5 zzt Laing, R. D., r57
Johnston, fill, 155 Lambert-Beatty, Carrre, z4znto
John Weber Gallery, r87, r88 Lamelas, Davrd, ry3, ry4, r75, 176
f ones, Amelia, z56nt55 Latham, |ohn, r8z
f ones, Caroline, 3-4, 47, 46n59 Lee,David, r4r, t4z
f oseph, BrandenW., 244n44 Lee, Pamela, r77
Joumal of Aesthetics ønd. Protest, zt6, z16-17 Lefevre, Mike, 57 -58, 67
fudd, Donald, 36, r4r, t4z, zo7; on materials' Leidea Philip, 55, 8o-8r, zt5, z43nz6
sources, 79-8o; politics of, 6r Lery, Peter, 246n88
fudson Memorial Church: dancers associated LeWitt, So1, 16, zr, r3o, r4r, 142, 156, r89,
*ith, +-S, 86, ry5, zz4mr; People's Fløg Show z46moy on art and politics, r4o; on ínfor-
at,37, r93 mation, r8z; installing grids of, 2o7; WøLl

Jung, C. G., r57 Drøwing # t, 144-45, t44

Lícht, lennifer, 7j
Kaplan, Caren, zz3n4 Lichtenstein, Ro¡ 5
IGplan, Rachel, 263n5 Lindeman, Susan, 169
Karmel, Pepe, z49m4z Lippard, Lucy R., r-2, r27-7r; and ad congratu-
IGrp, Ivan, rr4 lating Vietnamese, TS, 79; on alternative art
Katz, A1ex, r49 spaces, 183-84; on Andre,5z,59; on APG,
Kauffman, Craig, rzr, z46ntor r8z; Argentina visit of, r29, t3z-38, ryo, zot,
IGarns, |err¡ 256-57m65 21orrre27-28,257m68; as art critic and art
Kelly, Mary, 24n3, 256 - 57nt65 worker, n7-3r, ry8-39, r5o-52, zr8, 263n8;
Kennecott Copper Company, zo8 artistic la'bor as radical practiceÍor,4,8-9, rr;
Kent State University, 98, rro, rr2, r49 on artists' income, 38; on artists' 7ives, n7: on
Kerr¡ John, ro artists' unions, 29; and AWC, r4, 16, z5-26,
Kessler-Harris, Alice, 164 52, rz9, ry8-4o, tjg, t47-48, r53, 16o; back-
Kienhoiz, Ed, 2 48nry5, z5zn68 ground of, n7 rzg-Jo, r54; on crafT, 168-69;
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 19, r83 feminism of, ryt, ry3-59, ú3-64, r68-7y
Klüver, Bill, r8z gendered position of, ry3-55, 16z-63; Haacke
knitting, 167-68, zzo compared with, r8r; on labor unions, r38; on
Kosuth, Joseph, t6, rr5, t46, zz6n3z; on con- LeWitt, r45; on media and art, r98; MoMA job
ceptual art, r5r, r98, zo5; museum pass b¡ of, zt; on politics and art, 50, rr8, ry4, r37, r4o;
ß,ry on pronoun usage, i29-3o; protests of, rz6,
 276 I INDEX

Lippard, Lucy R., (continued) on art, 27, 29, 3o, r23, 22gn47; conference
Ug, Bg-4o, r59-V, t&, zo7; on woment on, zr5-t6
work, 163-66; writing style of, g6-59, ú9 Masotta, Oscar, z5onz7
s: Artists Workíngwith Unions, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art,76
-EXHrBrrroN
256-57m65; c. 75oo, t63, 165; Colløge of lnd.ig- materials, 64-65, 7o, 7t-72, 8o, z3Snrro; factory
ll, 48,48-49,247nto6i Number 7,
nørion fal¡rication of,47, z38mn; facts and docu-
46-48, 47, r54i Shrdent Mobilization Com- ments as, r8z*83; feminine associations of,
mittee to End the War in Vietnam, r4o-43, 141, ß7-69; industrial nostalgia for, 78-8r; of
144-46; Twenty-Síx Contemporøry
142, 144, journalism, ß9, z6on47; of pop art, 166;
Wornen Afü*s, 163; Working Women/Working postindustrial availability of, 7 4-77; private
Afü$s/Working Together, 169-7 o, t7o sources of, 7r-74; qLteslions about corporate-
RKs: Frovn the Center, r3z; Chøngíng, l1t, made,7z,73-74,79, r34, z6on47; see ølso
-vor44; Get the Messøge?, ryz; I See/
557,o87, 5z und.er Andre, Carl; Haacke, Hans; Morris,
You Meøn, 45-58, ry6 158, z54nrr4, 254rrn1i Robert
Six Yeørs, rj2, r37, ß9, ryt Matisse, Henri, ro4
Lippincott, Donald, 75,93, gg Mayakovsþ Madimir,5o
Lippincott Lnc.,95,99-ror, ror; Andre and, Mazza, CaI, zzo
75; concrete cubes of, 9z; materials used McDonnell Ajrcraft, r85, 186
by, 9r, 93,95; Morris anð,, z4n3: workers, Mclellan, David, z3on6o
24J-44ry3 Mcluhan, Marshall, rc3, ry7, t89
List, Vera, 65-66, 48-39ntr3 McShine, I$naston L., t37, t5r-52, t89-95, t9o,
Lloyd, Tom, 19,2r, 21, ry8, zz7m4; in AWC, r4, 191, r97, r98, r99, 2oo, zo5

ry, t6, ry9, zzín3; inBÉCC, zz6n3; on racial Meadlo, Paul, zo

equiIy,36-37 Mendieta, Ana,233n8
Los Angeles County Museum of Art,73, zoz Messer, Thomas, 2o4-5, 2o7
Lozaîo, Lee, r7-r8, zt6-t7, zzTmz: A\VC open Mészáros, IsWân,34
hearing statement, zr5-t6, zt6; Generøl Strike MeTalsDepot, T5, 76
Piece, t7, rr7 Metropolitan Museum of Art: Hørlem on My
Luton Eveníng Post,4r, 42, 4j Mind., ry, ry9, zz5n3; protests and, 49, r39-
Lye, Len, 14 4o, t6o, r9z-93, zo8-9, zro, zrt; see ølso Arr
Strike
MacDowell Colony, 38 Metzger, Gustav, 263n5
Møchine øs Seen øt the End of the Mechønicøl Age, Meyer, James: on Andre, 53; on minima1ism,77-
Thø (exhibition) , ry, r78 78, 44n2o, z34nz3, z41nz9
Mack, Joshua, 48-39rur3 Meyer, Richard, 9r
Mainardi, Patricia, ry5, ß7 Meyer, Ursula, r5r
Mandel, Ernest,212n88 Michelson, Annette, :'55,237n7r; on Morris's
Manet, Edouard, 9o Whitney show, 95,98, rz5, z4zmo
Mangold, Robert, rr7 r3o, r4r,142 Milgo Industrial, Inc., 99
,r:": Gold.en Helmet (Rembrandt school), rr9, Miller, Brenda, 16o
^
Miller, Hugh, z8
Manson, Charles, r98 Millett, IGte, ry5, 42n85
Mao Zedong, r59 Mills, C. Wright,24,6¡ 44
Marchesi, ill4aùana, z5tn45 Millus, Winifred, z8
Marcuse, Herbert, n, z43nz8; on art critics, r5o; minimal art, 30,21or.4; art as labor idea in, z-
art workers influenced by, 3o-3r; minimal 3; blue-collar affiliation of, z4; definitions of,
art and, 6z-64,8r; progressive aesthetics of, 4j-46, 78, 234nzo; factory fabrication of , 44-
93,94,243n29; on radical practice, 8-9; on 5o, 9g-ro2, 238nrrr; gendering of, 88-9r,
"repressive tolerance," r9z; on strikes, 34; on 242t7rg; industríal sites as repositories of,
subversive possibilities, rr8, r8r-82, r95; on 75-76; of Lippard's book, 156, r57; politics in,
workers, 24-25, 34, r2r 6z-64, r4o-46; professionalization ol, 37;
Marx, Karl, 52, to3, z3on6o; on alienation, 34, 57; reproducibility of, 58-59; "situational" aspect
 INDEX I 277

ol, 244n44; and Vietnam War,77-8r; viewers Müller, Gregoire, 5o

activated by, 54,69-7o, 98; see also specíf.c mural movement, z7
øfüsß Murray, Robert,47 Z5,roo,ror,\4r, t4z; Duet,
Miniynøl Art (exhibition), 78 IO7, 102
Mitchell, fuliet, 164 Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires),
Moallem, Minoo, zz3n4 r32, 133-34
Molesworth, Helen, 4, 5o, t66, zzTuz MUSEUM (alternative space), 163
MoMA. S¿e Museum of Modern Art Museum of Modem Art (MoMA): "art and
Moore, Alan, z59n4z subsidy" panel at, 55-56; AWC requests
Morris, Rol¡ert, Þ2, j7,83-125, zJor1iz; appear- to, 15, 19, zo-zz, t83, r9z; board members
ance of, 87, 88, rc5, rc6, n5; as artist and of, t8, zz-23,6y ß4-87, t85, ß6, t87, ß8;
critic, r5o; as artist and worker, 99-ro2, documentary photographs in, r97; Duchamp
ror,' artistic labor as ra<lical practice for, 4, retrospective at, r5r; Feminist Future sympo-
8-9, rr; on Artists' Union, z8; Art Strike sium at, 263n8; forged pass to, r8, 19; free
participation of, 44, 45, ri4-r5, 115, rzo-2t: days at,98, r9o-9r, zz8n4o; InformøtíonaI,
art worker defined by, 56; background of, ro7 seeInformøtion'pÌotests against, t8, t9, zt, zt-
246n77; on chance and gravity, 92; on con- 4, 5j,6¡ t84-87, t85, ß8, ß9, ry6, zz7nt9;
templation of art, rc4; exhibition as work for, Speces at,72, 73; s1:rff ú:nion of , 26, 6162,
83-9r; female figure used by, 245n7 o; and rrg, po, t64, zt8, 229n4r; Stella at, r17; Takis
Haacke, t8t, zo7; materials ol, 47,93-94, rc9; al,4-t4, t5, ry8
on museums, rzo; PAG forrned,by, l:t-23, museums: alternatives for,t6z, zr9; artist's
r45; post-Whitrley transition of, tzr, rz3-25; professionalization and, 36-39; artists' rights
process integral to, to3-7; value of scale for, vs., r3-a4; as artists' work sites, 52, rt7-r8; Art
9r-99, ro8-ro, 244n44; war materials project Strike against, 98-99, n3-zt, tt5, n6; AWC's
of, 8o criticism o{, 15-23; corporate sponsorship of
Morris: Recent \['orks (rxnrerrror), zor-z; decentralization of, 183-84; elitism of,
-Robert
$-89, 9t-99, 124-25, 242nro; chance and 3r, 6t62,r8t; feminist protests against, 160,
order of, ro5, ro7,245î74; closed early, 85, 16r,'free days at,26,62,98, r9o-9r, zz8n4o;
g8-gg, rr3-r4, rr8, rr9-2r; cost, 95-96,243- govemmentality of, r9z-93; Haacket criticlue
44nj3,244n4r; hard hat alliance unraveled in, of,ry8-79, r8o, r8r, r$-84,ú7, r89, zo8-
rro; installation of, $, 84, 85-86, 87-9t, 97, 13; of industrial history,T5-76; information
tot, to6, z48nt4t; materials of, 88, 93- displacing art in, ry5, ry6, rg7-99, 2o4-S;
94; Morris's goals for, 85,99, r5o; Morris's as management and wage-providers, ry8-79;
mockery of, n3; plans for, 85-86, ro5, rc6, polls in context of, 193-94, zor-z; "publii' of,
ro7; reviewers' responses to,86, 95-96, rc3- r8o-8r; war linked to, 8, 18, 184-87 t85, ß6,
5, ro7: size and scale of, 83, 9 r-99; víewers ú8, ß9, r9r-92, r95, ry6, zo8-9, zo9, ztr,
interaction with ,83, 88, 97, to4 ztz, z38nro6; see ølso specific museums
Act-Move, rc6; Boxwiththe Sound of lts My Lai massacre: antiwar poster about, t2, zo-22,
-voRKs:
Own Møking,9o, 9o; felt piles, 176; "Notes on r58, rBZ, t9o, 1g1, zo8-9, zrz, Pløte z; GAAG's
sculpture, " ro 2; rg g 4 retrospective, 2 4gnr42; performance and,, t84-87, t85, ú6
in Number 7, 146; Site, 9o-9t; Steel Pløte Suíte,
95, 96, 96, 97; Unritled. [Concrete, Timbers, Steel], Nader, Ralph,35
84,88, 88,9r, 91, rcS, r2S, Pla,te g; Untítled. National Art Workers Community, 248rrry3
(Detroit), 85, ro8-rz, rc9; IJntitled [5 Stud.ies Natíonal Endowment for t1le Arts (NEA), 29, 37
Using Steel Pløtes, Tímbers, Grønite, ønd Stonesl, r3r,233ngg
rc7; Untítlød (steel and marblel, 97; Untítled National Organization for Women (NOW), rz8,
[Timbers], 82,88,9t, 96, rc5, n4, Pløte 8; in 153
UsíngWølls, u3, z46ntoy "War Memorials," National Union of Health Care Employees, District
t49, z47nto6; "Work at Pier 45," rz3-24 n99, 169-7o, t7o
Morris, Wi11iam, 14, 27, zz6nz Neel, Alice,5
Moses, Robert,77 Nemser, Cindy, 95, ri4, rzo, rg7
Ms magazine, 168 N eo- Cløssic (film), z 45n7 o
 274 I INDEX

Netherlands: artists' union in, 4, 54 Parker, Rozsika, z56nt55

New Left, 4, ro; death of rz4; exclusivity of,36- Pasadena Art Museum, 88, 89
j7; process as keyvord in, 86-87; refusal as PASTA (Professional and Administrative Staff
strategy in, n8-t9, r34, r37; systems as key- Association), 26, rr9, eo, t64, zr8, zz8-zgn4r
word of, ry7: working-class relations vnth, z4- Pateman, Carole, 32, ro4
zS, 98, üo-r2, 117, i2ri see ølso antiwar move- Paula Cooper Gallery: Haacke's News aI, ztz;
ment; feminist movement Number 7 at, 46-48, 42, r54; Student Mobili
Newman, Amy, r3r zation Committee exhibition at, r4o-43, 141,
Newman, Barnett, 16, roo t4z, t44, t44-46
Newman, Michael, T5 Peøce Tower, 5-8, 6, Z, zt, Pløtø t; cnacisrn of, r43;
news: art incorporattng, ry3, ry4, ry5-76, ry5, 212, teenactment of, 215
Pløte rc; see ølso art, as iournalism Pe11, Clail¡orne, rr8
Newsweek, t1t Peltomäki, Kirsi, r8o
New York Art Strite. Søø Art Strike performance: Art Strike as, r18; dance, 4-5,
New York City, 4-5, 227r\rg; hard-hat riots in, 86,45, zz4ntr, 24znro; of GAAG, ß4-87,
98, rro-r2, 111, ir4, r2o, r97i postal workers' ß, ß6, zzr; feminist, ú5-66; Gross speech
strike in, 24, z5; sanitatton workers thanked, as,21o,2rr; and process art,9o,242:nr3
256ll.154; teachers'strike in, uz; see ølso specifc Peripatetic Artists Guild (PAG), rzr, 122, ï23-24,
museums ønd. institutíons 145
New York Cultural Center, 4$ r48-4g, z47nto6, Perreault, John,4, t7
256-57m65 Petlin, Irving, t4, rq; and Art-Rite ad, 78, 79;
New York Post, r2o on Artists Poster Committee, p, Pløte z
New York State Council of the Arts, zz Philip Morris Cornpany, zoz
New York Times: on Argentine unrest, 2¡1.r:n39; Picard, Lil, rz, 16, rg7
art critics, 13 r; on Chilean copper mines, Picasso, Pablo, Guemica.,5, 21, 2t-22
zo8; "End your silence" letter in, 5; on hard- Piper, Adrian,46,ryg
hat riots, tro, ttt; in Informatíon calalog, r89; Pløce ønd. Process (exhibition), ro3
on MoMA free days, zz8n4o Plagens, PeLea 88-89
New York University: Institute of Fine Art, r3o; Political Art Documentation/Distribution, zr8
Loeb Center, ri4, t43-44 politics and political activism: abstract art and,
Nixon, Richard M.,35, ttz, r8o, r9o 49, 6z-64, r4o; art and, 4 ry, z6-27, 56, 77,
Noble, foseph Vleach, :.r5, n6 r4o-52, 197-98; art fabrication process and,
Nochlin, Linda, z3on9z rc3-7; artlinformation merger in, ry418;
NOW (National Organization for'Women), rz8, artistic and critical labor in, 9-rt, 49' art
153 workers'move into, 3r-32; coalitions in, 13-
Number 7 (exhibition), 46-48, 47, t54 z6; feministview of,ry,ry3-54; of minimal
art practice, 6z-64,4o-43, 141,142, 144, r44-
O'Connor, Francis, z8-29 46; ofprocess arT, g2-g3
Oglesby, Cari, z5 Pollock, Griselda, 25611155
Ohlson, Doug, r4t, r4z populism, 5r-52
Oldenburg, Claes, 99, roo "Port Huron Statement" $9621, 24, z5
Ollman, Bertell,34 postal workers' sIrike,24, 25, rr2
"One Blood Dollar" (printl, zz, zj postindustrialism, 36a9, 66,74-76; APG as
Onganía, fuan Carlos, r33, r35 product of, r8z; art making as knowledge work
Ortiz, Ralph, ry8, ß3, zz7nt4 in, zzo-zt; deskilling in, roz; information
ownef-sponsor concept, r2t, 122, ï23 economy of, 176
PoÍTer, Paul, ry7
Paglen, Tievor, zr3 Potts, Alex, 69, n5, z3grrr23
PAG (Peripatetic Artists Guild), rzr, u2, 123-24, poverty, 13418,45, tj7
r45 Presidential Commission on the Status of
Paley, William 5., zo, zz, zj Women, rz8
Paris student/worker revolt (1968), 9, g, i33, ÍZs Primøry Structures (exhibition), 46, 68, 44n23
 INDEX I 279

process, 86-87, 94; of factory fabricati:on, rc3-7 Rockefeller, Nelson, 18, r48; Haacke's poll on,
3,86,rc3-7; performance of,9o,
process art, ry2, rgo-94, 194, 2or-2, 2o5, Pløte e; pÍowar
z4zn3; political implications of, 9z-93; as views of, zz-23
work, 87 92-93; see ølso specific ørtísts Rockefeller Brothers Fund, zz-23, r83, z6on5z;
Proctor and Gamble, zoo protests vs., ß4-87, ú5 ú6, ß8, ß9
Professional and Administrative Staff Association Rodchenko, Alexander, 5r, 5l
(PASTA), 26, rr9, tzo, t64, zr8, zz9n4t Rosario Group (Grupo de Artistas de Van-
Projansk¡ Robert, 17 guardia), r97 ; Lippards contact with, r34-
Prospect 69 þxhibitron\, ry3, ry4 35,86-37, r5r, r7r; Tucurnón Bums, ry5-38,
prostitution: use of term, ryo-3t, t5z-63 135, 137,25rn52
Rose, Barbara, 29,46, ry5, zor; on Andre, 52, 59,
Q. And Bøbies? (poster), u, zo-22,21, r58, $,65-66; on AWC, 5z; on Lippincott Inc.,
r87, ryo, 191,2r2, Pløte z;Haacke's work and, roo; on minimalisrn,3o, 49
2o8-g Rose, Bernice, r45
quilting, 167 Rosenberg, Har old, 37, 38
Rosler, Martha, ry8, zr5, zz3n3
Raay, Jan van, rr4, 115, t t 6, 1¡,9- 4o, 139, 206, 2o7 Ross, Andrew zzo
racism: in aÌt press, r5o; in Art Strike, rr9, Roulet, Laura, 233n8
z48uz5; AWC s protests of, tg-zo, tg, t83; Russian Revolution $9ry), 27, 5o-5r
in white masculine rhetoric, 88-89, 242Ír2o; Ryman, Robert, r3o, i4r, 142
see ølso gender, and race inequalities; hard hats
radicalism and radical practice, 8-9,44; artistic Sánchez Vázquez, Adolfo, z3on6r
labor as, 4,8-9,tr,49,27, 18r_82; in feminist Sandler, Iwing, 77, r3r-32, r54, 2rg
movement, rz8-29 São Paulo Biennial (1969), zor
Rainer, Yvonne, 46,86, zo6, 2oZ, 224nrr, 242nro Søturd,øy Review,38
Ramírez, Mari Carmen, z5rn5z Saul, Peter, 8
Raphael, Max, z3o-3rn63 Schapiro, Mey er, z3o -3tn63
Raskin, David, 6o-6r Schapiro, Miriam, 167
Ratdiff, Carter, ro4 Schieldahl, Peter, 63
Rauschenberg, Robert, 46, t49, t&z Schlegel, Alrry,zz\nz3
Redmond, Roland, zrr Schneemann, Caroiee, 9o
Redstockings, r28,r1g School ofVisual Arts (NewYork), 15, r5-r8
refusal and noncooperation: to make art, r98- Schwartz, Therese, ß, rr5, 143-44
2or,2t7,263n5; as movement strategy, rr8-r9, Science Tímes, r93
r34' r37 Scientifi.c Amerícan,
6 4

Reicher, Isabel, zzo-zr Seattle Art Museum, r5z

Reinhardt, Ad, 5, 8 Serra, Richard, 83, 86; installing works of, 45,
Reise, Barbara, ry2, ry5, 16o z48nt4t; Sawing,88-89, 89; 9hifi.83; Verb
Reitz, CharIes, z43nz9 List,86, rc5
Relyea, Lane, zr9 Shapolsþ Harry, zoz-6, zo7
REPOhistory, zr8 Sharp, Willoughby, r4
"Rethinking Marxisrn' conference, zr5-r6 Shepherdson, Marianne, 169
Revolutionary Union of Technical Workers, Sholette, Gregory, zr8, zz3-24n5
Painters, and Sculptors, z7 Siegelaub, Seth, ú, ry, 44
Rider, Alistair, z34nr3 Silviana (artist), 184-85, r85
Ringgold, Faith, 16o, ß7,ry3; in AWC, 16, Singerman, Howarð,37
zz6n3;inBECC, zz6n3; on racial equity, Sihrationist Intemational, 3 o
36-37, ry8; We Flew over the Bridge, z5n5o Smith, David,46, 5o
Robert Morns: Recent Works. See underMorris, Smith, Tony,46
Robert Smithson, Robert,3, 66,83,ryo, r8o; onfactory
Roberts, lohn, zz9n44, 257n5 fabrication, 47, z38nny Pøfüølly Buried. Wood.-
Rockefeller, David, 18, ß7, ß8, zoz, z6on5z shed., 49, 2fin79; Spírøl Jetty,83
 28O I INDEX

Smithsonian National Museum of Industrial Tatlin, Vladimir, 5o-5r, ro9

History, T5-76 Taubin, Amy, r55
socialism: artists' union idea in, z3-24; in Arts Taylor, F. W., ll-l1,67,69-7o
and Crafts movement, 14,27, zzínz; confer- Teamsters, r13
ence on, z15-16; women-as-proietariat in, r3o; technology, 34, 35, r7Z -78, r8z; disenchantment
see ølsoMarx,Karl with, zr3
Sofiwøre (exhibition), r73, Pløte rc telex devices, r73, 174, 175-76, ry5 t89, ryo,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. See G:uggen- Pløte rc
heim Museum Terkel, Studs, 3r, j4-35,52-58, 67
Somervell, Brehon, z8 Terry, lennifer, zz3n4
Sonenberg, lack,79 Tirne,83,4r
Sontag, Susan, 6, 7-8, zt5 Toche, ]ean, 18, zt, 2t,37, rr7, rg3; in AWC, 16,
Spøces (exhibition), 7 2, 73 139, ryg-4o; in GAAG, 184-85, t85, t86; at
Spanish Civil War, zr postal worker strike,24, z5
spectacle, n4, t8o, ry8, 248nry8 tombstone: use of term, zo8
Spero, Nancy, 5, r99 Touraine, Alain,35
Standard Oil Corporation, r85, t86 Tieitl-Graz, 99
Steckel, Anita, r6 Tsai, Wen-Yeng,4
steel industr¡ 65, ZS-26, 95, 24o:nr5r Tuchman, }.lxtnce, 7 3, zoz
Steinberg, Leo, z6zn9z Tuchman, Phyllis,64
Stella, Frank, 3, t t7, 164. 46n57 Tucker, Marcia, 85-86, ro5, 243- 44n33, 244:n4r
Steveni, Barbara, r8z Tucumdn Barns (installation): ry418, g5, 132, r5t',
Stevens, May,8, 79 r7f, fg7,25r-rl52
Stimson, B1ake, 137-38, 26m67 Tuenty- Síx Contetrporøry'Women Afüsts (exhibi-
strikes, r rz-z r; of autoworkers, 33- 3 4, r r2-r3; tion), 163
of GE workers, 7z; againslmaking art, r98-
99,2or, zr7,263n5; and Morris's show, 85, Ukeles, Mierle Laderman: Hørtford. Wøsh, ú5,
98-99,tt3-t4, r18, rr9-zr; ofmuseum staff, ú 5- 66, t68; Touch S aøitøtion, 256ru54
lrg, 12o, 2z9n4r; of postal workeß, 24, 25, rrz; Uncle Sam image,24, 25,n9
of sanitation workers, rrz, r75; of women for union organizing: AWC and, z3-25, 137-8; of
equality, t52-53; see ølso specífic groups critics, r54; gender in, 164; Lippard's work
Student Mol¡ilization Committee to End the War wtJa, 256-57m65; of museum staff, 26, 6r
in Vietnam benefit exhibition, 4o-46, 4t, 62, n9, oo, 164, zt8, zz9n44 see ølso arttsts'
142, 144, r47 unions; hard hats
students, 25; artists' support for, eo, t4o-46; United Farm Workers, rrz
killings o{, 98, rro, n2; r97o strike ol, rrJ; universities and colleges: arttraining in, 37;
Paris revolt of, g, 13, r33, r75 students killed at, 98, rro, rtz; student strikes
Students for a Democratic Societ¡ z5 and protests aT,7), rr3
Studio Museum of Harlem, t83, zz7nt4 Universityof Massachusetts, Amherst, roo, zr5-r6
Styrofoam, V,Zr-72,74 University of Wisconsin, 73
Sugden Company, ro8 Uphold.ing the Bncks (video), z39mr8
Suvero, Mark di, ß, 46; and Peøce Tower,5-8, ør-commodities, z3on6 t
6, 7, Pløte t Using Wølls (exhibition), :-r3, z46mor
Swenson, Gene, 16, zo, 24, r54 U.S. Senate,34, rr8
U.S. Steel Corporation, 65,75
Takis, Vassilakis, ry-r4, ry,6t, ry9, ry7; Tele- U.S. Supreme Court, rz8
sculpture, g-r4, 15 utopianism, ro-rt, 27, t8z
taste: use of term, r8r
Tate: Andre's Equivølent VIII purchased by, 4r, 42, van Raay, lan, n4, tt5, tt6, \9-4o, zo6, zo7
43, 6 9, z 4onnt5z-53 ; Morris's retrospective at, Venice Biennale 99681, q3, ry4, ry5
93, ro4,245nn7o-7r Venice Biennale $97 o), tr9
 INDEX I 281

Vietnam Moratorium, 59, 6o, zzt Wiene¿ Norbert, r78

Vietnam War, 9-rr, j6,6r, zz6nz9,225n23; Wilding, Faith: Crocheted Environment (Womb
relationship to, 8-9,77-&, r98; Cambodia Rootn), ú7-68, ß7
bomlred in, 98, rro, rr2, rr4, rt7, z38nto6; Williams, Rapnond,3z
govemment-contracted suppliers for, 7z-7 4; Williams, Richard 1.. z43nz6
Haacke's poII on, t7z, r9o-94,194, zor-2, Willis, Ellen, rz8
2o5, Pløte 12,'museums implicated in, 8, 18, Winogrand, Garry, t97
ß4-87, t85, t86, ß8, r89, ryl_92, t95, ry6, Wise, Howard. Seø Howard Wise Gallery
zo8-9, zo9, 2rr, 212; îews of , ry3, ry4, ry5; Wolin, Ron, 4o, t43,46
U.S. withdrawal in,78, 79; worlang-class Vr'ollheim, Richard, 4 5-4 6
soldiers ín, 35; see ølso My Lai massacre Womønhouse (Los Angeles), ß7-68, t67
Vílløge Voice, l55,2oj ïvomen: constnrction's exdusion ol, rro; Lippard's
Virno, Paolo, zzo changing attitudes toward, n9-3t, i53-55;
Visual Artists Rights Organization (Los Angeles), motherhood aîd, rz7, lz8, ry4, ßz-63,
zr8 214nro7; writing as artfoL t5z-59; see ølso
feminist movement; housework; women's
Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford), ß5-66, ú5 work
'Women
WAGE (Working Artists andthe Greater Ëconomy), Artists in Revolution (WAR), r7 r5), r54,
217 t6o, t6t, 163; open hearing at Met, 2o9, 21o,
\4iages: of art crilfcs, r3r-32; can for, 29, 54-56; 2TT

decline in ry6os, 33-34; gender differences Women's Action Coalition, zr9

in, rz8; for housework, rz8-29 , z3zn85; Women's Caucus for Art, zr8
proposals or,, 2o, 29, r2r, 722, rz3, 248n45, women's liberation movement. S¿¿ feminist
z5zn68; of Russian artists, 5o-5r; unac- movement
Strike for Equality, t5z-y, ú6
'Vy'omen's
ceptalrle sources of 22-24, r28, 21o
Wagner, Anne M., 46-47, tz9 Women Strike for Peace campaign, rr3
Wagstafl Sam, ro9 Women Students and Artists for Black Adists'
'Waldman,
Diane,48 Liberation (WSABAL), 37 16o
Walker, John A., zz4ng women's work: art criticism as, t64-66; changing
Wallace, Michele, 37, ;,48r'r25 ideas about, tz7-32; craft as, 166-69; double-
Wallace, Mike, zo and triple-duty in, ß3-64; feminist artists'
Wallis, Brian,37 connections Io, ú9-7o, 256-57nú5; mother-
WølI Street Joumø\, zo8 hood and, n7, n8, ry4, ßz-63, 254mo7;
V/AR. S¿¿Women Artists in Revolution (WAR) stoppage of, r53
Ward, Frazer,245n68 Wood,Paul,22,78
Warhol, Andy,3, 5z Wood, Catherine, zzçnrt
Wark, ]a;me, z49nrr work, r8r-82, zt6-zz; art as,3, 4-S,rr,14-
Wøshington Post, rr3 15, 8o; art vs., z61z;changing attitudes
Weber, )ohn. Seø John Weber Gallery toward, 33-35; conditions of 16-17; deciine
Weiner, Lawrence, z46mot of manufacturing, Z 4-ZZ, roz; definitions
Wells, Tom, rr3 of, r4-r1, 3t-32, rr7, 166; dematerialization
Westem Døily Press,4l of, 93-94, r18; democratization of, r99-
Westwate! AngeIa, 78, 79 zoo; deskilling of, roz; gender discrimina-
When Attítude Becomes Fonø (exhibition),ryi', ry4, tion in, rro, rz8; images of, 3o; labor
202 distinguished from,3z, t66; parenting as,
Whitney Museum of American Art: Andre's work 20; process art as, 87 92-9j; see ølsolabor;
at, 6z; Biennial, zr5; building's limitations, woment \¡r'ork
92, 98; Morris show at (see und.erMorns, workers: Aldre's use of term,5z; antiwar
Robert); protests al, p6, t6o, t6t, zzt; Rainer's protesters attacked by, 98, no-rz, ttt,
Conlinuous Project aI, 242mo; as work site, Ír4,rzo, r97; artists as,64,99-roz, zzo,
94-95 248îr4r; artists' changing attitudes toward,
 242 I INDEX

workers (continued.) Workíng Worn en/ Working Afüsts/Working Together

z6-32, 64, rr4, ar9-2ri Battcock on, r5o; (exhibition), 169-7 o, t7o
on,24-2j,34, tzr; Paris revolt of, 9, ry, ry3, Worì<s Progress Administration ,3, z8-29
r75; in protests in r97os, trz-r3; see ølso art Writers and Artists Protest, 5, 143-44
workers; hard hats; installers; strikes; union WSABAL (Women Students and Artists for Black
organizing Artists' Liberation), 37, 16o
Work in Americø (reportl,3z,35
Working Artists and the Greater Economy Zapkus, Kestutis, r-i9
(WAGE), z17 Zero group, r77
 TEXT:10/16 SCALA

DISPLAY: HELVETICA NEUE

SPONSORING EDITOB: STEPHANIE FAY

ASSISTANT EDITOR: ERIC SCHMIDT

PROJECT EDITOR: SUE HEINEMANN

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INDEXER: MARGIE TOWERY

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