Commodification and Appropriation of Artistic Labor

Abstract

Contemporary discussions of art and labor by theorists, activists, artists, and research collectives are increasingly departing from perspectives that emphasize the artist's work model, her working conditions, her exceptional position in society and economy, and her incorporation into capitalist production processes.

I attempt to position artistic activity and the art economy more specifically in the broader economic landscape. I intend to do so through empirical fieldwork research that focuses on one of the works of Oliver Ressler titled "Everything's coming together while everything's falling apart" (2016-2018) and the economic activity surrounding it in order to clarify the relationship between art, labor and the economy more precisely. 

I aim to elaborate on questions such as: 1) What characterizes the economies in which artistic activity takes place? 2) The way in which heterogeneous economies interrelate with each other in the art field? 3) To what extent and in what ways can artistic practices be seen as part of the capitalist production process? 4) Under what circumstances can the production process of art be taken as an alternative economic activity? These questions are all framed by the larger question of 5) how artistic labor becomes a commodity and how the art market appropriates it in certain situations.

Short biography

Önder Özengi is a curator and researcher based in Vienna. He studied Anthropology at Ankara University from 1996 to 2000 and Art Management at the İstanbul Yıldız Technical University from 2003 to 2008. He wrote his MA thesis about institutional critique and alternative institutional practices. He is a PhD candidate at The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and focuses on "Commodification and Appropriation of Artistic Labor."

Önder Özengi has curated various exhibitions, including "Relative Position and Conclusions," Suriye Arcade, Istanbul, 2009; "There is Nothing to Lose," Stærekassen, Copenhagen, 2010; "Never Again" Depo, Istanbul, 2013. He worked as a researcher on the "Actopolis: The Art of Action" project from 2015 to 2017, initiated by Goethe-Institut and Urbane Künste Ruhr. He has been a co-curator of a research project on "Labor in Contemporary Art" since 2011 with sociologist Pelin Tan. 

He also writes critical reviews for various magazines, exhibition catalogs, and books. He also edited books such as "Relative Positions and Conclusions" Istanbul: 2011 and "Never Again" (with Asena Günal), Istanbul; İletişim Publishing, 2013.