Art Strike 1990 - 1993 by Stewart Home et al. (in AntiClockWise #6)

“We call on all cultural workers to put down their tools and cease to make, distribute, sell, exhibit, or discuss their work from 1 January 1990 to 1 January 1993. We call for all galleries, museums, agencies, ‘alternative spaces’, periodicals, theatres, art schools &c., to cease all operations for the same period.”

When the PRAXIS group declared their intention to organise an Art Strike for the 3 years period 1990 – 1993, they fully intended that this proposed (in)action should create at least as many problems as it resolves.

The importance of the Art Strike lies not in its feasibility but in the possibilities it opens for intensifying the class war. The Art Strike addresses a series of issues; most important among these is the fact that the socially imposed hierarchy of the arts can be actively and aggressively challenged. Simply making this challenge goes a considerable way towards dismantling the mental set ‘art; and undermining its hegemonic position within contemporary culture, since the success of art as a supposedly ‘superior form of knowledge’ is largely dependent upon its status remaining unquestioned.

Other issues with which the Art Strike is concerned include the series of ‘problems’ centred on the question of identity. By focusing attention on the identity of the artist, and the social and administration practices an individual must pass through before such an identity becomes generally recognised, the organisers of the Art Strike intend to demonstrate that within this society there is a drift away from the pleasure of play and simulation; a drift which leads, via codification, on into the prison of the ‘real’. So, for example the role-playing games of ‘children’ come to serve as preparation for the limited roles ‘children’ are forces to ‘live’ out upon reaching ‘maturity’. Similarly, before an individual can become an artist (or nurse, toilet cleaner, banker etc.), they must first simulate the role; even those who attempt to maintain a variety of possible identities, all too quickly find their playful simulation transformed (via the mechanics of law, medical practice, received belief etc.) into a fixed role within the prison of the ‘real’ (quite often literally in the case of those who are branded schizophrenic).

The organisers of the Art Strike have quite consciously exploited the fact that within this society what is simulated tends to become real. In the economic sphere, the strike is an everyday action; by simulating this classic tactic of proletarian struggle within the realm of culture we can bring the everyday reality of the class war to the attention of the ‘avant garde’ faction within the bourgeoisie (and thus force academics, intellectuals, artists etc. to demonstrate whose side they are really on). At present the class struggle is more readily apparent in the consumption of culture than its production; the Art Strike is in part an attempt to redress this imbalance.

While strikes themselves have traditionally been viewed as a means of combating economic exploitation, the Art Strike is principally concerned with the issue of political and cultural domination. By extending and redefining traditional conceptions of the strike, the organisers of the Art Strike intend to increase its value both as a weapon of struggle and a means of disseminating proletarian propaganda. Obviously, the educative value of the strike remains of primary importance; its violence helps to divide the classes and leads to a direct confrontation between antagonists. The deep feelings aroused by the strike bring out the noble qualities of the proletariat.

In 1985, when the PRAXIS group declared their intention to organise an Art Strike for the period 1990-1993, it resolved the question of what members of this group should do with their time for the 5 year period leading up to the strike. This period has been characterised by an on-going struggle against the received culture of the reigning society (and has been physically manifested in the adoption of multiple identities such as Karen Eliot and the organisation of events such as the Festival of Plagiarism). What the organisation of the Art Strike left unresolved was how members of PRAXIS and their supporters should use their time over the period of the strike. Thus the strike has been positioned in clear opposition to closure – for every ‘problem’ it has ‘resolved’, at least one new ‘problem’ has been ‘created’. Stewart Home

Art is conceptually defined by a self-perpetuating elite and marketed as an international commodity. Those cultural workers who struggle against the reigning society find their work either marginalised or else co-opted by the bourgeois art establishment.

To call one person an artist is to deny another the equal gift of vision; thus, the myth of ‘genius’ becomes an ideological justification for inequality, repression and famine. What an artist considers to be his or her identity is a schooled set of attitudes; preconceptions which imprison humanity in history. It is the roles derived from these identities, as much as the art products mined from reification, which we must reject.

Donations, letters of support, testimonials, enquiries etc. may be sent to either of the following addresses:-

Art Strike Aktion Committee                         Art Strike Action Committee

(California)                                                      B.M. Senior

PO Box 170715                                              London

CA 94117-170715                                          WC1N 3XX

USA                                                                UK

If you require a reply, please enclose an SAE or IRCs.

“Artists are murderers” – Tony Lowes