Man-Made: Art as Labor
The 1930s and ‘40s marked a period when American artists faced limited opportunities for paid work. In response, the Federal Art Project (FAP) established a range of programs to continue practicing through public employment. Artists working for the FAP earned a weekly salary of $23, equivalent to roughly $500 today. State support coincided with the formation of artists’ unions, which explicitly advocated for artists’ rights as laborers.
Today, however, the relationship between art and artist is once again obscured from the public. The creative process occurs out of view in artists’ studios; its audience sees art only when it comes up for sale, is treated as a commodity, or is exhibited in elite institutions such as museums. This condition has been further intensified by the growing presence of Generative AI, which appears to produce art without human labor. In reality, these systems rely upon the appropriation of existing artistic work, often without compensation or recognition for the artists whose labor makes them possible. As a recent Artist.org petition stated: "The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.”
Studying artworks created during the New Deal in relation to their human creators, we recover a fuller understanding of creativity as a vital force in the formation, continuation, and transformation of American culture. In 1936 the artist Alexander Stavenitz recounted a story of two men, one from the field of fine art and the other an advertising art director, both of whom walked into a WPA relief office for food and rent. He urged artists to look beyond individual circumstances or merit, because "the condition they reflect is so widespread that it is to be found not only in the field of art, but in practically every phase of the country's industrial and cultural life." Labor solidarity had helped expand the FAP, supporting artists and "bringing art to the American people in a manner and to a degree never before known here." Our premise is that art-works are work, regardless of the era. The government-supported paintings and prints of this exhibit are material lessons.
Credits: Meaghan Casey, Nora Drexler, Isabella Papapietro, Olivia Pasiak, Ella Singer