Subject: Re: appropriation/free art
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 23:24:32 -0000


On Mon, 1 Jan 1996 22:52:47 -0500 (EST) Malgosia wrote:

>The issue of working for free has more resonance for me.  If one works for
>free, then (assuming one isn't rich) one has to make a living doing something
>else, which means that one may not have enough mental breathing space
>to do the kind of art one wants.

True, that there are times when making a living does evacuate the mental 
breathing space (as do other life experiences, such as living with young children). 
But a contrary experience is of being sufficiently vitalised/irritated by the working 
day to be able to do other things in the evening/weekend, but being unable to 
accomplish anything like that in extended free time (of which the way most people 
experience unemployment is the extreme).

Doesn't this point to social experience as being the way past the hard contrast 
between self-expression and commerce mentioned in the previous message: the 
space in which projects are formulated, sometimes between networks of artists, 
sometimes in the common ground of people with different backgrounds, interests 
and skills? And that kind of space, of which mail art can be a particular special 
case, is sustained only outwith cash exchange.



     --- from list avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------