THE EDGE OF PRECARITY

Little Berlin, 2018

curated by:
Danielle Degon

featuring works by:
Stephanie Cayer
Sarah Grisham
Gabrielle Constantine
Sarah Heyward

THE EDGE OF PRECARITY exposed full scope of work artists do to maintain their artistic practice and the consequences that arise when artists work within the capitalist mode of production to support their artistic production outside of it. This declarative exhibition acknowledged that the typical working artist does not get paid for their labor, and rarely expects to. Because of the broad separation of art and work that happened during the industrial era, artists do not charge an hourly rate for their art-work or for their intellectual-work. Artists live in financial precarity even though the work they do is politically relevant, and an honest form of labor.

Most artists engage in freelance or contract work to keep their artistic practice afloat, in addition to the unpaid work they do in the hopes that they will “get their break” in the future. This show asserts intellectual or cultural production as an alternative to material production, and declare it be given a higher status in society.

Sarah Heyward, Stephanie Cayer, Gabrielle Constantine, and Sarah Grisham have supported their practices with financial capital from day jobs along with cultural capital from unpaid internships, adjunct professorships, and artists in residencies. Though text paintings, textured sculptures, and receipt logs, they explore the depth of the unpaid labor they perform, the effects it has on the global market, and how to escape precarity.

DANIELLE DEGON

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