Precarious Workers Pageant & Gulf Labor
Deconstructing Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Abu Dhabi
The Gulf Labor Pageant & Procession: Aug. 7, Venice, Italy @ Sale Docs
Join members of Workers Art Coalition, Aaron Burr Society, Occupy Museums, Social Practice Queens, Sale Docs, G.U.L.F. and Gulf Labor Coalition in a collective performative experiment deconstructing Frank Gerhry’s proposed Guggenheim Museum on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Right now we are fabricating portable, modular elements based on Gehry’s design and rehearsing a public procession whose tones will be partially somber and partially celebratory.
The Gulf Labor Pageant and Procession starts off at Sale Docs on the South side of the Dorsaduro August 7th at 6PM after which we will wind our way out and around the nearby Peggy Guggenheim Museum where various stations, enactments, testimonials, and performances will focus on the struggle for social justice amongst migrant workers in the Gulf region, as well as labor conditions and the plight of migrant workers in Europe and the USA.
Following the procession stay for a book launch for The Gulf: High Culture/Hard Labor edited by Andrew Ross from OR Books. PLUS a party! (More details to follow soon, and note: a second performance is slated for this Fall in New York City, plus a panel at the CUNY Grad Center.) JOIN US! *
* This project is possible thanks to the generous support and labor of its participants, as well as the Mellon Seminar in Collaborative Research and Public Engagement in the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY
Join us for the Precarious Workers Pageant & Gulf Labor Book Party
Friday, August 7th, 2015 6PM, S.a.L.E.-Docks, Venice, Italy
AFTER 5 YEARS OF A CAMPAIGN TO AMPLIFY WORKERS’ DEMANDS FOR FAIR WAGES AND DIGNIFIED WORKING CONDITIONS, THE PRESSURE ON THE GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM HAS NEVER BEEN HIGHER: IT’S TIME TO CELEBRATE GULF LABOR’S WORK AND ACHIEVEMENTS, AND ASK “WHO BUILDS YOUR ARCHITECTURE?”
During the May opening of the Venice Biennale, G.U.L.F. (Global Ultra Luxury Faction) and Gulf Labor Coalition declared their solidarity with migrant workers in the U.A.E. by occupying the Venice branch of the Guggenheim museum. A new level of negotiations ensued, in which the museum’s board of trustees agreed to meet on a regular basis to discuss how to implement our demands for worker protection and labor rights. We invite you to Gulf Labor’s series of panel events at the Venice Biennale (from July 29th to August 9th), and also to join us on Friday, August 7th at 6PM (18:00) for a choreographed street spectacle, starting at S.a.L.E.-Docks, to express our hopes and fears in an evening of performance and pageantry. This will be followed by the launch of The Gulf: High Culture/Hard Labor edited by Andrew Ross (from OR Books).
The Precarious Workers Pageant is a collaborative project involving members of the: Workers Art Coalition, Aaron Burr Society, Occupy Museums, G.U.L.F., and Social Practice Queens. It all starts inside S.a.L.E.-Docks where we will perform a deconstruction of Frank Gehry’s proposed Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi. Once this grand avant-garde monument is dismantled, we will carry its liberated shapes in a cacophonous procession through nearby streets and over canals, passing by the Peggy Guggenheim Museum to the Galleria dell’Accademia plaza where our emancipated geometric forms will be reconstructed into a public commons, setting the stage for a series of testimonials and performances addressing the struggle for social justice amongst migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates, as well as in Europe and the USA before returning to S.a.L.E.-Docks for the book party. S.a.L.E.-Docks is located on the South side of the Dorsaduro, Venice, Italy.
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GULF LABOR ALSO PRESENTS ITS FIELD INVESTIGATION FINDINGS AT THE VENICE BIENNALE IN A SERIES OF PANELS AT THE ARENA IN THE CENTRAL PAVILION: JULY 29th–AUGUST 9th from 3 to 5 PM each day:
July 29 High Culture/Hard Labor: The Work of Gulf Labor and its Allies With Walid Raad, Nick McGeehan, Shaina Anand, Sharan Burrow, Renaud Detalle
August 2 South Asian Migrants and the Gulf Dream With Ashok Sukumaran, Paula Chakarvartty, Nitasha Dhillon, Parimel Sudhakar
August 5 A New-Wave of Arts Activism? With Greg Sholette, Mariam Ghani, Amin Husain, Noah Fischer, Guy Mannes-Abbott, Doris Bittar
August 7 Precarious Workers Pageant and Book Party at S.a.L.E.-Docks performance and party starting at 6PM /18:00.
August 9 Who Needs Museums and Biennales? With Andrew Ross, Okwui Enwezor, Terike Haapoja, Kaarin Taipale, Marco Baravalle.
Details : www.gulflabor.org and http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/news/25-05.html
MORE ABOUT OUR BOOK
The Gulf: High Culture/Hard LaborEdited by Gulf Labor member and NYU Professor Andrew Ross and published by OR BooksThe Gulf: High Culture/Hard Labor features research and essays by Haig Aivazian, Ayreen Anastas, Kadambari Baxi, Doris Bittar, Paula Chakravartty, Jordan Carver, Nitasha Dhillon, Rene Gabri, Mariam Ghani, Hans Haacke, Guy Mannes-Abbott, Naeem Mohaiemen, Walid Raad, Andrew Ross, Gregory Sholette, Mabel Wilson and G.U.L.F. (Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction).
MORE ABOUT THE PRECARIOUS WORKERS PAGEANT
Once upon a time the early, modernist avant-garde believed art was integral to creating a new, more democratic society that would set free the laboring masses. Even as their radical geometric vocabulary still haunts the projects of Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, and other “starchitects” commissioned for the Saadiyat Island projects, the avant-garde’s egalitarian vision is now dead on arrival. In 2015 many of our leading artistic innovators have literally turned their backs on workers as the radical deregulation of state control over capital transforms human labor into an expendable global commodity. Millions of precarious masses now migrate great distances from family and home in search of poorly paid employment. Even those working in more established economies have become increasingly precarious as flexible, part-time, non-union employment dominates, which typically does not offer job security, basic benefits or sometimes a living wage. According to Gregory Sholette “the Precarious Workers Pageant seeks to rekindle the emancipatory spirit of the early, artistic avant-garde, and it is also an act of solidarity with those who labor under unjust conditions on Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness) building the Guggenheim Museum Abu Dhabi.”
A partial list of participant/collaborators includes: Bobby Andrew, Setare S. Arashloo, Marco Baravalle, Alejandro Salgado Cendales, Barrie Cline, Jim Costanzo, Anne D’Orazio, Chris Esposito, Noah Fischer, Eliza Gagnon, Matt Greco, Lori Hiris, Effe Ibok, Marquis Jenkins, Stephanie Lawal, Jamie Lopez, Andrew Ross, Greg Sholette, Kimberly Slovak, Paul Vance, Tatiana Vargas, Mirana Zuger. The pageant is made possible thanks to the generous support and labor of its participants, as well as to the Mellon Seminar in Collaborative Research and Public Engagement in the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
(flag design: Noah Fischer)
Workers Art Coalition was co-founded by Jaime Lopez (Local 3 Electrician) and Barrie Cline in February 2014 and a core group of construction workers/artists and artists/workers (from beginners in the trades to veterans) have met regularly, shared skills and ideas to explore arts potential in movement building within the realm of labor. http://theworkersartcoalition.com/
The Aaron Burr Society was founded by artist Jim Costanzo in 2008 and is dedicated to exposing the myths of the Free Market and Free Trade. Their goal is to challenge the integrity of Wall Street and their Corporate Cronies and take their illegal profits to build the global Commons. The resulting People’s Profits would be used internationally to pay personal and national debt as well as funding social programs and local infrastructure to create local, economic autonomy for worker coops including food, energy, clothing and other collective enterprise. http://aaronburrsociety.tumblr.com/
Social Practice Queens (SPQ) is a unique MFA concentration bringing together the resources of an academic research institution, Queens College (City University of New York: CUNY), with the long-standing community-based activism of the Queens Museum. Focusing social justice and art as social action the new MFA concentration in social practice integrates studio work with social, tactical, interventionist and cooperative forms. https://www.socialpracticequeens.org/
The Gulf Labor Coalition, an international group of artists and writers, and an official participant in this year’s Biennale, has been pressuring the museum for five years to ensure fair labor standards for the workers constructing its new Saadiyat Island branch in Abu Dhabi. Neither the museum nor its Emirati partner has responded with any adequate program of protections. After five years of inaction, G.U.L.F. decided to follow a May 1, 2015 occupation of the Guggenheim New York by targeting the Venice museum. S.a.L.E.-Docks, the Venice arts collective, also participated in the occupation. The joint action drew attention to the exploitative use of unpaid workers to staff the expositions in Venice, Milan, and beyond. www.gulflabor.org
For more information visit contact:
Precarious Workers Pageant
Gregory Sholette: gsholette@gmail.com
(001) 646-319-6387
Gulf Labor Contact and Gulf Book:
Andrew Ross: andrew.ross@nyu.edu
G.U.L.F Contacts:
Noah Fischer (917) 443-5650
Nitasha Dhillon (205) 370-7231
S.a.L.E.-Docks Contact:
Marco Baravalle (+39) 333-676-0316
