[The Seven by Nine Squares home page]
[YAWN 6]
[Art Strike 1990-1993]
Letters from YAWN's Readers
Dear YAWN,
...here's some info pertaining to the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art's panel discussion of the Situationist International. [I] challenged Greil Marcus (art critic NYC Village Voice) and read the Art Strike flyer. He interrupted, "I don't believe artists are murderers..." Oddly, no applause. He continued, "Neoists and Stewart Home are only using Art Strike to call attention to itself." He concluded, "Art Strike will fail!" I counted "Of course it will fail, but you've lost the entire point of why Art Strike must happen."...
Lebanon, New Hampshire
...I've been thinking about this Art Strike thang, after reading a pamphlet about it, and this is how I see it. I'm not going to go along w/any Art Strike, because what's in it for me? Little ol' me is supposed to stop doing my measley art books with no thanks from anyone while the people who put out "Art Strike" pamphlets and manifestoes are going to go right on doing it, keeping right on going with their conceptual art project! Forget it!
San Francisco, California
YAWN says: The Art Stike is not seen by this instigator as a collective [in]action having rules-to-be-broken. There is no Art Strike dogma as such. Instead, it is essential that each Art Strike participant construct their own set of activities in support of the Art Strike. This may take as many forms as there are participants.
The Art Strike will fail for many reasons, not the least of which is that it's a bad idea. As a bad idea, its chief objective is the collective rethinking of the role of art in our culture. It is a constructive response to the hyprocritical smugness with which most artists treat the public.
Life during the Art Strike should be more creative, not less. As we will no longer have art to fall back on to structure our leisure, we will need to structure it ourselves. This will demand conscientious discipline and awareness of the reality of our surroundings. The rejection of hierarchically imposed collective illusions is merely a first step.