COLLECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS, ANARCHIST THOUGHT, AND ARTISTS' EXPERIENCES

“Life is long, and work, whatever it may be, is always hard. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to be an artist. This choice was vanity, and an exercise in privilege, yet I am convinced that my desire was above all defensive. The art world bores me, annoys me, revolts me, but the world in general horrifies me. Being an artist placed me outside the world, protected me from it. Being an artist allowed me to hate the world, to believe that I could reject it. Refuse to be part of it, refuse the definition of work that is imposed on me, the definition of happiness that is dangled in front of me, the definition of love that is thrown in my face.” — Johana Blanc, Les déserteuses, 2023

Linda Good Bryant is a Black woman living in 1970s New York. When she opens the gallery Just Above Midtown, she is 25 years old, a single mother, and penniless. Thinking about it rationally, she’s the last person who could afford an enterprise requiring a 200% time investment and substantial financial resources. But rational thinking is for those who can accept the world as it is, and it is precisely these obstacles that leave Linda with no choice but to create a parallel universe.

Between invention and paradox, this Think.Zone proposes a cross-reflection between art and libertarian thought. Our journey will be made up of a series of theoretical notions, artistic projects, novels and militant experiences, enabling us to think together about our capacity to invent alternative models of organization. Would Marcel Duchamp's refusal to work have been the same if his connections and legacies hadn't shielded him from necessity? With class consciousness, we'll be looking at people who are changing the frameworks, means and structures within which they intend to work, think, create and live.

But above all, we'll be looking at how these demands take shape in the reality of the physical world. At once a Stakhanovist, an art market agent and a hustler, the status of professional artist is fundamentally full of paradoxes. Following in the footsteps of Carla Lonzi and Goliarda Sapienza - who warn against “the consumption of any idea, however close to us, that has been rendered edible by its immediate dialectic”- we shall try to keep as far away as possible from dogmatic, dichotomous thinking. We will attempt to embrace the paradoxes of embodied thought, the complexity that imposes itself as soon as we leave the ethereal world of ideas. In this way, we'll approach the notions of freedom, work and autonomy in all their complexity and incoherence.

The objective of this workshop is to promote discussion, critical thinking, and informed positioning among the students.

Image: Anaïs Nin working on her press, circa 1942