Artist employment and other rant-worthy enterprises

The question of employment in contemporary art has been an especially weighty one from a personal standpoint ever since I was handed my shiny MFA degree in some especially gorgeous hall of the University of Glasgow. Like many other self-proclaimed ‘artists’, I am woefully underemployed and am therefore none too picky about where I find the opportunity to develop new skills that can hopefully be applied to increasingly relevant jobs in the future. It’s called the long game, kids.

Under those circumstances, the chance of learning those skills in a contemporary art environment is a huge bonus, so I was more than happy to interview today for a position whose role and location I’ll choose not to disclose here in the interests of being polite - as in, yes, I really am quite miffed by the experience, kindly watch for the ensuing bullshit.

Fact is, the destitution of artists extends quite fairly to the ground-level workings of the institutions that struggle to keep their work alive and kicking. And artists will continue to contribute their time in this way because this is what we believe in. Part-time contract? Smashing, means more studio time. Odd hours? Sign me up! Mind taking charge of this project single-handedly? Creative license, huzzah!

If that were the beginning and the end of it, this is the sort of job where an artist can really show their stuff: come into a gallery, use your external perspective and creative skill set to design a kick-ass program or event, pull it off with support from the existing staff, collect your pay for a job well done. But if that core support is lacking or else disastrously broken, it’s the equivalent of asking an artist to waltz into the unknown and assume responsibility for every aspect of the space’s administration, regardless of whether or not the artist has the experience or training necessary to pull it off. And I’m certainly capable of learning on the job - in fact, a large part of this particular job’s appeal was in the opportunity to learn the mechanics behind orchestrating an art event - but can hardly expect to achieve much, creatively or financially, when it’s also my job to be the project’s scapegoat.

Case in point: as an artist on short contract, I am happy to monitor a budget closely, but it should not be my job to be personally repsonsible for the financial blunders of another member of staff who can’t be bothered to consult me before ordering 60 cases of shiraz. This was, seriously, an expectation of the job, with little answer to my baffled question of why I should expect another person in the gallery to make financial decisions on my project without my input aside from a beatific smile and shrug and assurance that, yes, this is the way we do things here.

And now the poor financial state of artist-run organizations makes a little more sense.

Aside from fulfilling some outdated romantic cliche, I cannot for the life of me figure out why such slipshod standards of communication and job responsibility are allowed to become the sort of standard that is unabashedly presented to a candidate in an interview scenario. For the sake of my future job-seeking ventures, I hope this is, in fact, not a universal experience. Even further, I hope to hell that this sloppy management isn’t in part to blame for the poor living conditions of artists in general - the very idea scarcely bears thinking about, really.

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