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RITUALS OF THE ART WORLD

A SHOW AT MINI/Goethe-Insititut Curatorial Residencies at Ludlow 38

NEW YORK

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Rituals of the Art World September 10 – October 23, 2011, Opening: Saturday, September 10, 1-6pm

A group exhibition with works by Paulo Bruscky, Merlin Carpenter, Luis Camnitzer, Stephen Kaltenbach, Maria Krajewska with Elka Krajewska, Nils Norman and Barbara Visser

FIRST PARAGRAPH FROM OFFICIAL RELEASE:-

MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 is pleased to announce the opening of Rituals of the Art World, a group exhibition curated by Tobi Maier. This exhibition assembles work by a group of international artists whose work critically engages with the mechanisms of the art world. The arrival of post-modernism and the steadily advancing importance attributed to the curatorial figure, is connected to an equal rise of systems that regulate the way we operate and present each other's work. From studio visit, gallery tour, visitor's book, exhibition opening, magazine announcement, peer review, lecture performance, panel discussion, collector's dinner to the validation of the artist's signature or the certificate of authenticity and the analysis of the secondary market, art world politics are always part of the game. In a sometimes-playful manner, the works presented here comment on these apparatuses and invite reflection on the particularities of presentation, daily exchange and modes of validation in the contemporary art world.

...

On the occasion of his invitation to the exhibition Merlin Carpenter has created a new work entitled Now Wash Your Hands, 2011.

MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies is supported by MINI and Friends of Goethe.

Merlin Carpenter work in bathroom, Nils Norman on Wall, Stephen Kaltenbach's adverts in foreground.

The fashion from the mid-noughties until around 2010 to make Art about the Art World is now over. So now the critical spaces can get involved. But what is a critical space today? A corporate space? A State/corporate joint training camp? I notice that this gallery is called "MINI". Can a gallery called "MINI (or "BMW", MINI's parent company) be an alternative or independent space? Other spaces called things Like "Bloomberg" (London) seem to claim this curatorial autonomy, yet fall flat. I was intrigued that the space formerly known as "Ludlow 38" is now known as "MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38". Usually I would not show in a space with the name of a corporation as part of its own name.

BMW is one of the most successful car companies in the world with 96,943 employees in June 2011. One of their most profitable subsidiaries, MINI, based in Oxford, UK, attempts to have a high-valued added image. BMW is also extremely profitable, allowing it to develop high profile cultural marketing. The MINI driver is seen as a youthful critical dilettante, a eco-knowledge gatherer and post-relativist consumer.

"MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38"'s 2011 summer show was called "The Making of the Chinese New Working Class", dealing with migrant labour within China as a site of organisation both for labour rights, and presumably also seen as the revolutionary subject par excellence. If there is to be a newly vanguard proletariat where better to look than the migrant labourer located at the heart of capitalist production? People involved with labour and temporary workers' struggles in China and elsewhere participated in discussions.

So what about MINI? What is the relationship of MINI (BMW) to labour, apart from hosting exhibitions about labour struggle in downtown Manhattan? First of all, how does the MINI economic model work? I am not an expert and have had little time to research this, but for the sake of this text I can hazard a few guesses...

BMW are effective for the current marketplace, in that they can charge a premium for their products based on their perceived engineering and cultural superiority. BMWs sell well in emerging markets where brand reputation counts for all. In comparison Mercedes-Benz /Daimler never quite got the aggressive "one-step ahead" sporty Thatcherite appeal of BMW branding, and lag just slightly, anyway with the entry-level cars. And as I know in relation to my own work, it is hard to get Daimler to sponsor anything. This mark-up also gives BMW the ability to re-invest 14% of profits back into research and development, which is high.

The MINI has been boosted from a failing British product into a new culturalised/engineering hybrid; it re-uses its Britishness in the BMW vein. As far as labour is concerned, this was initially not such a bad thing, as it ensured the continuation of local engineering jobs. Despite BMW getting rid of Rover and the Longbridge plant in 2000, the MINI would be built in its original factory in Cowley near Oxford, the local British work force being retained and the entire place updated. Two other factories were also retooled elsewhere in the UK and continue to produce engines and body panels. The factory at Cowley is itself a kind of cultural phenomenon. Founded in 1912 as Morris, it has been producing cars ever since, including the original Mini. What had been misunderstood by many manufacturers as they outsourced in the 1990s was that labels like "Made in Germany" or "Made in Italy" could become a selling point by the late noughties. The seemingly higher paid labour was itself going to justify a higher price point. And the quintessentially British MINI must be Made in Britain, part of its DNA.

Adding to the irony of the situation, the MINI has been a huge success in China, so the UK-assembled cars are shipped out there in vast quantities (standing outside the factory gates I counted one ten-MINI transporter leaving every ten minutes - and apparently they are coming out on trains too). Every MINI is custom built, and 60% per cent of customers are the kind of think-out-of-the-box-ers who order contrast-coloured roofs.

BMW have been ahead of the pack both in reversing the Made in China (see the BMW towel in this exhibition) trend and embodying cultural information within engineering to significantly increase prices. Crucially for Ludlow 38, the information which increases value for MINI actually includes who the worker is (a white man invested in the history of the town, the factory and British brand), his location (wealthy Southern England), and his working conditions (perceived to be OK). He is the subject, the content, just like the migrant worker in the last exhibition at "MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38". Could the culturally valued labour activist be the rebuilder of capitalism, providing that extra garnish of trendiness that renders this shitty car tolerable?

But how is Made in England actually possible, given that despite a profit advantage due to BMW over other manufacturers via clever marketing, absolute profits must rely on labour being exploited? First of all, due to continuous investment from Munich, the MINI factory at Cowley is absolutely state-of-the-art with the newest techniques and robots. This is partly possible because it runs on three shifts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, thus reducing the eventual costs of the investment in machines.

But in car production many parts are shared between various manufacturers. MINI is assembled in the UK, but a certain percentage of every car comes from new-EU entrants, ex-USSR, India, or more likely, China. Whole assemblies come in from abroad readymade. So the company can enjoy the prestige of Made in England while keeping costs lower and concealing a large input of low-wage labour.

An enormous number of MINIs roll out of this Oxford suburb so the factory is always at maximum capacity. But what if demand does fall off, as it did during the financial crash? The shift system allows exploitation in the simple sense of having to work in the evening or night; but it also allows the dropping of shifts if demand falls off. At that point staff have to go too. But the long-term unionised workforce - what BMW call its "associates" - at Cowley would not allow for that so easily, the plant has a history of labour militancy. But when the crunch came in early 2009 there were instant dismissals: of temporary, so-called "agency" staff when the weekend shift was suspended. According to reports 850 of these workers were sacked without notice and with immediate effect one hour from the end of a night shift on the morning of 16 February. Some of them had been at BMW for up to four years, all with lower pay (some of which held in lieu as a reward for obedience), and different working conditions to their permanent counterparts. A protest directed against the trade union from which they had been excluded was defeated.

This use of agency workers to fill a large percentage of the staff (of around 4,700 total, 30% were temporary at Cowley in 2009) at any given moment of the factory's operation is the real key to low-cost production in a unionised environment. Like the migrant worker in China who BMW seems to want to start a cool revolution at Ludlow 38, the agency worker in the UK is stripped of all rights and benefits, has no job security and is paid far less. In the USA, new workers being employed by Ford are paid $14 an hour while their long-term associates are paid close to $30. In South Korea, the move to a casualised workforce has been going on for 20 years at least, with possibly half the workforce now temporary under strict police control (Ssangyong occupation of 2009); and this is seen as a model for Western economies.

Now wash your hands.

Merlin Carpenter London, September 2011

Now Wash Your Hands, 2011. Towel, 130 x 70 cm approx.
 

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