“Artist at work. Proximity of art and capitalism”.

“Artistic work is the focus of my interest because it allows us to analyse some important characteristics of the development of contemporary art in the last few decades and especially the changes in the forms of artistic autonomy that appeared with the increasing closeness of art and life. The aim of my book is therefore to note that these changes are closely connected to the changes in contemporary capitalism and the entry of post-Fordist ways of production into the centre of contemporary production.” (p. 18).

“Old forms of life become obsolete even before they can actually be absorbed. This opens up the way for subjectivity, which experiences its transformation through constant existential paradoxes. This makes us live in a constant state of tension, at the edge of anxiety; it is this state that causes an increase in our investments.” (p. 21-22). “(…) In this context, I see radical consumption as the consumption of the body, presence, human actions and abilities, physical strength, spiritual power and effects; it aims to intervene into the intersubjective and productive nature of subjectivity and, in this way, also open up the relationship between performers and spectators.” (p. 22).

“The problem is therefore that in today’s capitalism, we work in the manner that Abramović calls performance mode. One’s work is intertwined with the performing and the maintenance of creativity; in this, one should ignore every disturbance from the environment or political context, as well as any antagonist disturbance that comes from the sphere of the public. (…) This loss of voice is also quite close to the contemporary ways of working; those can also be revolutionary works without a political voice, with art and the contemporary creative work closely resembling each other in this aspect.” (p. 42-43).

“But what happens with capitalists who donate their wealth to art and receive tickets to the performances art pieces of the rich, in which they not only participate, but are also critically addressed? Their pleasure lies in the critical attitude towards them; it is in the co-existence of their status as the rich and a parodic critique of their role.” (p. 47).

“Today, these social relations are at the core of generating value, with manners of production connected to the exploitation of these relations. At the same time, the dematerialization of objects and the fetishisation of open procedures and transparent relations are at the core of post-Fordist shifts in the understanding of work and production.” (p. 59).

“The museum is still a space for production, a space for exploitation; in the <<museum as a factory>>, things are still produced.” (p. 63).

“It is also non coincidence that many venues intended for the contemporary artistic events actually inhabit former Fordist factories that there were deserted after the relocation of Fordist production to non-Western countries.” (p. 64).

“Let us ask ourselves, where this accurate description of the highly ambitious performance artist actually comes form. Is this not the description of the contemporary worker, equipped for continuous high performance? That of the always critical and active labourer, whose subjectivity in entirely subjected to the modes of contemporary capitalist production?” (p. 80).

“What, then, is the community? Paradoxically, it is the constant dispossession of collaboration and its possibilities.” (p. 96)

“(…) the communities are much more coincidental and flexible and are not connected to a certain space; they are actually not united by work, but over the very specific temporal dimension of meeting.” (p. 97).

“This intriguing connection between work and future underlines the excessive use of the world “project” in the contemporary artistic and creative professions; it is linked with a specific time dimension of work and creation, which I will term “projective temporality”. (p. 157).

“An imaginoscope for organisers. Liminal stories for liminal times”, Washington USA 2021. 

„Big social structures are dissipating and the social-economic system that embraces all the important institutions and organizations is dysfunctional. Yet there is no new working system on the horizon. (p. 2).

Neoliberalism is capitalism that has lost its memory: it is a system suffering from dementia. It is unable to learn and lacks imagination. This – at a time when we need alternatives more than ever to leave the void of the interregnum collectively and construct a new system that would be more human and ecologically sound than the former one. (p. 5).

Biology professor David Sloan Wilson (2021) expressed a strong conviction of the urgent need for stories that would reflect the human condition better than the ego- and individual-centred ones that now dominate in the public course. (p. 11). (…) But can we? How would this be possible in a tremendous crisis of imagination? (p. 11-12).

The imaginoscope is a device used to observe and experience objects and events taking place in the imagination. It is made entirely of imaginary matter. (p. 12).

The researcher is like a traveller betwixt and between known worlds, attentive and curious about everything, refraining from categorizations judgement, a light of pure consciousness immersed in the surroundings yet not quite there at all, devoid of a normal role and thus almost socially invisible. (p. 19-20).

However, we are so rarely listened to; we listen so rarely. (p. 40).

We are not able to understand management without understanding art. It is impossible to understand economic development without an aesthetic perspective (p. 114-115). (…) Social constructs, such as the market, organizing and management are all related to morality and aesthetics. (p. 115).

Our times tend to keep at hand a set of ready rapid, automatic categories for everything, which usually come in stark binary oppositions. It is always either this or the other, never and – and. Whenever a third alternatives appears and acquires a transitory status is  swiftly re-categorized into one of the originals. (p. 145).

“After the Apocalypse. Finding hope in organising”,  Washington USA, 2019.

We live increasingly in a world where we do not feel safe, or even at home, yet so many of us seem to think this is all that there is. As in Margaret Thatcher’s famous declaration: there is no alternative. And this is exactly what is the most dangerous of today’s many perilous tendencies. We need alternatives more than ever, and not just any alternatives but ones which give us resilient, sustainable and meaningful ways out of the interregnum and into a future worth living in. (p. 7).

The employee is a cultural construct which can be understood in a historical context, a social role central for the development of the industrial society, organized around several discipling institutions such as depersonalization of relationships, quantification as replacement for trust and reductionist rationalization. These institutions have been normalized and appear “normal” or even “inevitable” but they are neither of these things. (p. 118).