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鈥�(Art)work: Systems of Making鈥� opens with a celebration Friday afternoon at the CU Art Museum

As the 12 graduate students gathered around a long table discussing art, over several weeks their conversation eventually wound its way to labor. They were inspired by the labor movements happening in the United States and around the world.

鈥淭hese movements inspired wage-related discussions for us as students at CU Boulder,鈥� explains Rachel DeNagy. 鈥淲e empathize with labor rights groups, because we feel both underrepresented in society and underpaid as student-workers for our labor.鈥�

The conversations began as brainstorming the theme for an exhibition they would curate at the University of Colorado Art Museum and grew into 鈥�(Art)work: Systems of Making,鈥� which opens with a celebration from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Friday at the CU Art Museum and runs through March 22.

鈥�(Art)work: Systems of Making鈥澨齠eatures artworks that offer different perspectives on labor and the workplace. Some of the featured themes include artist collaborations and networks of creation, the coding of labor according to gender and race, labor movements and the connections between labor and nationalism.

It is the culmination of a graduate-level curatorial practicum taught by Hope Saska, acting director, chief curator and director of academic engagement for the CU Art Museum.

鈥淥ur focus has been curating from a social justice perspective,鈥� Saska says. 鈥淭he students guided the discussion to topics and issues around labor, and I鈥檓 really impressed by how they took this key topic and expanded it in a lot of really innovative ways.鈥�

Focusing on labor

In discussing how to approach the various issues and topics relating to labor, the students 鈥渇elt there were a lot of ways to use the museum's collection, and the format of an art exhibit, to cover 鈥榣abor鈥� as a theme, ways that would intersect the museum's collection with this broad concept from different angles,鈥� says dani wasserman, giving as an example the labor of artmaking, 鈥渙r hidden or underrepresented labor in society鈥攚hat people听might immediately听think of as 鈥榖lue collar labor.鈥� There's a lot of interesting interpretive and curatorial work that听can be done around depictions of this kind of work in art, especially with a collection as broad and eclectic as CU Art Museum鈥檚.鈥�

The students delved into the CU Art Museum鈥檚 collections, as well as those of University Libraries, to curate an exhibit that includes works as varied as manuscript pages on vellum from the early Renaissance paired with inexpensive magazines produced by the activist and artist collective.

There are works that address how labor intersects with race and gender, posters for labor unions and works鈥攕uch as Japanese wood block prints鈥攑roduced by artist collectives.

鈥淕iven my research focus on Japanese art, I was immediately drawn to the Japanese artworks,鈥� explains Kat Bertram. 鈥淐ollaborating with another art history graduate, Sam Hensley, who shares a Japanese focus, we centered our discussions around the theme and identified Ukiyo-e (a genre of Japanese art from the 17th-19th centuries; its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings) as a fitting subject. Our interest lay in exploring the collaborative dynamics within art creation, particularly in the context of Ukiyo-e, where the traditional emphasis on the designer overlooks the contributions of carvers, printers and publishers.鈥�

鈥楳ore than a stroke of genius鈥�

Because the exhibition is happening in a post-COVID-lockdown world, Saska says, a lot of the students鈥� discussion also focused on how labor does or doesn鈥檛 define people.

鈥淚 hope that, at best, people might leave the show with an impression of how labor is really central to our lives and our society,鈥� wasserman says. 鈥淗ow through analyzing our attitudes about work, whether that be through art鈥� that's just one way鈥� we can ask some really interesting questions about how we got to this world we are in and maybe even start to consider how reimagining that relationship to labor and to work can help us imagine a different, more equitable future. At the least, I think people will leave with a new concept of how much labor goes into artmaking itself.鈥�

DeNagy adds that another goal for the exhibit is for 鈥減eople see how art is layered. An artwork that we see in a gallery is a product of hours spent ideating, planning, laboring and fine-tuning.

鈥淎rt is more than a stroke of genius,鈥� DeNagy says. 鈥淚 hope that people see art as a group effort. There is more to a painting, a sculpture, a poster or a print than what first meets the eye. Art is a collective process, between an artist and their work, or between multiple people working together to create a finished product.鈥�

Top image: "Men of Steel" (1939) by Samuel L. Margolies; the work is included in听"(Art)work: Systems of Making"听

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