Beautiful / Useful / Bullshit? Art & Labor in Late Capitalism
Full Tuition: $300 — Scholarship options are available in the drop-down enrollment menu for you to self-select.
Instructor: Andrews | 5-weeks | Thursdays | October 19 - November 16 | 6:00 - 8:00 PM ET | ONLINE
Why are so many contemporary jobs bullshit: useless to the point that even the person doing them thinks they are meaningless? And simultaneously, why is art not considered a legitimate job? Does meaningfulness matter, usefulness, beauty? What exactly are we working for? And what does art have to tell us? In a world where it’s technologically possible to meet basic needs on a 15 hour work week, why do we work more than ever? And how did we come to spend so little of our time making, enjoying, and thinking about the social potentials of art? Over the course of five weeks, we’ll look at what theorists, writers, and artists have to say about the dehumanizing logic of the profit motive under late capitalism that leaves us living to work rather than working to live. We’ll trace the raced and gendered histories of labor exploitation, the tying of value to one’s “work ethic,” and the changing historical understandings of art as useful or useless, priceless or marketable. We’ll ask questions like: Do we want our jobs to be meaningful? Do we want art to be considered labor? Do we want to work at all? What would art look like in a world dominated by anti-work sentiments? What would the role of art be under communism? What would it take to make human flourishing, meaning-making, and beauty–not capital–central to our way of life? Along the way, we’ll read, listen to, and look at works by David Graeber, Claudia Rankine, Johanna Hedva, Virginia Woolf, Jenny Odell, Robin D. G. Kelley, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Karl Marx, Alex Rivera, William Burroughs, Kevin Beasley, and Frida Kahlo, among others.
Classes are recorded to allow for students to participate asynchronously. If you want to take a class but cannot make the class time, sign up for the asynchronous audit option to follow along on your own. Recordings are password protected and will only be available for the duration of the class and two weeks after it ends.
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Night School Bar pays instructors and staff a living wage, and your tuition goes toward supporting this practice. Please pick the payment tier that corresponds to your needs, and consider our commitment to fair labor practices when doing so. We will never request or require proof of need, and do not use an income-based sliding scale; we trust you to decide what payment tier is right for you. If you would like additional support deciding or would like to learn more about the practice of using a sliding scale, we recommend this resource from Embracing Equity.
We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class, and one full scholarship per person per term. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out or you would like to pay tuition on an installment basis, please email us directly, and we will work with you.
If at any point up to 48 hours before your first class session you realize you will be unable to take the class, please email us and we will reallocate your funds to a future class, to another student’s scholarship, or refund it. After that point, we are able to offer 50% refunds.