Acknowledgements
The argument for this book has undergone considerable transformation more than once as I have tried it out in various public contexts and benefitted from the private (and sometimes anonymous) comments of a substantial community of critical thinkers.
My initial hypothesis about the relationship between art and labour was developed within a discussion with Mark Hutchinson, Kim Charnley and Ben Fitton which became the basis of a panel at the 2016 Historical Materialism conference and a special issue of Art and the Public Sphere (Vol. 5, No. 1). I had previously tried out some ideas for a new theory of art’s relationship to revolution understood as a transformation of the social relations of labour in a paper I delivered in Dublin titled ‘Public Art and the Jacobin Revolution’ in 2014, which was later published under a modified title after receiving excellent editorial comments from Daniel Jewesbury.
An early draft of my thinking about the critique of the critique of alienated labour in Minimalism and Conceptualism against the defence of handicraft in Abstract Expressionism appeared in Art Monthly (July-August 2017, No. 408), as did my preliminary ideas about the art boycott as a withdrawal of labour. I gave the first presentation of my research on alienated labour at USB, Vancouver in 2017, at the invitation of Gareth James, and my tetchiness on that occasion in response to well-informed questions that challenged the underlying assumptions of my inquiry led me to do more historical research that I had not previously realised was necessary. I want to thank Jaleh Mansoor for revealing weaknesses in my argument. My investigation into the history of the hostility to handicraft in the Fine Arts and art in general were sharpened in dialogue with Esther Leslie and Alberto Toscano while preparing an essay titled ‘Art and the Politics of Eliminating Handicraft’ published in Historical Materialism journal in 2019 (Volume 27: Issue 1).
My review of the literature on non-alienated labour was significantly extended and improved by several prompts by Andrew Hemingway over email, for which I am deeply indebted.
I would like to thank Steve Edwards for commissioning the book Art and Labour, as well as my previous book, Art and Value, for the Historical Materialism Book Series and for his continued support of my inquiries over a number of years. Also, I am grateful to Simon Mussell, Hilde Kugel, Jennifer Obdam, Lydia Bax and Danny Hayward for their help in preparing the manuscript for publication.
I am keen to thank Marina Vishmidt, Benjamin Fallon and Kirsteen McDonald for the exchange of ideas on matters relating to this book that we shared while acting as co-editors of the Parse research ‘arc’ on art and work for the University of Gothenburg. I have also benefitted from exchanges with Sarah Brouillette, Jason Bowman, Andrea Phillips, Mick Wilson, Lisa LeFeuvre, Tom Cubbin, Josefine Wikström, Bruno Gullì, Kerstin Bergandahl, Liam Gillick, Dani Child, Andy Conio, Martha Rosler, Malcolm Quinn, Susan Kelly and Charles Esche.