Page 58 - Studio-International-January-1974

Museum of Modern Art by PASTA /
FIVE/ LUCY LIPPARD MOMA, its professional and obviously out to break the union.
None of the strikers has gone back in,
administrative staff (everybody except though the museum predicted that
Aside from the Women's Movement a flag becomes a dove and so on. management, which is heads of they would start straggling back after
I've been politically pretty apathetic Despite a certain level of abstraction, departments and miscellaneous a week, as of 4 December it's been
for the last two years, and I've had a the paintings were found to be both 'supervisors' often thus classified eight weeks. Some of the employees
lot of company in the art world. This legible and effective as far as mass against their will, and guards or have worked there for twenty years or
fall, time and energy are again being education was concerned, and workers already in other unions ; more; they are determined. Right
consumed, futility subsumed. Two recently there had been some only the projectionists walked out now they are living on $15 a week
issues have come up, widely separated indication thatthe Chilean branch of with PASTA.) The MOMA staff is the from the strike fund, and to get that
in breadth and effect, not so much in the international art world (which first museum group in America to they have to picket 28 hours.
cause. First and farthest reaching is the brigades viewed as colonially have unionized. Director loving The strike issues are, briefly, the
Chile. The New York Times gives imposed, non-indigenous taste) had broke a similar move at the following : (1) Money: the
slanted and sparse information ; the begun to be affected by their work. Metropolitan by firing the organizers, curatorial staff is paid far below the
Washington papers are better and Art students sometimes helped with but unionizing continues in Chicago standard for university employees to
the facts emerge : massacre of the walls and the surrealist Roberto and rumbles are heard elsewhere, which theirqualifications can be
workers and left-wing affiliates; Matta, Chilean by birth, worked with especially as other staffs see the compared. Their wages are even lower
books and art burned ;a Marxist folk the BR P on a wall near Santiago. All brutal way their locked -out than the currently striking NYC
singer executed ; an entire leftist this, of course, is over now. One of colleagues are being treated by hospital workers. 54 per cent of the
ballet troupe executed ; an American the Junta's first actions was to order MOMA. Director Oldenburg, backed, bargaining unit makes less than
film-maker executed; Neruda's the destruction of all the public art in or pushed, by his invisible but $8,000 per year; top management

house sacked as soon as he died of Chile as a primary step in 'reforming' omnipotent Board of Trustees: salaries have doubled in the last
cancer a few days after the coup ; the ideology of the Chilean people. refuses to negotiate and has come decade, while salaries of the staff
the Museum of Solidarity (works The group of artists in New York under press and establishment have increased by less than one third.
donated by foreign artists in support this fall decided to recreate a 100- criticism (a Times editorial, senatorial (2) Feminism : More than 75 per cent
of Allende's Chile) closed ; total foot section of the Ramona Parra support, etc.) for refusing even to set of the professional and administrative
repression of the arts. Since the US Brigades' most ambitious project, up a fact-finding panel. Meanwhile staff are women ; more than 75 per
government and industry were which ran a quarter of a mile along the strikers, eighty per cent of them cent of the top management are men.
instrumental in greasing the ways the Rio Mapocho in Santiago. It was women, are on 24-hour picket lines (3) Status and policy-making :
back to fascism, the consciences of drawn to scale in a studio on twenty- to keep the audience at the museum although the museum refuses to pay
American artists are, or should be, seven eight-foot-high laminate down by day, and in sleeping bags 'professionals' (i.e. anyone doing
more involved than usual. A group of panels and then painted in the streets through the cold nights to keep anything vaguely important or
Chileans and other Latin Americans of SoHo ona Saturday (gallery- garbage-collecting teamsters from connected with scholarship, which
met with the remains of the Artists' is presumably the real heart of the
and Writers' Protest and the Art museum) overtime, but they are not
Workers' Coalition to decide on an 'professional' enough to participate in
action that would bring some policy-making. There is no staff
attention in business -as-usual member on the board of trustees,
New York to the events taking place, just as there are no artists and only
still taking place, in Chile. one active art historian. There are no
The most important Chilean art for merit increases, and as an ex-
the last three years has been the exploitee of MOMAs, I can attest to
ubiquitous murals executed all over the use or lack of use to which bright
the country by the Young Communist young people are put. (4) Support of
Ramona Parra brigades, named after the public as opposed to the blue-
a young worker heroine shot down in chip elitism of the trustees, who see
the 1946 nitrate strikes. The brigades the museum as a collection first and
are groups of untrained, though foremost —their collection—with
certainly not unskilled, artists, public benefit a slow second. Only the
usually in their teens. They began staff has stood up for a free day,
painting walls with slogans as hit- lowering the astronomical
and-run communication with the admission fee ($2.00), senior citizens'
people, since the mass media were discounts, some vestige of political
closed to them and to their ideas. conscience, in short, for making the
Chilean mural outside a shanty town. Photo: B.R.P.
Speed and inexpensive materials museum a place one goes not to drop
dictated style, which soon included going day) in an effort to engage crossing the lines. Attendance has names and meet people of one's own
pictures as well as words, and public attention and press coverage. been cut drastically, but an amazing social and cultural status, but a place
developed into a sophisticated and The mural's bright colours and black number of people, art world included, to receive pleasure and provocation.
hard-hitting visual-verbal image contours were striking, and a continue to cross the strike line. An Here lies fundamentally the most
derived from, but not inspired by, celebratory air prevailed, somewhat editor of Artforum has done so twice important issue: is this partially
Cubism. When Allende was elected out of whack with the grim news (though the magazine has published taxpayer-supported institution to be
the murals became the official art, accompanying it. The next Saturday a long interview and petition on allowed to exploit both its workers and
and the brigades went to factories, we carried the panels up Fifth Avenue behalf of the strikers). It has been its public? And will artists, who
housing developments, parks, as well to the Chilean National Airlines, which noted that 'the hipperthey look, the should be the most interested parties,
as to any wall in street or countryside locked its doors when they first saw us more likely they are to go in' continue to be disinterested because
that presented a conspicuous surface. and then opened them again. Just as (Another footnote : the French of self-interest in the narrowest
Painted collectively with a strict business continued unabated in the rarely cross the line, the Germans senses? The situation in Chile and
de-emphasis on individual style or art boutiques of SoHo and the mural usually do ; no generalizations have that at MOMA may seem polarities at
credit, the brigadistas' work ranges process melted into the atmosphere emerged about the British.) the moment. But for how long ? The
in style from rather conventional (it might have been made for the Sympathetic artists, few enough of opposing mentality is the same in
1930s mural modes to a flowing tourists), the giant images on Fifth them, can stand at the door and ask both cases.
interchange, almost punning, between Avenue had little effect on passers-by people not to enter; or go into the Footnote: Should anyone want to
images, which, as Eva Cockcroft has doing their Christmas shopping on bookstore and ask people not to buy. respond to or support Chilean
pointed out in a detailed first-hand 27 October. Press and TV coverage, The strikers are not allowed past refugees (US Committee for Justice
article (Towards Revolutionary Art, despite active PR, was minimal to police barricades, so confrontational in Latin America) :150 Fifth Ave.,
room 311, NYC 10011 ; money is
San Francisco, no. 4, 1973), the point of invisibility and the methods are dependent on outside
needed at this time since their
transform whole walls into complex protest is now relegated to the art support. So far, the museum hasn't
headquarters was destroyed by a
metaphors, 'much in the way that magazines, where it may, at least, suffered much. The first major show —
bomb on December 4th.
words are joined into sentences and inform and nudge a conscience here Duchamp, ironically— is now being
The museum strike was settled the
sentences into paragraphs', forming a or there. tentatively held up, but they are first week in December; PASTA/
new language in which a fist becomes The second issue is the strike at the saving salary money and are MOMA received only the pay raise.
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