Babić, Milijana: Looking for Work [artist statement]

Babić, Milijana: Looking for Work [artist statement]

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Title Looking for Work [artist statement]
Type Artist statement
Date 2 October 2013
Venue Galerija Škuc
City of production Ljubljana, Slovenia
Production City of Women
Language Croatian
Format 1920x1080 pxl
Duration 02' 14"
URL Mesto žensk
Registration number CoW-2013-PRED-702
Number of works in a group 3

Synopsis

The exhibition was based on the documentation of a year-and-a-half-long action of looking for work, evolving around an ad stating: Visual artist urgently looking for any kind of work, which was published continuously in local advertising publications.

 

While responses to the ad came mainly from men offering suspicious work such as massage, accompaniment on travels, nude photography, “performances” in night bars..., the project also developed through researching job columns with an aim of undergoing the experience of work.

 

During the project, the artist worked as a cleaner, a waitress, a vendor, a distributor... In all cases, apart from the work found “through a connection”, she was underpaid and treated as a person of lower rank. Apart from dealing with the research into the labour market in a time of the highest unemployment rate in Croatia, the project Looking For Work questions the status of contemporary artists in Croatian society and problematizes the insufficiency of the artistic profession, with an emphasis on the position of women artists and the field of visual art.

 

The conditions in which (not only) Croatian visual artists work are cheap production, unpaid work, a non-existent contemporary art market and a lack of systematic promotion on an international level. Survival within the profession is possible only with external sources of income.

(Milijana Babić)

 

Source: City of Women

Artist, artistic group

Group of artworks

Babić Milijana, Looking for Work [exhibition opening], Ljubljana, 2 October 2013, 07' 26"
Babić Milijana, Looking for Work [installment], Ljubljana, 2 October 2013, 04' 55"
Babić Milijana, Looking for Work [artist statement], Ljubljana, 2 October 2013, 02' 14"

Subworks

Babić Milijana, Cleaning, Rijeka, 2 October 2013, 12' 31"
Babić Milijana, Distribution of Advertising Material, Rijeka, 2 October 2013, 09' 16"
Babić Milijana, Exhibition Guarding, Rijeka, 2 October 2013, 11' 45"
Babić Milijana, Irons Promotion, Rijeka, 2 October 2013, 04' 58"
Babić Milijana, Rose Selling, Rijeka, 2 October 2013, 04' 30"
Babić Milijana, Waitressing, Rijeka, 2 October 2013, 05' 20"
Babić Milijana, Working at a Shop, Rijeka, 2 October 2013, 04' 01"

Production