Danielle Child, "Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019)

New Books in Critical Theory

Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) is the story of art and work under contemporary capitalism. Whilst labour used to be regarded as an unattractive subject for art, the proximity of work to everyday life has subsequently narrowed the gap between work and art. The artist is no longer considered apart from the economic but is heralded as an example of how to work in neoliberal management textbooks.

With the narrowing of work and art visible in galleries and art discourse today, Working Aesthetics takes a step back to ask why labour has become a valid subject for contemporary art and explores what this means for aesthetic culture today.

Danielle Child speaks with Pierre d'Alancaisez about the rise of the art fabricator embodied by the stories of Lippincott, Inc. and Mike Smith Studio, dematerialised labour of Rimini Protokoll, and the digital afterlives of etoy and the brave new world of NFTs.

The opening street scene by Eyre Crowe is here.

Dannielle Child is a senior lecturer at Manchester School of Art.

Pierre d’Alancaisez is a contemporary art curator, cultural strategist, researcher. Sometime scientist, financial services professional.

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