View Inventory

Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) was established in 2008 out of a series of discussions with artists and curators on their experiences with non-payment from art institutions. The majority of their work operates around their W.A.G.E certification program and WAGENCY. The website includes historical information about the organzation; members of the certification program and how to become a member; and events, writings, and videos highlighting their activist work pressuring arts organizations to pay their freelance artists equitably.

2013 PREMIERE: W.A.G.E.'s brand-new infomercial-dramedy, pOWER (100): A Screenplay! W.A.G.E. take an off-the-cuff admission made by dOCUMENTA (13) curator Caroline Christov-Bakargiev at a recent panel discussion and create a fictionalized melodrama, a world where the very powerful curator finds herself treated like an artist! It's de(OCU)MENTED! Yeah...we're just crackin the FUCK(D) UP over here. Pass it on!

WAGE, Working Artists and The Greater Economy, have made this commercial for the activist cause of securing standards of payment from art institutions in the United States.

WAGE, Working Artists and the Greater Economy, made this commercial to advocate for systematic change to the abuse of artists' labor in the United States.

WAGE, Working Artists and the Greater Economy, made this video to spread their manifesto around the world in advocacy of the rights of artists and art workers.

Creative Time presents Democracy in America: W.A.G.E. (Working Artists and the Greater Economy) at the Park Avenue Armory. 2008. Video by Benjamin Brown.

Teach-in at the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation on April 26, 2017 featuring a performance of Matha Wilson's Martha Does Donald, and presentations by artists Ann Agee, Rehan Ansari, Tomie Arai and Betty Yu (Chinatown Art Brigade), Todd Ayoung (REPOhistory), Avram Finkelstein (ACT UP and Gran Fury), Alicia Grullón (Percent for Green), Amin Husain and Nitasha Dhillon (MTL), Rasu Jilani, Taja Lindley (Harriet's Apothecary), Katherine Perko, Gregory Sholette (Gulf Labor Artists Coalition), Lise Soskolne (W.A.G.E.), and Barbara Zucker (A.I.R. Gallery).

Talk by Lisa Soskolne at the Henry Art Gallery on March 9, 2017 on the work of W.A.G.E. since 2008.

Event at Artists Space on December 10, 2016 on white supremacy in the art system and the racialized split between artists and art workers. The event was part of Decolonize This Place, a three-month project by art collective MTL+.

Event at Neu Kirche Contemporary Art on September 7 on the W.A.G.E certification program.

Event at Recess Art on August 18, 2016 on the W.A.G.E. certification program.

Private page not captured by crawler.

Lecture at Boston University on March 23 on issues facing working artists.

Chat Room was a quarterly forum at the Northwest Film Forum on art in the age of the Internet.

Charge 2016 was a three day event to platform artist led alternative models of sustainability; advocate for equitable compensation for artists; and consider artists' work in the larger economy. It took place at Art League Houston on January 8-10, 2016.

Full schedule of 2015 Alliance of Artists Communities conference in Providence Rhode Island.

Event at Artists Space on October 3, 2015 on the value relations of art production. It was part of We (Not I), a four-day program of discursive meetings, presentations, and events that brings together a wide range of artists, writers, curators and thinkers identifying with feminist practices to exchange and produce content addressing questions around the role of "we" in contemporary art practice,

Event at Artists Space on July 22, 2015 to discuss the American Royalties Too Act (ART Act).

Symposium at ALLGOLD on March 28, 2015 focusing on conversations between art laborers and art producers.

Two project announcements of art-agenda Dossier: Dossier #3: W.A.G.E's online tool for determining compensation of commissioned digital artworks, and Dossier #4: Daniel Steegmann Mangrané's QR Constellation.

One day conference organized by Common Practice UK "to discuss the ways in which small-scale arts organisations produce artistic value beyond measurability and quantification, provide spaces for public experience extra to the market, and in so doing contribute importantly to cultural wealth." It took place on February 15, 2015.

Event at CUE on December 11, 2014, where W.A.G.E. presented their research and advocacy regarding artists and earnings, minimum payment standards for creative labor, and certification for institutions that fairly compensate labor.

charge was a two day practicum to platform and convene artist led alternative models; open up conversations around equitable compensation of artists; and consider artists' work in the larger economy. It took place at Art League Houston on November 8-9, 2014.

Projects launched by Common Practice New York, including the publication Near Contact, by David Joselit and Amy Lien & Enzo Camacho; Out of Alternatives, a symposium on the role of small-scale arts organizations in New York City; Seminar and conference with the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College; and research papers by Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt and Sarah Thelwall.

Event at MoMA PS1 on April 27, 2014. Composing Differences "brings together artists, curators, researchers and others from Europe and the United States, who are establishing new platforms to experiment with art and knowledge production, which defend the circulation of knowledge and the immaterial value of art as a tool of social change."

Performance in September 2013 at the Kitchen reflecting on "actions" directed at the Museum of Modern Art from the 1960s to the 2010s.

Event at Artists Space on April 20, 2012 presenting the 2010 WAGE Artists Survey.

Event in partnership with Artists Space on January 9, 2012. Event included a brief introduction to W.A.G.E. Certification; a presentation by artist, economist, and sociologist Hans Abbing, author of Why are Artists Poor: The Exceptional Economy of the Arts; and discussion.

Group screening curated by Erika Vogt inviting visual artists who make use of film and video to present their work within the context of a theatrical exhibition venue. At the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) on February 28, 2011.

Event at the New Museum discussing the "Free" exhibition on December 9, 2010.

"Free" was an exhibition at the New Museum from October 20, 2010-January 23, 2011. "Free" explores how the internet has fundamentally changed our landscape of information and our notion of public space.

The W.A.G.E. Survey aimed to gather information about the economic experiences of visual and performing artists exhibiting in non-profit exhibition spaces and museums in New York City between 2005 and 2010.

Event at CCS Bard on April 14, 2009, held by W.A.G.E. members A.L. Steiner, K8 Hardy, and A.K. Burns.

Article by Janet Brown published in the GIA Reader, Vol 20, No 1 (Spring 2009).

NOBODY PUTS BABY IN A CORNER was a series of feminist gatherings in NYC through 2009-2010 initiated by Malin Arnell and Johanna Gustavsson, two Swedish artists attending the Whitney Independent Study Program.

Homepage for Human Resources, an arts organization in Los Angeles focusing on "contemporary and conceptual art, with an emphasis on performative and underexposed modes of expression."

Panel discussion on May 28, 2016 that was part of Public Exposures: The Art-Activism of Condé + Beveridge (1976-2016) at OCAD University.