It was too cold to kill time outside before our breakfast with Russell and Diane so we rode the tram out to Stammersdorf. Signs of mid-century urban development projects: modernist complexes big enough to form and house a community. I saw an advertisement for a new Lakeside Smartcity development near Donaustadt.[1] How soon will these Smartcity projects look as dated as these modernist blobs?
Russell and Diana were on the way back to NYC after his show opening at Bäckerstraße. Seeing friends outside of your city creates the illusion of a time-driven deepening. Compounded with the extra 20 minutes of looking for a cafe that was open, we did indeed bond in the cold.
In Austria, everything is closed on Sunday. Legally, many stores are obligated to be closed on Sunday. Establishments for food, drinks, gifts, bookstores, and museums are the exception. However, even stores that sell items outside of these categories have to obstruct sale of certain items by pulling a curtain over those products on Sunday. The Counter-reformation.
If you work at a job you don't like, everything being closed on Sunday is a blessing. I recall two decades ago, loving the idea of less work hours, of free Sundays, of some non-consumerism, non-productivity ideal. But if you enjoy your occupation, i.e. if you are part of a class of people who are pursuing their passion, the limited hours are a hindrance to self-actualization. The theory of competency in something requiring a certain number of hours – 10,000 or more – requires these evening and weekend contributions. Does Sunday necessarily obstruct this? No. One may be able to adequately plan their Sunday in advance by buying materials on Saturday, but an unforeseen hindrance may arise; Saturday may be a day of travel; or you may be obligated to work on Saturday. The limit to business hours on Sunday is not just to prohibit buying, it may also be to prohibit one’s productivity or self-development.
Limits to Sunday aren't the only variable in this quest of self-development; limited weekly work hours also play a role. And whether it is legally mandated that work stop, or simply socially encouraged, the pursuit of extra hours is impeded. The reverse is also true: I’ve feel compelled to work even during vacations, at the beach, at the spa. I have a sense of enjoyment and pride from this incessant toil.
From the perspective of an aspiring artist, actor, writer or even start up company, the culture of aggrandized free-time should be seen with suspicion. In the context of a world in which one is, or aspiring to become, their own boss, pursue a passion, the 35-hour work week something to be avoided. The distinction is whether the limitation is on working hours, or hours of vocation. Are you a subordinate, escaping orders on Sunday, or are you an entrepreneur – or realistically have a potential of transitioning to be an entrepreneur – and Sundays are slowing your progress?
It's no coincidence that my perspective on this question has reversed in the last decade. At age 25, I relished in the idea of more free-time; the European approach to labor and quality of life seemed ideal. At 35, I'm trying to get the last hours of production, while a mid-life gate is closing and quality of life is not as important as lifestyle. That is, my perspective isn't useful for people at every stage in life. I’m talking about an hour of ambition, an hour before sunset, an hour after the zeal of relaxation has worn away, an hour when play has become tiresome. And yet I have to admit why, even at age 25, I left Spain to return to the U.S.: the pace. Barcelona is an amazing city, but I found that I simply could not work, produce, create and pursue my art in Barcelona at the pace that I could in Seattle. And now being accustomed to the pace of New York, Seattle nor Europe are simply not an options.
Another question is for whom are shuttered Sundays benefit? The most obvious is the institution that mandated the closure in the first place – the Catholic Church – but today it's divided on socioeconomic grounds as well. Even non-believers defend Sundays as a day-off. After institutions, one has to look at the classes that benefit from days off. The few things that stay open – entertainment, fitness, cafes, restaurants, museums – are places frequented by the class of people with disposable income. Parks are free, but what about in winter? By requiring that all social classes take a day of leisure, a leisure-class maintains a custom of leisure, while those outside the leisure-class have one day without work and maybe leisure. (It should be noted that countries with higher income inequality have been found to have lower intergenerational social mobility; I.e. the U.S. has less intergenerational social mobility that Denmark, although the U.S. is "open for business" more days that Denmark.)
Another group that is benefitting from shortened work hours are those whose productivity is connected to technology. As technological advances occur, white collar workers are becoming more productive in shorter amounts of time, garnering higher wages, while blue collar workers whose time away from the table equates to greater losses of productivity and stagnating wages.
The variable of competition between countries is also important. Rather than seeing this simply as “if your neighbor is working seven days a week, and therefore you must also, in order to keep up with the Jones,” we have to ask if your distant cousin, on another continent is working. And while many developing countries are shortening their work week, I wonder how much of the progress that was made in the late 20th century in China and India was due to overworking; i.e. is "catching up" possible, if work equates to productivity and productivity equates to wealth. In the four decades, China brought 500 million people out of poverty, which is the greatest wealth generation in human history. That wasn’t due to a 35 hour work week. And, when the standard of living and wealth of China surpasses that of Europeans, will people really believe that going to the park on Sunday was worth trading economic dominance?
Conversely, does leisure necessarily equate to non-productivity? If a developed country transitions from production, i.e. blue collar jobs, to white-collar society, does the productivity goes down or just move to the service sector? [2]
Thankfully I like museums and Vienna is abundant with great institutions and more importantly great collections.
The first show I saw was at a Kunsthalle, which by definition don’t have a collection, but I had thought "Antarktika Eine Austellung über Entfremdung" at Kunstahalle Wien was about climate change and the resulting alienation. I read the pamphlet for insight as to why the exhibition was about everything other than climate change:
"In the 1960s the director Michelangelo Antonioni described Antartica in a sketch for a potential film as a condensed image for ongoing social glaciation. It metaphorically refers to the paradoxical experience of inclusion and, at the same time, isolation: recalling theories of alienation. The exhibition "Antarctica" gathers art that probes the ramifications of this cold vision of society with particular emphasis on recent positions in contemporary art. The participating artists portray insightful relations between the subject and contemporary modes of being, bringing the eroded boundaries between labor and leisure into focus with photo and video works that oscillate between documentation and performance. Other works in the exhibition illustrate the hallmarks of contemporary consumer culture in perfectly composed imagery."
What could be a better example of the world as societé? Taking a quadragenerian metaphor, which today can't even be contemplated without the broad knowledge and acceptance of Antarctica as an indicator of our melting existence as a species and overriding the metaphor, that reduces the physical and natural world into a preoccupation of social interactions? I hated the show title, but there were works that I found interesting. Maybe the artworld has already grown tired of shows about our pending doom; maybe giving it a break will give space to reconceive of it, or reconcile our fate.
It was surprising to see a show that was touted for videos and photographs to still have a large number (~30%) of paintings. Jana Schulz’s documentary of the social interaction between of young boys was interesting. It was reminiscent of Fredrick Wiseman style: no narration, no narrative. Burak Delier's video, “The Bells,” with a theater group performing corporate trust building exercises was almost as interesting as his "Crisis & Control.” [3] Isabella Fürnkäs's video comparing machine fabrication to dance culture was visually interesting for exactly 120 seconds. I liked the hypothesis. Many of the other works in the show were sophomorish obsessions with the unimportant, which was refreshing for me to be reminded that there are European artists who make completely meaningless artworks that get exhibited in the same nepotistic style as that which occurs in New York. Maybe that is the “positions in contemporary art” that the curators were referencing.
[1] https://smartcity.wien.gv.at/site/en/aspern-viennas-urban-lakeside
[2] "White Collar Productivity: Not Necessarily a Contradiction in Terms" http://thecfoconnection.com/white-collar-productivity-not-necessarily-a-contradiction-in-terms-2/
[3] Burak Delier home page
https://burakdelier.wordpress.com/