24/7: Art + Labor Around the Clock is organized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and curated by Dr. Katie Greulich, Assistant Curator of Academic Collaborations. Support for this exhibition is provided by the Elizabeth Halsted endowment fund.
About the Exhibition
In our increasingly globalized and digitized economy, labor has seeped into every part of our daily lives—a phenomenon that impacts our health, wellness, and social power. Through artworks assembled from the MSU Broad collection, 24/7: Art + Labor Around the Clock unpacks how art and visual culture have influenced—and are influenced by—the non-stop nature of our modern work culture, and reveals its human consequences.
Many of the artists themselves in this exhibition also adopt grueling hours in their own practices, working around the clock to document and critique how laborers’ experience of time is shaped by the demands of capital. Others explore alternative work times, or forms of work that are non-commodified and thus often undervalued, like care, maintenance, and domestic activity. In questioning when the work day starts and stops, and how we measure the value of these efforts, this exhibition draws awareness to the blurred lines between labor and respite on full display not only across our zoom screens today, but in many workplaces across history.
Images
