Class Struggle in the Art World: From Bienal de São Paulo to Documenta and Beyond

Key facts

• Warren Buffett stated in a 2006 New York Times interview that there is a class war and his class is winning.
• Workers at the 35th Bienal de São Paulo published an open letter in 2023 denouncing poor working conditions, including harassment, excessive heat, and low wages.
• The curatorial collective of the 35th Bienal, including Diane Lima, Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes, and Manuel Borja-Villel, remained silent on the workers' letter.
• In 2022, Documenta 15 faced controversy over alleged antisemitism, leading to the resignation of director-general Sabine Schormann and increased state control over the exhibition.
• In 2023, Artforum removed an open letter supporting Palestine and fired editor-in-chief David Velasco after pressure from gallerists Brett Gorvy, Dominique Lévy, and Amalia Dayan.
• Marina Vishmidt's book 'Speculation as a Mode of Production' (2018) argues that art has become a laboratory for speculative capital.
• Decolonize This Place's protests led to the resignation of Warren B. Kanders from the Whitney Museum board in 2019 and Leon Black from MoMA's board in 2021.
• The essay calls for infrastructural critique and unionization, citing examples like the New Museum Union and the Gaza Biennale.
• The author, Filipe Lippe, is an artist, poet, and theorist based in Berlin, pursuing a PhD at HFBK Hamburg.