It is at best on the margins that contemporary art takes poverty and social disadvantage as its themes. It is true that the wave of repoliticization over the last ten years has produced all sorts of socially engaged approaches. But these have tended to indulge in a kind of »welfare art« instead of developing analytic, artistic-cum-political categories. It is rare for social conditions as a whole, let alone the lifestyle of lower third of the working population, to come into view.
The present issue enquires after the relevance of the category »working poor« - not just with regard to general social conditions of production, but in particular with reference to its cultural embodiments. There is much talk today of the »precarization« of all forms of social security. But what does this really mean for those affected, both within and outside the field of culture? The Italian theorist Paul Virno has been looking at the current restructuring of work relationships for some time. In an interview with Klaus Ronneberger, he explains how a critical political spark could end up flying from the often invoked »precarized multitude«. Articles on the way the image of former socialist workers has changed and the necessary updating of the question »What is to be done?«, in this case illustrated by an action by the Russian artists’ group »Chto delat«, rounds off this section.
The theme of »Working poor« inevitably leads to an enquiry after the parameters of a form of art that confronts this topic without presumption or social romanticism. Süreyyya Evren cites, with reference to Foucault, a number of criteria that would ideally characterise such a – difficultly realizable - form of art. There are also accompanying features on projects connected with the new Venezuelan workers’ self-administration, on Afro-European relationships on a revised economic basis and a district-related computer game with a focus on migration. Finally, the photo series »Jax Carwash« by Annette Weisser and Ingo Vetter documents the extent to which the working conditions in a former bastion of industrial capitalism (the US city of Detroit) have been liquefied.
But the syndrome »working poor« does not spare even social positions that were formerly secure. A look beyond the art projects discussed here shows that this category has long ceased to be limited to particular milieus.