Representing and Showcasing Hard Work

Camille Richert’s research project draws on a corpus of practices that have represented the worlds of work, including those of Mother Art, Fred  Lonidier, Allan Sekula, Group Material, Jo Spence, Marianne Wex, Nil Yalter, and Nicole Croiset, Carole Roussopoulos, Jean-Louis Schoellkopf, Jean-Luc Moulène, and LaToya Ruby Frazier. 

These artists have been active from the 1970s to the present and, for certain projects—or even for their entire bodies of work—have developed exhibition strategies that bring viewers as close as possible to the people depicted: each, in their own way,  has  ensured that the workers depicted were the primary audience. This research thus focuses on how their works have  found their way back  to the subjects they depict. It aims to explore exhibition practices employed by artists in which the subjects and the audiences  not only meet, but  merge. 

This research explores the conditions under which a work of art might be considered democratic. Is this inherent in the work itself (its aesthetic properties), in its modes of production (an axiology of making), or in the conditions of its presentation (the ethics of exhibition)? How do these factors interact? The project  Representing and Showcasing Labor: Emancipatory Photographic Practices   falls within the field of the social history of art. It aims  to contribute fresh perspectives to this field regarding the visual existence of marginalized social groups.