“Time is money, sometimes”

I was invited by the austrian journal Dérive to contribute an ‘artist’s insert’ as part of their 100th issue on the them of “Planung und Alltag” (“Planning and everyday life“). This opportunity came after the editors (Barbara Holub / Paul Rajakovics) had seen my work ‘Punchcard Economy – 8 Hours Labour‘ in the work-themed exhibition 24/7 at Kunsthaus Graz last year.

It’s flattering to be asked to contribute to a print publication, especially one that has been going so long. That said, it once again opened up the issue of time, labour and of course, pay. So, my insert is a reflection on the work at Kunsthaus, but on the way that artworks can create extra work pre-exhibtion and post-exhibition, most of which is unpaid. There is also a text in german by the editors, but I haven’t translated it yet so I have no idea what it says!

Finally I included a QR code link to a timesheet and also the correspondance behind the article, again to foreground the hidden labour that goes into almost everything we see within arts. Unfortunatley I made the mistake of creating the QR code using a trial version of QR.io, so it has now deactivated. I’m not quite flush enough to pay the $35USD a month to reactivate it, so I’ll just have to learn from my error. Not all QR codes are the same!

However, you can see the timesheet and email correspondance here

I’ve included the full text from my part below:

Time is money, sometimes. For an artist to be paid to exhibit a work is both a privilege and a necessity. But there lies a challenge in compartmentalising artists’ work to a single discreet remunerated moment. Either side of this central act, this paid present, the unpaid time expands into past and future. This brief public instance of reward is book-ended by hidden labour rendered in both anticipation and reflection.

In anticipation we can consider the development of the idea, the proposal and publicity and the preparation for the performance – enacted in the hope of a paid future. Post-performance, we must have the autopsy: the reflection, the documentation, the evalution, and the administrative tasks of invoicing and reporting. This could go on forever as if trapped in a hall of mirrors – travail-enabyme. There are no royalties, no additional value to be conjured or ascribed – especially for a work that seeks to make transparent how value is calculated. The best a conceptual artist can hope for is a recommission. There may be the opportunity to work for no money, but there cannot be money for nothing.

This artist insert represents a performance made in June 2024 at Kunsthaus Graz, but it also refrences this work – here and now – this extended act of labour. These pages continue that performance. The reward for good work is always more work.

Sam Meech – April 2025