“Labour, Work and Play: Action In Fine Art Practice" Brief Review

I briefly wish to discuss here the notes "Labour, Work and Play: Action In Fine Art Practice"  written by Neil Maycroft. Maycroft  deals with some familiar issues from Richard Sennett's 'The Craftsman', a book which is definitely an interesting read. There, Sennett claims among other things that the pattern of the old craftsman, the ‘homo faber’,  who was doing the job for job's own sake, should expand its scope to contemporary professions like software programmers,  doctors etc.  

Event and Counter-Event: The Political Economy of the Istanbul Biennial and Its Excesses

This is an militant and polemic article. As any other critical analysis on the political economy of spectacular events, such as the Istanbul Biennial, it should be welcomed for its effort to de-fetishize their contradictory unfolding, disclosing how their phantasmagoria rationales interweave with broader capitalist formulations. By exposing how the 'radical emancipatory' rhetoric of the 11th Istanbul Biennial contrasts with the neutralizing tendencies of creative industries, that insist on summoning radicality in terms of the value logic of the commodity, the authors foreground the 'reflexive' element of recent accumulation paradigms.