'The ABC of the projectariat delivers an essential contribution for examining artistic work in relation to political-theoretically, sociologically and art-theoretically informed perspectives, in order to expose the internal contradictions that have shaped the art world.'
Christoph Chwatal, Springerin
'
The ABC of the projectariat lays out starkly the labor that sustains cultural production, and the daily conundrums, mundane and existential, inherent to navigating the many intersecting art worlds ... The book offers a historicized trajectory of care for labor in all its forms, but also allows projectarians a bit of insurgent optimism, in proposing new ways to reconceive our privileged precarity.'
iLiana Fokianaki,
Art Agenda 'The text feels like a chat with a trusted friend who understands what actually happens rather than what the P.R. wants you to believe. It gives you the real deal, revealing what theory obscures through its need to make pure architectures.'
Marc Herbst,
transversal texts 'Kuba Szreder's
ABC of the projectariat asks searching questions of an international art world that promised to change dramatically at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic... [It] shows the possibility of a different art culture, in a way that's practical and pragmatic, and far more concrete than certain institutions' empty rhetoric around (say) COVID-19 or Black Lives Matter.'
Juliet Jacques,
Tribune 'Will we ever go back to "normal" again? Should we, even? Hell no, says Kuba Szreder! But during the current interim period in which Gramsci's monsters dwell old certainties shrivel and evaporate. Old power structures suddenly look brittle while new ones are created and vanish as if in a crazy political particle accelerator. In this kind of mayhem Szreder goes back to the A and O of any philosophical thinking - an alphabetical list - trusting that the mess will sort itself out once articulated aloud. From A for "antifascism" to Y for "you are not alone", this is an essential compendium to recalibrate orientations amid the meteoric impacts of current history.'
Hito Steyerl, author of
Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War 'A radical dictionary of key terms, Kuba Szreder's
The ABC of the projectariat critically diagnoses what it means to live and work in the precarious art world. Organised alphabetically into incisive, readable elaborations, the book unpacks timely concepts of domination - neoliberalism, NGOisation, co-optation, entrepreneurs of the self, precarity - and with other vital selections - art strike, interdependence, productive withdrawal and instituting the commons - offers a crucial vocabulary for anti-capitalist transformation. For a more egalitarian, democratic and inclusive world, it's urgent that we learn this language together.'
T. J. Demos, author of
Beyond the World's End: Arts of Living at the Crossing 'Kuba Szreda's book is a bracing exposé of the lives and concerns of people who do projects for a living. Yes, it is based on the artist projectariat, but this book will speak to all workers across the world who "run on the fumes" of the recognised economy. This ABC offers critical insight into matters of individual survival, but more importantly it is a primer on strategies for recognising interdependence and living and working otherwise.'
J. K. Gibson-Graham, authors of
Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide for Transforming our Communities 'The
ABC is more than a glossary; it examines the political economies of the global art world, centring on the structural conditions of the projecteriat, its entanglements and interminable uncertainty. Szreder connects the theoretical corpus developed over the last two decades to material reality and lived experience. Looking at everything from the fatigue of hustling to the banality of speed-
