by Artistic Research PhD Candidates of the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Supervisor: Gerhild Steinbuch
German State Theater
Under the umbrella term of assisting, this research and writing project investigates the position and occupation of the assistant in art through the lens of feminist politics of reproductive labour. Although contemporary theatre and art production, whether institutionalised or not, often relies on poorly paid assistants and usually unpaid interns to function smoothly, being an assistant never means the same thing. The assistant can be anyone and no one; they could be a 15th-century painting apprentice, dramaturge, director’s assistant, editor, stage and light technician, secretary, assistant designer, assistant conductor, production manager, production assistant, cleaning staff, student assistant, personal assistant, curatorial assistant, assistant curator, mother, emotional caretaker, professional caretaker, or friend - anyone whose job is to maintain, manage, advise and enable the work of the artist. When their work is adequately valued, which is rare, it is usually because their necessity is articulated through a blurry framework of care and need, structurally distorted by capitalist society’s pervasive ableism. The economy of assistance is captured by a logic of exchange, and financial and personal debts are accumulated and inherited unevenly. Regardless of the type of production and conditions in which they work, the forever “young” assistant is expected to love their work, which takes place and ends in the future. When that future arrives (it rarely does), the artist has to carve out and separate themselves from their (inner) assistant, a complicated psychosocial operation that often results in volatile divisions of labor. Meanwhile, the assistant is always available, flexible, and ready to jump in for the sick, stressed, exhausted artist, gallerist, or another assistant. It could be said that the assistant is constantly training in the arts of service; to paraphrase Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, training becomes the discipline. An assistant who doesn’t identify with their work is often a source of horrible moods, which should not be underestimated. In fact, the act of assisting can serve as a methodology; if assisting is nothing but a job, the bubble of the seemingly natural flow of artistic creativity and genius will burst. In the end, all that genius is just material for the assistant to handle and maintain. If assisting is charged with the promise of an artistic future, autonomy, and proprietary authorship, what would it mean to do this work without it? And would this shift allow for a different response to the material conditions in which we find ourselves? How can we address the contingency and volatility of the need for assistance while resisting any rationalisation and re-naturalisation of this need?
Tamara Antonijević writes and works as a dramaturg and artistic collaborator in performance, theatre and dance. She studied Dramaturgy at the University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia and holds an MA from the Institute of Applied Theater Studies in Giessen, Germany. The role of text in collaborative processes is the focus of her interest and research. She teaches dramaturgy and co-hosts the MA program Live Art Forms at ADBK Nuremberg.