Every Billionaire is a Policy Failure

The Americas is the first region we chose to deliberately focus on, by reconsidering its colonial stories and their marks on its present global condition. For this, we look at the exploitation of nature, historical racialization and new nationalist populisms that accelerate via despotic policies, and call for a new development of language and interfaces of action.

White supremacists in every nation have become richer and richer because of tax features and policies that favour wealth accumulation. What revolution requires is a quiet revision of policy alliances, tools and preferences. It’s all fairly simple: subdue die-hard segregationists, class struggle and racial divide with simple truths, whilst keeping utopian ideas complex and sincere. ‘Abolish the billionaire class’, wrote Luke Savage in Jacobin magazine, which can be read here in a German translation, for our context in Berlin.

In this vain we comprised complaints, gathered by the working class in the arts, in order to keep voices diverse and society heard. We further explored how politics have their say in the text New Vocabularies of Empowerment, alongside Felippe Galuppo’s topographical transgressions and later in this issue, flirt with Liv Schulman’s radar for capitalist hilarity.

Pero Liv no es la única aquí que domina esa sensibilidad trópica de infiltrar el desdoblamiento estético de los problemas más mundanos que tiene el mundo entero; Fred Dewey escribe desde una libertad equis, y Romina Muñoz le clava a nuestro punto de partida un marco nupcial, para su enlace ambivalente con el continente y el nombre tan raro, irreparablemente europeo.

Artistas como Tálata Rodriguez y Filipe Lippe hacen uso de sus herramientas de práctica - el lenguaje crítico, académico y a su vez, colloquial - y esclarecen el cielo de las calles de Buenos Aires y Sao Paulo para los ejemplos que dan mujeres en el espacio público, o asociaciones como Lanchonete < > Lanchonete respectivamente.

Lisette Lagnado erwähnt sie, zufälligerweise, in ihrem Gespräch mit Renatta Cervetto. Es sind zwei der vier Kurator*innen der Berlin Biennale für Zeitgenössische Kunst, die bei uns im kommenden Jahr Fragen thematisieren die in der Berliner Luft liegen, und dabei Neuigkeiten aus dem konzeptuellen Aufbau der Ausstellung erzählen.

Luke Savage hinterfragt gängige Parameter von Kritik und Werkzeugen des Widerstands, und finde die Hegemonie der Ausbeutung ist substantiell verankert. Die Beiträge von Pablo José Ramirez, Ana María Garzón und Oscar Santillán suchen dafür meta-theoretische Zugänge und Lösungen, die das körperliche Subjekt aus der strukturellen Falle der Geschichte lösen.

Considering “the Americas” from the North with Elisabeth Otto evokes different questions on the territory, borders and languages. With its distinct colonial history and decolonial efforts the Canadian Province of Quebec offers a productive alternative to discourses developed in Europe or the U.S.A. The Québecois author and filmmaker Joséphine Bacon takes us to her homeland in the poem Un thé dans la toundra / Nipishapui nete mushuat.

Front and center, in a conversation with three Latin American female artists and curators based in the French Canadian Province of Québec, is a hemispheric perspective between their homelands and Wahlheimat Canada that favours a dialog between different “Americas.” Mikhel Proulx’s essay tells us about decolonial artistic practices by Indigenous artists Jason Eward Lewis and Skawennati who for twenty years have been creating aboriginal territories in Cyberspace. One of this issue’s Arbeiterbriefe reaches us from the American Mexican borders, where Charles Norton works with the Indigenous Hip-Hop community that found their language of empowerment in Rap.

Intillay, killallay ama saqiwaychu, karuraqmi rinay tutayallaymanmi. The Americas are tired of its own colonial shadow, always present, always darkening. Urqupi ischu kañasqay, qasapi ischu kañasqay, iHinallaraqchus rupachkan, hinallaraqchus rawrachkan! Hinalla rawrariptinqa, hinalla rupariptinqa. iWarma wiqichaykiwan challaykuy!

Two visions of 2047 exist in the utopian brief written by Future Climates, and the opposite (if centrist politics are sustained and we continue on our current trajectory) imagined by the Turnton Gazette, in our third Extrablatt for beautiful, hopeful, one of a kind projects. Herewith we start our second year as a paper for the streets of the world. To a new age of discovery.

Courage!

*- L'éditrices*

Publishing Address / Verlagsadresse:
Arts of the Working Class
Lynarstrasse 39 13353 Berlin

Advertisement / Anzeigen:
hey@artsoftheworkingclass.org

Founders / Gründer:
María Inés Plaza Lazo, Pauł Sochacki

Publishers / Editors:
Alina Kolar
ak@artsoftheworkingclass.org
María Inés Plaza Lazo
mi@artsoftheworkingclass.org
Pauł Sochacki
ps@artsoftheworkingclass.org

*Cover* Poem by Santiago Reyes, Photograph by Vicente Manssur, Painting by Andrea Joyce Heimer

*L’Editrices* 3 Editorial

*Directory* 6 Pick-Up Stations, Shops, Events

*ArbeiterInnenbriefe* 8 Stage of Complaints

*Fred Dewey* 10 Brief aus der Freiheit X: Kaste vs Klasse? (I)

*Romina Muñoz* 12 América

*Tálata Rodriguez* 14 Emperador

*Filipe Lippe* 16 Lanchonete < > Lanchonete

*Gabriela Valarezo* 18 Mamilas Gustativas

*Renata Cervetto & Lisette Lagnado* 20 Los curadores de la XI Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art

*Felipe Galuppo, Alina Kolar, María Inés Plaza Lazo* 21 New Vocabularies of Empowerment

*Luke Savage* 23 Schafft die Milliardärsklasse ab