Skip to main content
Regional secretary with the National Education Union
Book Review: Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism
Danielle Child's book tackles the neoliberal penetration of artistic production from a Marxist perspective

Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism
by Danielle Child
(Bloomsbury, £21.99)

UNUSUALLY for a young art historian, Danielle Child bases her discussion of the relationship between contemporary art, labour and capitalism on the “Marxian” ideology that art, as part of the superstructure, is defined by its economic base.

Focusing mostly on US and British art, where neoliberalism has been strongest, she argues that its managerialist, fragmented, individualised and precarious working models are mirrored by new artistic practices since the 1990s.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
James Boswell, Two studies of a man with a chain through his
Exhibition Review / 7 November 2024
7 November 2024
CHRISTINE LINDEY welcomes a fascinating survey of the work of the communist and socialist artists who founded the AIA in the 1930s
Gabriele Münter, Portrait of Marianne von Werefkin, 1909; L
Exhibition review / 28 June 2024
28 June 2024
CHRISTINE LINDEY guides us through the vivid expressionism of a significant but apolitical group of pre WWI artists in Germany
(L-R) Joshua Reynolds’ Portrait of George, Prince of Wales
Exhibition review / 7 March 2024
7 March 2024
CHRISTINE LINDEY salutes an outstanding exhibition imbued with a sense of national guilt
(L) Synchromy with F.B. - General of hot desire (1968-69); (
Exhibition Review / 22 November 2023
22 November 2023
CHRISTINE LINDEY surveys the cosmopolitan, enigmatic compositions of an idiosyncratic artist whose work speaks of mystery and exile
Similar stories
Tower of Babel, 1982
Culture / 10 April 2025
10 April 2025
This is poetry in paint, spectacular but never spectacle for its own sake, writes JAN WOOLF
Daniel Lind-Ramos, Ensamblajes, Nottingham Contemporary
Exhibition review / 20 February 2025
20 February 2025
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
A panel from the Palestinian History Tapestry
Exhibition Review / 1 October 2024
1 October 2024
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an exhibition that asserts Palestinian history, culture and creativity in the face of strategies to erase them
ARROGANCE AND IGNORANCE: Group of six European men sitting,
Book Review / 24 September 2024
24 September 2024
FRANCOISE VERGES introduces a powerful new book that explores the damage done by colonial theft