Ep. 25 - Dead + Born Again Labor

Locust Radio

In this episode of Locust Radio we are flipping the script a bit. Instead of Tish, Laura and Adam interviewing someone, Tish and Adam are interviewed by Locust’s own Alexander Billet. They discuss, among other things, the Born Again Labor Museum, Adam and Tish’s ongoing sited conceptual art and installation project in southern Illinois. An edited and abridged transcript of the interview is available on Alexander Billet’s substack. A note: The interview was recorded the weekend before President Joe Biden quit the presidential race and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Artworks, artists, concepts, histories, and texts discussed in this episode: Jean Baudrillard, America (1989); Walter Benjamin, “Theses on History” (1940); John Berger, Ways of Seeing (documentary and book) (1972); Joseph Beuys; Claire Bishop, Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today (2024); Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Art (1998); Bertolt Brehct, “A Short Organum for the Theater” (1949); Bertolt Brecht, War Primer (1955); “Carbondale Starbucks Employees Vote to Unionize” (2022); Anna Casey, “Museum examines workers rights through art” (2022); Class and Social Struggle in southern Illinois; Andrew Cooper; Kallie Cox, “Born Again Labor Museum Offers Free Communist Manifestos” (2022); Ben Davis, Art in the After-Culture: Capitalist Crisis and Cultural Strategy (2022); Mike Davis and Hal Rothman, The Grit Beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas (2002); Marcel Duchamp; R. Faze, “I Live an Hour from My Body” (2021); Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2008); Eirc Gellman and Jarod Roll, The Gospel of the Working-Class: Labor’s Southern Prophets in New Deal America (2011); Francisco Goya, Disasters of War (1810-1820); Boris Groys, “The Weak Universalism” (2010); Jenny Holzer; Barbara Kruger; Michael Löwy, Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin’s ‘On the Concept of History’ (2005); Frances Madeson, “At the Born Again Labor Museum, Art is a Weapon for the Working Class” (2022); Karl Marx, The German Ideology (1846); Karl Marx and Freidrick Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848); Pablo PIcasso, Guernica (1937); Russian Cosmism; Penelope Spheeris, The Decline of Western Civilization (1981); Stop Cop City; Leon Trotsky, Their Morals and Ours (1938); Adam Turl, “Against the Weak Avant-Garde” (2016); Adam Turl, “The Art Space as Epic Theater” (2015); Adam Turl, “Outsider Art is a Lie” (2019) and Adam Turl, “We’re All Outsiders Now” (2019); Tish Turl, “Class Revenge Fanfiction” (2022); Tish Turl, “Toilet Key Anthology” (2020); Tish Turl and Adam Turl, Born Again Labor Museum; Tish Turl and Adam Turl, Born Again Labor Tracts; The Wanderers/Peredvizkniki

In other news, the call for submissions for Locust Review 12 is available on our website, check it out.

Locust Radio is produced by Omnia Sol, Alexander Billet and Adam Turl. Its hosts include Adam Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Tish Turl.