Living Wage
About
ONE NIGHT EXHIBITION BY ROGUE CITIZEN ARTGANG 6 ARTISTS: BLASTER, DALSEN, GOAT HENKE, MG, LIZARDMAN, UGOTSOUL All 6 artists have each created 40 one-hour paintings, in line with a 40-hour work week. All art is name-your-price, minimum $23 – the average hourly wage considered a living wage in the US. The federal minimum wage has not kept up with inflation and the cost of living since the 1960s. The current rate of $7.25 is a pathetic, untenable number that has not been increased in 15 years. If a quick painting is worth more than $7.25 – more than $23 – everyone’s labor is worth more. And yet more than 40% of full-time American workers are not making a living wage. Employers steal up to $50 billion annually from workers in wage theft. Hard fought achievements of the labor movement in the 20th century are being aggressively attacked by corrupt politicians and courts backed by powerful corporations. A sequel to Rogue Citizen’s “Minimum Wage” exhibition 10 years ago, this art show won’t do much to thwart escalating efforts to crush the working class, but it can remind us to rethink the value of our time, the importance of organized labor, and the system we’ve been raised to accept without question. And it’s over 240 works of art that are funny, weird, beautiful, ugly, and as affordable as they can be.