“AS THE pandemic seems to be waning -- at least for now in the United States -- we are hoping to finally open BALM to the public as a sited museum, as a space for both practical and impractical solidarity.”
Social Ressurection Task-Prints, digital photographic prints with paint, cotton and ash, hanging on clotheslines.
Born Again Labor Museum (BALM)
Carbondale, Illinois 62901
Dear friends and comrades,
BALM needs your help to redeem the lost generations of labor.
We started BALM as an “irrealist” visual and conceptual art project in 2018; inspired by Walter Benjamin’s application of the theological idea of apokatastasis -- the redemption of all lost souls -- to the Marxist conception of history. Benjamin argued that the revolutionary generation redeemed all previous generations of the exploited and oppressed.
BALM is “irrealist” because we reject the false “rationalism” of capitalism and “capitalist realism” -- the prevalent idea that nothing can be imagined that doesn’t fit into the logic of capitalist profiteering.
We are further inspired by the intersection of working-class revolution and Cosmism; the esoteric philosophy of the 19th century Moscow librarian Nikolai Fedorov. Fedorov argued humanity should be united in a “Common Task” of abolishing death and resurrecting past generations. This demanded a collaboration between art -- the recording of human performance -- and science. During the revolutionary fervor of the early 20th century, these ideas intersected with the Soviet avant-garde, and dissident layers of Bolsheviks and anarchists.
We conceive of BALM as representing a “differentiated totality” -- an evolving mosaic or mural of visual and conceptual gestures. The working-class has a unified interest against capitalism but it cannot be reduced to that. Each group of workers, each individual worker, are unique. This is why BALM also founded, along with other artists and writers, Locust Review in 2019 -- to help foster an even greater differentiated totality -- to build a wider platform for irrealist working-class art.
(letter continues after image gallery)
click for larger image
detail, Vivarium Annex (2020). Painting and collage on canvas.
Protest sign from the Common Task Agit-Prop Library (2021).
detail, Becoming Possums (2020). Painting and collage on canvas.
detail, Little Egypt Burial #1: The Space Comrades Aren’t Coming so Warm Yourself by the Riot Fire (2020). Painting and collage on canvas tarp.
Monument 4 Essential Workers (2021). Traffic cones, hard hats, cheese cloth, bandages and plaster.
detail, Cicero’s Pawns Pwn Cicero (2020-2021). Mixed media on antique gaming table.
Readings from Locust Review #1 at a BALM open house in late 2019.
detail, Mike, the UPS Guy, Gives Birth to the New People but Now the Moon is a Cartoon Bomb (2019-2021). Painting and collage on canvas tarp.
AS THE pandemic seems to be waning -- at least for now in the United States -- we are hoping to finally open BALM to the public as a sited museum, as a space for both practical and impractical solidarity.
The sited BALM installation will provide impractical solidarity by providing an open space for reflection; as visitors will be able to view and interact with irrealist BALM artifacts. BALM will provide practical solidarity by creating, among other things, a Common Task Agit-Prop Library containing protest material (banners, protest signs, etc.) -- both practical and irrealist -- for comrades in the area.
In addition to the above we hope to create a library of radical books for use by our visitors. We have a few thousand books we have accumulated over the years that we want to share.
We are also hoping to site BALM in a large enough space that we can begin to exhibit the work of other working-class irrealist artists.
Among the situated artifacts we have created or collected in the past three years are The Wounded Tool Library, a series of what we call Cyber-Brechtian paintings/collages, assemblages that act as monuments to both real and irrealist moments in working-class history, puppets that will eventually be used in public performances, socialist “bible-tracts,” and more.
Each one of these projects is meant to exist in relation to the others in an actual space.
But, with the pandemic, we have not been able to share this work “in real life” since October 2019. We were forced to cancel our participation in two exhibitions in 2020 -- both inside and outside of the official art world. We are eager -- almost impatient -- to share this work.
(letter continues after image gallery)
click for larger image
BALM attacked by pixels in BALM Educational Video #2: How to Become a Possum (2020).
A meeting of the Las Vegas DSA Agit-Prop sub-committee at BALM in early 2020.
Making protest signs at BALM (November 2020).
IN 2020 we relocated to southern Illinois and Adam Turl’s hometown of Carbondale with the goal of opening BALM as a sited art space outside the circuit of art-world led gentrification; to create an intentionally “outsider” space, to make an evolving installation that would exist for the working-class of southern Illinois in particular.
Economic hard times means there are many spaces available -- abandoned storefronts, etc. -- to situate BALM without contributing to gentrification. But, as working-class people whose incomes took a hit during the pandemic, we need help to make this happen. Renting an appropriate space in Carbondale will cost about $5000 a year.
There are two ways you can help us. You can support our Go Fund Me fundraiser. Or you can sign up for our Patreon page and support us on a monthly basis. The latter option will provide you with additional benefits. This includes -- for all contributing $10 a month or more -- receiving regular copies of Locust Review and other material from BALM. We hope to achieve our fundraising goal of $5000 by September 2021 so that we can open BALM to the public in the autumn.
This is a large project for us; but it is a modest project in the overall effort to create a working-class imaginary in opposition to capitalist realism. We cannot rely on funding from a financialized and corrupt art world. So we are reaching out to you, our friends, comrades, and working-class siblings.
In Solidarity,
Tish + Adam Turl for the Born Again Labor Museum