Museums Tell Me They Hate Me: Paying Attention to the Language of the Unpaid Internship

Internships are available in the following Museum departments: Curatorial, Development, Education, External Affairs, Information Systems, Registrar, Exhibition Management, Retail and Institutional Sales, and Special Events. Museums Tell Me They Hate Me. Interns participate in the day-to-day activities of these departments, in addition to working on specific projects. When considering whether or not to apply for an internship, please keep in mind that they are unpaid.

~ Paying Attention to the Language of the Unpaid Internship James Payne

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Table of (Mal)contents 5 ~ Art Institute of Chicago 6 ~ Art Museum of South Texas 7 ~ Brooklyn Museum 8 ~ California Center For the Arts, Escondido 9 ~ Carnegie Museum of Art 10 ~ Cincinnati Art Museum 11 ~ Cleveland Museum of Art 12 ~ Columbus Museum of Art 13 ~ Crocker Art Museum 14 ~ Dallas Museum of Art 15 ~ Denver Art Museum 16 ~ Fort Wayne Museum of Art 17 ~ Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden 18 ~ Indiana University Art Museum 19 ~ Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 20 ~ Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 21 ~ Kimbell Art Museum 22 ~ Los Angeles County Museum of Art 23 ~ McMullen Museum of Art 24 ~ McNay Art Museum 25 ~ Metropolitan Museum of Art 26 ~ Museum of Arts and Design 27 ~ Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago 28 ~ Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland

29 ~ Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles 30 ~ Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego 31 ~ Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 32 ~ Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 33 ~ Museum of Photographic Arts 34 ~ National Gallery of Art 35 ~ National Museum of Mexican Art 36 ~ National Museum of Women In the Arts 37 ~ Neue Galerie 38 ~ New Museum 39 ~ New Orleans Museum of Art 40 ~ Orange County Museum of Art 41 ~ Orlando Museum of Art 42 ~ Phillips Collection 43 ~ Portland Art Museum 44 ~ Queens Museum 45 ~ San Antonio Museum of Art 46 ~ San Diego Museum of Art 47 ~ San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 48 ~ SculptureCenter 49 ~ Seattle Art Museum 50 ~ Utah Museum of Contemporary Art 51 ~ Utah Museum of Fine Arts 52 ~ Walker Art Center 53 ~ Warhol Museum 54 ~ Wexner Center for the Arts 55 ~ Whitney Museum of American Art

The art world is plagued by these unpaid positions that allow individuals from wealthier backgrounds to benefit from getting their foot in the door, while individuals who can’t afford the privilege of working for free – and it is a privilege – aren’t given the opportunity.

- Hrag Vartanian, Hyperallergic.com

Museums Tell Me They Hate Me.

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~ The texts and logos in this zine were screen-capped from each respective museum’s website and are current as of 05.28.2015.

James Payne is a graduate student in the history of art department at Indiana University, Bloomington. Payne is currently paid by the Indiana University Art Museum for laboring in its works-on-paper department, but he has been an unpaid intern at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Columbus Museum of Art, Beautiful/Decay, and the Columbus Alive.

Monster House Press is publishing Payne’s first book of poetry Things Just Aren’t They in the summer of 2015. ~ E: james.payne.cc@gmail.com ~ T: 614.323.9306 ~ IG: james.d.payne

Not paying someone for the work they do is an act of violence.

Further Reading: Arts & Labor, “Arts & Labor #OWS Call to NYFA to Stop Publishing Classifieds for Unpaid Internships,” Dis Magazine, February 19th, 2012 Arts & Labor; Chris Kaspar. “Open Letter to Labor Servicing the Culture Industry,” Dis Magazine.

Carrot Workers’ Collective. Surviving Internships: A Counter Guide to Free Labor in the Arts.

Davis, Ben. 9.5 Theses on Art and Class. Haymarket Books, 2013.

Foti, Alex. “Mayday, Mayday: Euro Flex Workers, Time to Get a Move On!” Intern Labor Rights: www.internlaborrights.com Perlin, Ross. Intern Nation. Verso, 2011.

Thornton, Cassie: Everything: www.cassiethornton.com W.A.G.E.: www.wageforwork.com Who Pays Interns? www.whopaysinterns.tumblr.com Williams, Alex. “For Interns, All Work and No Payoff,” New York Times, February 14, 2014.

Woolard, Caroline. “How Many People Labor On the Piece?” Open Engagement.info, March 13, 2014.

Very, Very Books.