Last July, writer Daniel Grant wrote about the pros and cons of being an artist’s studio assistant in an article in the New York Observer titled “Low Pay, Monotonous Work: Are Artist Assistant Positions Worth the Trouble?”

A few weeks later, Jillian Steinhauer wrote an article in Hyperallergic about the Marina Abramovic Institute which placed an ad on the website of the New York Foundation for the Arts announcing four unpaid studio assistant positions. Steinhauer pointed out that “Abramovic raised over $660,000 for her institute on Kickstarter in June. . . and recently ‘collaborated’ with Adidas. Yet somehow she cannot afford to pay people to work for
MAI.”