ultra-red social factory series
number 1

tracktitles
The Echoes of Industrial Capitalism Resonate in the Muzak of Consumer Capitalism
Listen to the Quiet (Accumulated Labor Mix)
El Pueblo Unido
Dedicated (Triangle Shirt Factory Mix)
Value
Int'l (Anamnesis Mix)

releaseavailability
Self-released, Los Angeles, June 1997

trackdescription
In 1997, a major feature on the Los Angeles political landscape was the anti-sweatshop campaign against local apparel manufacturer Guess? Inc. Community and artists' initiatives such as the Common Threads collective joined forces with UNITE! (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, AFL-CIO) in bringing public notice to the widespread use of sweatshops locally and around the world by companies like Guess? The campaign drew so much attention, particularly with large scale student involvement thanks in part to the public support of rockers Rage Against the Machine, that Guess? felt compelled to launch libel suits against artists and community members. In one egregious case, members of Common Threads were slapped with a libel suit for an anti-sweatshop poetry reading they sponsored at an LA bookstore.¹

These events coincided with Ultra-red member's involvement in LA labor organizations such as Pride At Work / AFL-CIO and the LA Metropolitan Chapter of the Labor Party. Both organizations endorsed UNITE's anti-sweatshop crusade, compelling Ultra-red to attend rallies, demonstrations and teach-ins with the ever-present microphone and portable DAT (Digital Audio Tape-recorder) in hand.

Adding to its archive of protest and teach-in recordings, Ultra-red also collected recordings of radio broadcasts surrounding the controversial "Between a Rock and a Hardplace" sweatshop exhibit at the Smithsonian.² Representing the history of sweatshops from the murderous Triangle Shirt Factory fire through the founding of the garment worker's unions, the exhibit drew the ire of industry bosses and their cronies in Congress. In a display of congressional fury that has become all too common, some congressmen even threatened to pull federal funding from the Smithsonian (a public museum) if the exhibit wasn't either changed to include the viewpoint of the Garment industry or pulled entirely. In the end, a video produced by the American Apparel Manufacturer's Association was added as an addendum to the show.

Armed with a battery of site-recordings, radio broadcasts and a smattering of Guess? commercials, Ultra-red composed material for the performance, "Guess Works". This material was showcased in a number of Los Angeles clubs including the group's April 1997 appearance at The Troubadour opening for Atari Teenage Riot founder, Alec Empire. The tracks were later compiled on the self-produced six-track audio cassette of the same name (since deleted). In October of that year, Ultra-red joined forces with visual artist Valerie Tevere to produce the solo-artist installation "¿Guess Work?" at the now-closed Spanish Kitchen Art Gallery blocks away from LA's garment district. The Tevere / Ultra-red collaboration featured a room filled with cartons made from peg-board. Sounds of protest, speeches, and congressional testimony on the Smithsonian exhibit emanated from the minimalist-inspired white cubes. On the wall, a facsimile of Jeff Wall's photograph "Outburst" (1989). The image was mounted with a quote from Wall in which the artist spoke of the "Outburst" image in purely art historical terms with no reference to the image's content depicting a man castigating a room full of garment workers.

Since this work in 1997, Ultra-red has gone on to pursue a number of projects examining current labor organizing campaigns in Los Angeles. While the anti-sweatshop movement succeeded in activating college campuses across the country (a critical development in the growing anti-corporate globalization and pro-union movements), Guess? workers in Los Angeles are still without a union contract.³

After closing at the Smithsonian, the "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" exhibit found only one institution willing to mount the show: LA's own Museum of Tolerance. But like in DC, the LA showing attracted controversy. At one point Museum board members and donors Ð many of whom, like Guess?'s Marciano brothers, are figures in LA's garment industry Ð threatened to withdraw financial support from the Museum. In the end, after a series of compromises (including no official publicity for the exhibit) the show enjoyed a brief run at the Museum of Tolerance closing in the Spring of 2000. With nowhere to go once the run concluded, the exhibit suffered the summary fate of ending up in the MOT dumpsters. That was, until a clandestine artists' collaborative called Dispute Resolution Services salvaged pieces of the exhibit. Weeks later, the dumpster-dived fragments showed up in the "Nonzero Sum Games" show at the Gene Genies Worldwide Gallery.⁴ Today, the exhibition pieces remain curated in the basements of a few LA artists: bitter remnants of a history so many desperately wish to forget and other consider too immediate for the polite milieu of museums.

⁴ For a detailed account of the exhibit's un-ceremonial dumping, see Michael Baers, "Fashion Victims: If you missed the Smithsonian's Sweatshop Exhibit at the Museum of Tolerance, or don't remember even hearing about it, you're not alone, " LA WEEKLY, May 12-18, 2000. The full text of the article is posted on the Sweatshop Watch website at: http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/swatch/headlines/2000/exhibit_may.html.