By: Be Oakley

Application as artwork is the first in a series of works exploring the creative potential and horrible realities of the application process.

The publication is centered on the core question:

Dear Artist, How much time did you spend last year on applications? I hope it was as much as you spent on your own artwork.

From the opening essay:

“The application circuit in the art world feels like playing the lottery. Within my practice, I have all but given up on applications. It doesn’t sit well with me spending hours upon hours in the off off off chance of getting funding when thousands of other people are doing the same thing. Instead, I focus on using whatever resources I have to make and publish my work. Spending time creating new work to sell instead of wasting time on applications is always a safer bet. I find applications a racket that would ruin my ability to be an artist in the way I have taught myself how to be.”

The foundation of Application as Artwork is centered around my submitted application to The Printer Matter Publisher Work Grant. The grant states it “acknowledges awardees’ accomplishments in past work and provid[es] the capacity-building funds to enable future book projects and publisher sustainability.” This is the first grant I have applied to in almost 10 years of running GenderFail. By publishing my application as a fine art publication, I am nearly ensuring that my countless hours of work on this application result in some funding for purchasing this publication.

In addition, 25% of the proceeds from this book will be donated to other publishers who were rejected by The Printer Matter Publisher Work Grant. I also want to add that the grant winners have not been announced as of the time of this post's publication.

While working on this grant, I realized that the application mainly asked questions that might be useful to other working-class publishers, artists, and writers who are desperately trying to make a living in our hellish capitalist nightmare. This publication also follows up on Publishing Now: GenderFail’s Working Class Guide to Making a Living off Self-Publishing.

All books come with a free copy of our Imperfect Publishing: Ten Years of Putting Everything I Have into GenderFail—Ten Year 6-Page Broadsheet.