For Work Work Work, Theater Frascati in Amsterdam was temporarily transformed into a performance art museum. Open eight hours a day—the length of a full working day—the exhibition explored the working body in the age of automation. 

Dries Verhoeven invited six artists to explore the dynamics between employer, employee, and (art) consumer. Highlights ranged from Tehching Hsieh’s Time Clock Piece (one year performance 1980-81), in which the artist clocked in every hour of the day, to Pierre Bal-Blanc’s Employment Contract (1992), reflecting on his time as a GoGo dancer in a Félix González-Torres performance. More recent works included Julian Hetzel’s Time Machine (2014) and Anna-Marija Adomaitytė’s Workpiece (2021), alongside two new commissions: Ahmet Ögüt’s Labour after Pay (2024) and Gosia Wdowik’s Body in Resistance (2024).

At the heart of the exhibition was Verhoeven’s performance Brothers, Rise Up for Freedom (2021), in which Bulgarian seasonal workers sing a historic labour song for eight hours a day under the conditions that apply in the sorting centre of the e-commerce company Bol. The lyricism of their singing stands in sharp contrast to the numbing reality of the work, questioning the value of the working body today.

Other works by Verhoeven on view included the documentary The Recruitment, the video installation To Perform, and the installations Songs for Thomas Piketty (2016), Burger (2021), and Painkiller Dispenser (2021).

Critics particularly praised the presentation for blurring the boundaries between visual art and performance, between exhibition and work protocol. Occupying nearly every space within the Frascati theatre, from offices to technical storage rooms, the exhibition foregrounded the building itself as a workplace. In doing so, it inevitably prompted visitors to reflect on their own role as art consumers. 

“The complex relationship between work and human dignity was exposed in contrasting way,” according to critic Marijn Lems.