Welcome to KLUB WRKR. KLUB WRKR is a show by Kyle Bellucci Johanson, a Chicago born artist who lives in New York. KLUB WRKR is not just an exhibition. It is also an invitation to gather and convene around questions of workers and to explore the relation of labour and how much it shapes our lives and identities in the US today.

Everything you see here is designed to fold up and fit in the back of a gig-worker’s vehicle. Kyle rented a Chrysler minivan to drive from New York across the US. Starting on Labour Day, May 1st 2024, he stopped in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Santa Fe before arriving in Los Angeles. One of the first things you might notice in the gallery space is the self-built furniture. You are free to use it, to rest, have conversations, fun, or have a snack. To add, there will be meals organized throughout the course of the show. Bringing together new and old friends around food connects to previous projects of Kyle’s for whom “[t]he only worthwhile reason to make art, or to do anything for that matter, is to make friends.”

For his KLUB WRKR show, Kyle took inspiration from workers’ clubs in early 20thcentury Europe. These clubs were set up by communist trade unions and parties and were especially popular in the Soviet Union. Artists like Elena Semenova or Alexander Rodchenko engaged with the idea by designing furniture and interior architecture for those clubs. Rodchenko imagined a workers’ club as a functional space to gather, host events, read magazines and books, and share news. Kyle adapts some of these ideas with the pieces you find and can use in the show. KLUB WRKR is a space. It contains furniture as well as a video game, a karaoke machine, a comrade hotline, and a video installation showing the cross-country drive to L.A. KLUB WRKR is pop-up space to gather all kinds of workers in the 21st century.  

You think you are not a worker? Chris Smalls, founder and president of the Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island says, “… at the end of the day, we’re all a part of the working class, no matter what movement … And if you’re in the labor movement, everybody here is a worker, no matter what job you work for or what industry you work for, you’re a worker … This is a class struggle. It’s 99.9% of us versus the one percent class, the billionaires.” Whether you share this view or not. It is a fact that spaces for workers to gather, share information, relax or educate themselves, have become rare.  

Where do workers in the post-industrial US come together? If companies provide them at all, breakrooms sometimes do not contain much more than some flimsy tables and a coffee vending machine. Workers spending time together is not a priority for employers, and perhaps is considered a threat with regards to unionizing. A good worker is an isolated worker bringing their mere labour to their desk at home, the warehouse, the production plant, or the courier fleet. Their story, their joy, or their everyday sorrows and needs are only of interest if they contribute to the companies’ goals. This disconnection from human needs and brutal pragmatism also shows in another observation by union leader Smalls, criticising that Amazon overlooks and forgets about “the little things … How do people get to work? How do they eat lunch every day?”

This show is not going to solve the existential problems that are put on workers’ backs by exploitative companies’ day by day. Instead, it is a reminder that work is not just about labour, but also about sharing much of our lifetime with others, and that it can be also a place of friendship and community. This is not as easy as it sounds when employers limit or even try to suppress any kind of substantial communication among co-workers. KLUB WRKR is an invitation to take a moment to explore ways that could expand the space for gathering, sharing and friendship at your workplace.

- Annika Haas