The term GastARTbeiter has much resonance in Croatia, let us mention the exhibition of the same title showing the work of young Croatian artists active in Düsseldorf that was held recently in Zagreb and Osijek. The theme was also chosen as the topic of the round table discussion held during Borders 2001 in Slavonski Brod. The issue of artists choosing to live and work abroad gives rise to various reactions and emotions. These range from envy to pity, and, but rarely, understanding and sympathy. There are similarities between the situation of the GastARTbeiter and artists who are forced or choose to work in the national capital rather than in their native city or region. They are both liable to complex feelings of loyalty and nostalgia for their roots, as well as alienation. The concept itself is fluid and open to personal interpretation, and is linked to questions of borders and their transgression, geographical hierarchies in the context of the periphery and the centre, and the politics of migration.

The conventional view of Gastarbeit is of East Europeans coming to West European countries, especially Germany, to do manual work. There is still something left of the original sense of Gastarbeit in the position of contemporary GastARTbeiters in the European Union, who are happy to take on jobs that they wouldn’t consider doing in their native country. Gastarbeit from the point of view of an artist, can also be seen as any work you have to do in order to support yourself, while artistic creation itself is not usually seen as Arbeit at all. Vlado Martek, for example, has described his position in the following way: ‘I’m a Gastarbeiter on the micro level. Until noon I’m a librarian and in the afternoon I’m an artist. I’m not a Gastarbeiter in the afternoon.’ This touches on the issue of artists who live from their art within the commercial art gallery system, whether at home or abroad, and are under obligation to constantly produce new work and meet deadlines.

GastARTbeiters are justified in feeling disadvantaged by their situation. One the one hand, it’s very hard for them to become completely accepted in their adopted art world, while on the other they risk losing contact with the art scene of their native country. They sometimes feel unjustly neglected when it comes to exhibitions at home, while at the same time exploited for their international connections. Branko Franceschi, speaking from years of experience as a Zagreb gallerist, implies a more symbiotic relationship between the GastARTbeiter and the gallery: ‘From my point of view, it’s a beneficial relationship for both of us, they’re kind of building their careers with us and we’re kind of reaching our goals of making our scene more international through them.’
Sympathy for the plight of the GastARTbeiter is limited among artists living and working at home. There’s a widespread feeling that GastARTbeiters are taking advantage of the system and are able to jump the queue to local success because of the snobbish esteem attached to everything foreign. Partly this hostility can however be put down to envy, based on the fact that artists who go abroad do gain valuable experience.

The drastic political and economic changes in Central and Eastern Europe in the last decade have created a novel situation from the perspective of GastARTbeit. Central European capitals have become havens for people who disagree with the excesses of global capitalism as practiced in the West and hope to fulfil their creative aspirations in the East. The new phenomenon of the GastARTbeiter in Central Europe is also a product of the increasing internationalism of the art world through temporary artist exchanges and the practice of inviting foreign guest curators to curate local exhibitions. While many of these exchanges remain on a superficial level, some GastARTbeiters become part of the local art community. Although the mechanisms for the assimilation of foreign artists exist in the West, in Central Europe they often come up against inverted snobbery and suspicion of their motives and quality.

The media image of the Gastarbeiter has been overtaken in recent years by that of the asylum seeker. We see them storming the Channel Tunnel, sinking in boats off the coast of Australia and swimming across the Sava. While the Gastarbeiters were provided with a job and legal status as guest workers, the asylum seeker is a desperate outsider with little chance of acceptance. The contemporary European politics of migration as expressed through visa regulations and the system of work permits, especially in the European Union, determines who can be a GastARTbeiter and who is sentenced to the no man’s land of the ARTsylum Seeker. The superficial global internationalism of the art world, with its travel, exchanges and scholarships, is only available to those who are chosen and supported by institutions or with private wealth. Many artists are aware of the unfairness of the system and refer to it in their work. Luchezar Boyadijev has followed up his GastARTbeiter with a postcard created for the Croatian government detention centre for asylum seeks in Jezevo entitled Illegal Migration (2001) and showing a flying bird.

Quotations of Branko Franceschi and Vlado Martek from the round table on Gastarbeit at Borders2001 in Slavonski Brod.