Sarah Hromack

Jun 8, 2026 5 min read

No. 49: Road Rage

Dear Soft Labor, I'm a female curator in my late 50s, hold a PhD, and have worked in major art museums for years. You know the drill: A curatorial assistant many years my junior launched an HR complaint about my somewhat formal and direct, yet entirely professional management style ...…

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May 19, 2026 5 min read

No. 48: New in Outland: Haute Slop (why the backlash to generative AI feels especially ferocious in the fields of art and fashion)

In our fifth piece, "Haute Slop," we were thrilled to write about the sense of fear that pervades the relationship between generative AI, art, and fashion. Why, we ask, is the backlash especially bad in those respective fields?…

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May 4, 2026 8 min read

No. 47: The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Brian Droitcour

Today's respondent is Brian Droitcour. For the last twenty years Brian has been working in and around the art world as a critic, curator, editor, and educator.…

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Apr 20, 2026 5 min read

No. 46: The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Rachel Meade Smith

Today's respondent is Rachel Meade Smith. Rachel is a writer, editor, researcher, and civic design worker. Since 2016, she has run Words of Mouth, a free newsletter connecting jobseekers to “humane” work in the creative fields, reaching tens of thousands of readers across the globe.…

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Apr 6, 2026 5 min read

No. 45: New in Outland: From Blogs to Bots (how museums have used digital media to take—or lose—control of the narrative)

In our third column, "From Blogs to Bots," we trace 2010s digital media history to consider the ways museums gained—and perhaps have lost—control over their own institutional narratives.…

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Mar 23, 2026 3 min read

No. 44: The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Raymond Biesinger

Today's respondent is Raymond Biesinger. He is a Montréal-based illustrator, author, and artist whose work has been published on almost all the continents for the last 20 years.…

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Mar 9, 2026 4 min read

No. 43: Politically Perplexed

Dear Soft Labor, I work as an arts administrator in a university art gallery. ... It’s an understatement to say that we’re all stricken by the ongoing political disaster both at home and abroad.…

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Feb 24, 2026 5 min read

No. 42: New in Outland: Escape Hatch (why museums must embrace contradiction in a time of crisis)

Our latest piece just published in Outland, the publication produced by Outland, a new, nonprofit organization dedicated to publishing and education in the field of art and technology.…

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Feb 23, 2026 3 min read

No. 41: The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Andy Pressman

Today's respondent is Andy Pressman. Andy is currently a designer in the Brand Studio at Figma. Prior to joining Figma, Andy was founding principal of Rumors, a design and technology studio; and the first design director of Verso Books, the renowned radical publisher.…

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Feb 16, 2026 4 min read

No. 40: The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Brian Sholis

Today's respondent is Brian Sholis. He is a longtime editor, writer, and curator who currently works with the technology company Notion, A24 Films, Inventory Press, the design office Frontier, Hariri Pontarini Architects, and others.…

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Feb 9, 2026 3 min read

No. 39: Dress Code: Work Wear

In an earlier edition of Dress Code, we considered uniform dressing and its role in the lives of creative people. Today, we think about work wear—what folks wear to work, whether of choice or necessity.…

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Feb 2, 2026 4 min read

No. 38: The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Mike Tully

Today's respondent is Mike Tully. Mike is an independent graphic designer based in New York City. He works with artists, architects, publishers, and institutions on editorial, exhibition, identity, and research-driven design commissions.…

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Jan 26, 2026 3 min read

No. 37: School's Out Forever

Dear Soft Labor, I’m a bit distraught. My graduate alma mater, a beloved San Francisco art institution, recently announced its own demise with little fanfare: The school has been purchased by another university and will soon close permanently.…

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Jan 20, 2026 3 min read

No. 36: The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Dushko Petrovich Córdova

Today's respondent is Dushko Petrovich Córdova. Dushko is a painter, essayist, and publisher. He is a co-founder, with Roger White, of Paper Monument . . .…

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Jan 12, 2026 3 min read

No. 35: Dress Code: Basics

What does the term "basic"—as it pertains to clothes, not people—mean for creative folks? Our last Dress Code, which was devoted to the uniform, offered an answer. The concept of dressing in "basics" implies the same degree of sartorial and even psychological freedom that uniform dressing does.…

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