In this essay for Cultured's "Indulgence" issue, curator and critic Helen Molesworth reflects on the sin of sloth, exploring how laziness has inspired significant works of art. She cites artists like Lee Lozano (General Strike Piece, 1969), Robert Barry (Closed Gallery, 1969), Tom Marioni (The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art, 1970), and Marcel Duchamp (Étant Donnés, 1946–66), who embraced idleness or redefined labor as art. Molesworth also discusses Mierle Laderman Ukeles's "maintenance art" (1970–73), which elevated domestic work to art, and references Paul Lafargue's 1883 tract The Right to Be Lazy.
This essay matters because it reframes laziness not as a vice but as a creative and critical stance against capitalist productivity, connecting historical avant-garde gestures to contemporary debates about work, value, and artistic practice. Molesworth, a prominent curator and writer, offers a personal and intellectual meditation that challenges the art world's obsession with busyness, making a case for sloth as a form of resistance and artistic freedom.