From the withdrawal of state funds for cultural projects, to the precarity of life under late capitalism, where care is treated as an infinitely exploitable resource, the crisis of care has become a key preoccupation in the art world. Artists and curators attempt to make visible the unseen and under-valued labour and relationships on which their activities rely. Activists agitate for policies to improve labour conditions in the notoriously unregulated artworld. To compensate for the lack of care they routinely experience, cultural workers establish structures of support and mutual aid. Reviewing some of these artistic, institutional, curatorial and activist initiatives, Helena Reckitt highlights the political conditions under which they operate and asks how care in the contemporary arts can be reconsidered, revalued, and more fairly distributed.