“It could have been me,” Jean-Michel Basquiat would say at the mere mention of the untimely death of Michael Stewart. Stewart, a 25-year-old artist, was allegedly drawing on the walls of the subway on 15 September 1983 when he was approached by transit cops who then placed him under arrest.
Linha Vermelha was created in 2016 by the non-profit organization Academia Cidadã (Citizenship Academy). At that time there were fifteen active contracts for oil and gas drilling and we were inspired by the “Red Line Action” in Paris, during COP21 and decided to create this campaign.
Chanel Miller is a Palo Alto–born artist and writer. She first came into the public eye as “Emily Doe,” the victim of a 2015 Stanford University sexual assault whose impact statement presented in court went viral. Miller relinquished her anonymity in 2019, when she published the acclaimed memoir, “Know My Name.” "I was, I am, I will be" is Miller’s first commissioned artwork for a museum and is on view through February 2022.
A TYPICAL EPISODE of Journal Rappé begins with Senegalese rapper Makhtar “Xuman” Fall dressed in a suit and seated behind a news desk. At first glance, the show looks like an ordinary newscast. But then Xuman (pronounced human) launches into his intro, rapping in French instead of talking. “Welcome! Make yourself comfortable. These are the news for you. Some good ones and bad ones too. But they’re all news for you.”
In Tunisia, a country gripped by economic uncertainty and still in the midst of rebuilding its identity after the Arab Spring, hip-hop culture is viewed as part of an ongoing dissident movement. Just a few events, such as the recent Mafia Wallitili Festival in the heart of downtown Tunis, offer the local hip-hop community an opportunity to share their values with the broader population.
In November 2013, a group of 17 female students at Beijing Foreign Studies University sparked national debate when they staged a bold social media campaign in support of an upcoming performance of The Vagina Monologues, a feminist play by Eve Ensler.
The Harlem Festival of Culture not only pays homage to the past but also envisions a brighter future. It serves as a platform to showcase the rich diversity and dynamism of Harlem's artistic community, while also acting as a catalyst for social change and community empowerment. The festival boasts a lineup of artists from various genres and backgrounds, including jazz, soul, hip-hop, gospel, blues, rock, Latin, and Afrobeat.
A vibrant red mural in the heart of Barcelona serves as both an artistic expression and social activism. Officially known as the Todos Juntos Podemos Parar el SIDA (Together We Can Stop AIDS), the public art was created by the renowned American artist and AIDS activist Keith Haring in 1989. More than just a work of art, this mural represents a powerful call to action against the AIDS epidemic that was ravaging communities worldwide at the time.
For the past few years around election time in Serbia, people have taken to the streets to protest government corruption, attacks on free press and voter suppression. This Spring, despite a nationwide lock-down to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, activists are finding new ways to protest the country’s increasingly-repressive government.
Digital art platform Kinfolk has launched its New York City-wide participatory exhibition Signature Series, the initiative’s largest public endeavour to date. The project places newly created augmented reality (AR) monuments by four New York artists—Pamela Council, Derrick Adams, Tourmaline and Hank Willis Thomas—into designated public spaces across the city.
Artist: Félix González-Torres
Media: Candies in variously coloured wrappers, endless supply, ideal weight of 175 lb
Date & Location: 1991
Where can I find this item?: Art Institute of Chicago, Contemporary Art, Gallery 293
Source: Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons)
Carlos Hernández Chávez is a Mexican-American muralist who brings the spirit of 20th-century Mexican muralism into modern New England. Chávez’s murals address key social justice themes, including immigration, workers’ rights, and cultural identity, challenging viewers to acknowledge and reflect on pressing societal issues.
This protest installation was first used in 2016 at Standing Rock when the community banded together to protect the Missouri River from a Dakota Access Pipeline.
Late last year, the New York Times published an op-ed short film written and narrated by Jay Z. The clip was called “The War on Drugs Is an Epic Fail,” and that kind of title was explicit enough for everyone to grasp the entertainment mogul’s general argument, whether they knew anything about drug war or not.
The Mexican Pavilion is an immersive space based on a 1:1 scale fragment of the expanded model of the campesino basketball court, an infrastructure that has become repurposed as a space for poly- and pluri-valent processes of decolonisation in Mexico’s indigenous communities.
Sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) used her art to advocate for social change in both the U.S. and her adopted country of Mexico. Much of her work focuses on the experience of African American life and political struggle during the middle of the 20th century. Her posters of well-known activists, including Angela Davis and Malcolm X, were widely circulated at the time.
Many may not realize, but legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday was a big part of the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, her 1939 song about lynching, “Strange Fruit,” made her a target of the FBI.
The International Harlem Fine Arts Show (HFAS) is the largest traveling African Diasporic art show in the United States. Inspired by the Harlem Renaissance, HFAS provides a platform for African Diasporic visionaries and American visual artists to exhibit and sell their artwork. The show also aims to create economic empowerment, educational opportunities and professional recognition within the multicultural community.
Climate activists defaced a work of art near Germany's Parliament Saturday in the latest act of vandalism by protestors concerned with environmental policy.
Members of The Last Generation threw black liquid over a series of glass plates displaying 19 articles of the German constitution. The protestors then affixed posters to the facade that read, "Oil or fundamental rights?" in German.
Ghana ThinkTank is an international collective that “develops the first world” by flipping traditional power dynamics, asking the “third world” to intervene into the lives of the people living in the so-called “developed” world.
El Rey de la Ruina (The King of the Ruin) has become an act of powerful recognizable symbolism throughout Madrid. In terms of his popular heart symbolism, the artist chose the organ, a heart, as one of his favorite symbols because he was diagnosed when he was little with cardiomegaly, an abnormal increase in the volume of the heart, which is what inspired this organ as his prize art symbol.
Hate hunting? Want to do something creative to protect wildlife and affect positive change? The Hunter's Poppet is a witch-craftivism intervention, free to use and share. A 'poppet' is a ritual object made to represent a human figure, charged with a specific intention. This set of instructions with images guides you in making your own poppet to place safely in an outdoor area.