In many of his works, the Belgian-Mexican conceptual and performance provocateur Francis Alÿs questions the relationship between action, effort, and outcome. His works tend to inspire one toward a blurring of lines between the actions done in artistic expression and those in social response, making the viewer question the value and effect of the toil.
"The Second October Revolution"
105 NY-110, Melville, NY 11747
August 14, 11 am – September 8, 7 pm
Tuesday – Saturday, 11 am – 7 pm, free admission
Please write to racc.ny@mail.ru or call (347) 662 1456
The artist is available for interviews
One of the most critical artists on the contemporary art scene is Zhang Huan. His works are of great social insight and unique in how he applies his artistic expression. He thus makes them an almost visual feast with a peek into the multilevel structure of modern society. One such work is the masterpiece "Family Tree," which shows how art can mould our social cognition through multilayered symbolism and profound imagery.
The new exhibit “MESH” at Portland Art Museum features Indigenous contemporary artists advocating for change
Visual artist, writer and activist Ka’ila Farrell-Smith says she considers herself a wartime artist.
She is a member of the Klamath tribes and lives in Modoc Point, Oregon. When asked about how history influences her work, the answer weaves through over 150 years of white colonization and Indigenous struggles in the West:
ONGOING ORGANIZATION:
CALLED: Iranti [pronounced írantì] is the Yoruba word for ‘memory’. Largely found in South West Nigeria and parts of Benin Republic, the Yoruba people consider memory a prized form of intelligence which determines how often one remembers what they see and hear.
Song Byeok is one of the most acclaimed Korean artists living today. He is from North Korea, where he was a propaganda artist for the North Korean government for two decades. After defecting in 2002, Byeok has turned his prolific creativity into powerful, satirical art using North Korea’s ruling culture as motifs.
Jay-Z rapped alongside side Bono, the Edge and Rihanna; Coldplay's Chris Martin moonlighted as Beyoncé's piano player; Justin Timberlake covered Leonard Cohen — and those performances, from January 22nd's multinetwork, $66 million-grossing telethon for Haitian earthquake victims, were just the most visible of musicians' efforts to raise funds.
Step into the captivating world of Zanele Muholi, the activist and masterful photographer from South Africa. Through their lens, they unveil the realities found within LGBTQI+ stories, challenging norms and reshaping perceptions of beauty. Each intimate and evocative portrait captured by Muholi becomes a vessel for social change, dismantling stereotypes, and amplifying the voices of those historically silenced.
The "Real Time" series by Maarten Baas is an avant-garde collection of art installations and functional timepieces that question the very basics of how to measure and experience time. It has, therefore, been a unique mix of performance art with functional design since 2009. Baas reimagines how time may be seen in his various installations in a provoking, innovative, engaging, and reflective manner for all audiences.
Katharina Grosse's public exhibition "Just Two of Us" consists of eight large meteor looking sculptures painted in bright technicolors. The sculptures, which have been placed in the public plaza at Metro Tech Commons, have transformed downtown Brooklyn. Grosse is a German artist based in Berlin, who is known for her use of spray gun techniques to create abstract colorful paintings on unconventional surfaces.
Journalist and playwright Xandra Clark began creating Polylogues, a one woman show exploring non-monogamy, in 2017. The show is created from interviews Clark conducts around the world with people of different ages, genders, and races about their relationship with non-monogamy or polyamory (hence the name of the performance Polylogues).
Through their podcast, The Dance Union, Melanie Greene and J. Bouey have been confronting racism in the dance world, and highlighting the experiences of Black artists, since 2018. Their episodes cover a variety of topics and issues, ranging from mental health and sexual harassment to advocating for fair pay.
In May 2020, a team of artists, activists, folklorists, and people who lost loved ones to Covid-19 came together to make monthly memorial sites in New York City to remember victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. They continued installing memorials around New York City every month during the summer of 2020.
Parió Paula is an all women’s percussion group based in Lima, Peru. These women are truly artistic renegades defying the social norms of Lima’s predominantly male music scene. With a bold message on emphasizing female expression, these ladies have transformed their countless styles of drumming into something effective for their city.
(see full article and short documentary at link below)
Sophie Calle's works discuss the issue of "privacy", the composition of an individual's identity at the social level, and the relationship between "private" and "public/group/society", including personal information, personal records, public surveillance, and other topics. An obvious feature of her works is the unique and extremely subjective criteria of judgment and reference for measurement.
After winning the TED Prize on March 2, 2011, the French-artist JR launched the Inside Out Project, in his first TED Talk. Using his own artistic practice as inspiration, this participatory platform helps individuals and communities to make a statement by displaying large-scale black and white portraits in public spaces. Through their “Actions,” communities around the world have sparked collaborations and conversations.
For the past 20 years, Great Bend school district art teachers have been letting their students collaborate on an art project at the Barton County Historical Society Museum. This year, they will ground their efforts in working together to make a mural. Their teachers are trying to instill the fact that art builds community, as it has here for the past two decades.
Almost all of Rivera's art told a story, many of which depicted Mexican society, the Mexican Revolution, or reflected his own personal social and political beliefs, and In the Arsenal is no different. The woman on the right side of this painting in Tina Modotti, an Italian photographer and revolutionary political activist, who is holding ammunition for Julio Antonio Mella, a founder of the internationalized Cuban communist party.
Last Friday, Pablo Picasso’s Buste de Femme, (1943), was put on display at the International Art Academy Palestine in Ramallah. Marking the very first time that the Picasso’s work has been shown in Palestine and as the result of a loan request to the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, this project is the tenacious vision of artist Khaled Hourani (also the Artistic Director of IAAP).
The Guerrilla Girls tactic was well thought-out and was effective in creating a spectacle to draw attention to the issue at hand, which is the lack of female representation in the museum. Where I think the campaign has some drawbacks is in the actual message on the billboard. The rhetorical and ironic message is subtle and really only reaches those who are privy to the art world and/ or the museum.
CNN
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Five years after first appearing on the cobblestones of Wall Street, the “Fearless Girl” statue – a petite but controversial symbol for gender equality – is taking on a new digital form.
“Works in Progress” highlights artists across a range of disciplines whose work deals with ecological themes. Considering the particular role that artists play in the climate movement, this column shares their voices and provides a glimpse behind the curtain into their creative processes and experiences.