The streets of Santiago are once again alive with the spirit of revolution. For weeks now, working-class Chileans have occupied national monuments and blocked major intersections in protest of widespread inequality. They desire full reform — a request so long in the making that it is practically tradition. The country’s floundering political elite offer half measures while dispatching riot police and the military.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989, the cement segments that remain have stood as something more symbolic than just a wall. With installations in every continent, except for Antarctica, the East Side Gallery is the most authentic existing part of the Berlin Wall.
Cut and Paint is a website with free access to a wide variety of visual designs that can be printed out, cut, and used as graffiti stencils anywhere. Access to a variety of resolutions of each design is free for all, and there is a standing invitation for artist-activists to contribute their own designs for others to use.
On November twelfth, 2008, over 80,000 copies of a replica of the New York Times were distributed in several cities around the United States. The paper included 14 pages of “best case scenario” news set nine months in the future.
See the The New York Times Special Edition website.
Singaporean artist Lee Wen’s series Journey of a Yellow Man (1992–2012), one of his most famous and long-standing performances, was not simply a personal affront, it was a political affront. At the intersection of Asian art history, critical race theory, and migration and diasporic studies, one is never far (enough away) from the chromatic framing of race and ethnicity: yellow race, yellow peril, yellow face, the forever foreigner.
The Protest Banner Lending Library is a space for people to gain skills to learn to make their own banners, a communal sewing space where we support each other’s voices, and a place where people can check out handmade banners to use in protests.
Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) is an iconic 1989 silkscreen portrait made by artist, feminist and activist Barbara Kruger .
Though the poster was meant for the pro-choice march on April 9th, 1989, in DC, the portrait is now used mainly to voice the artist’s own opinion about gender inequality. The piece is much more relevant in today’s society, where it controls the way we view and treat women’s bodies.
It’s the radiant baby, the barking dog and the dancing man; the badges and the t-shirts; the unmissable mural spelling out CRACK IS WACK. Keith Haring’s career was short but spectacular, and he leaves behind a lasting legacy. From his chalk drawings in city-wide subway stations, to his collaborations with the superstars of his day, Haring’s life was founded on a belief in the power of people to change the world.
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.
"Operation Paydirt is a multidisciplinary, artist-driven project advancing a solution to the devastating problem of lead (Pb) contaminated soil that puts thousands of children at risk for severe learning disabilities and behavioral problems. The goals of the project are to raise awareness of the issues of lead and to create a model for making cities lead-safe across the United States.
At Souvenir Stands, Selling Tourists on Ending Stop-and-Search
By COREY KILGANNON
New York Times, City Blog, August 27, 2012
Last week, a 37-year-old artist from Oakland, Calif., named Aaron Gach joined the crowds of tourists swarming the sidewalk souvenir stands set up around the perimeter of Battery Park in Lower Manhattan.
Creative Time, a public art fund, invited artists to make online comics that addressed contemporary issues. Every month for two years a new artist presented their comic strip online. At the end, there were a total of 24 comic works that were archived online and also released as a publication in 2010.
Heroin sold in the northeast, specifically in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey tends to come in little glassine baggies. The art comes from the individual and unique "stamp" on said baggie sold to a user.
On November 13, 2012, Joey Skaggs dressed up as Santa Claus and rode a three-wheeler to the United Nations in New York, NY. Skaggs’ bike was equipped with a fake mobile rocket launcher and a sign that read “ Peace on earth, or else!” A group of elves also accompanied Santa to the UN, and they alternated between handing out green toy soldiers to bystanders and singing their altered version of Jingle Bells, as seen below:
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.
Two design students were awarded the Futurapolis prize last Wednesday for their project to adapt the Furan (underground river) , a response to the migration crisis.
In the past few years we have seen a growing awareness and concern with Internet freedom and privacy, fuelled by Edward Snowden’s revelations of the vast U.S.
The project (created in 2009-2010) consists of painted plats and posters depicted with drawings of police torture scenes. Images also include snippets of email exchanges. The plates have been exhibited in numerous galleries in Ukraine, and posters were hung in public spaces.
Comic artist Huda Fahmy has been breaking down walls with her hilarious comic "Yes, I'm Hot in This."
In her own words, "What started as my therapeutic way of dealing with the Islamophobia and prejudice I encounter on the daily has now turned into this amazing opportunity to tell the story of the American hijabi."
"A Night of Philosophy and Ideas is a thinker’s lollapalooza. The free, 12-hour weekend lyceum at the Brooklyn Public Library includes spirited debate, live music, theater, performance art pieces, and film screenings. At any given hour, five or six different events will be taking place simultaneously. Visitors are encouraged to come and go as the spirit moves them.
From Glasgow to Brighton the streets of the UK looked a little different the morning of Monday 5/12/14. In 10 cities around the UK guerrilla install crews have been swapping over 300 ads with art works, creating the largest advertising takeover in world history.
The New York City subway is many things, but clean isn’t necessarily one of them.
It doesn’t exactly smell great, either.
While the MTA hedges on solutions (and continues to debate whether eliminating trash cans from the stations actually solves sanitary issues), the artist and School of Visual Arts student Angela H. Kim is waging a personal guerilla war against the olfactory offensiveness of it all.