Occupy Museums thinks the art fair model needs to be reworked. Occupy Wall Street’s art offshoot has announced a new initiative, DebtFair, which seeks to radically deconstruct the commercial art fair. After essentially sunning themselves in a distant corner of Frieze New York last May, distributing flyers for Un-Frieze and other protest literature, the activists have decided to go for a more radical overthrow of the heavily commodified fair model. Whether or not this alternative has legs remains to be seen.
Continue Reading → 
So far this year I’ve been to two different events that highlight different but related approaches to political organizing among artists here in New York. Just to clarify what I mean by organizing — literally bringing individual artists together into a larger community that can advocate for and create political change around some of the more pressing issues facing independent artists in the city (unstable housing, irregular employment, healthcare, etc), issues which many other groups in the city also face.
Continue Reading → 
A few times during her talk last week, historian and curator Yasmin Ramírez looked over at the copy of Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era by Julia Bryan-Wilson sitting on the table in front of her. It wasn’t a look of love. Each time she referenced the book it was, at least in part, with a sense of frustration that despite being one of the only books devoted to the subject of the Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC), Bryan-Wilson largely left out the involvement of black and Puerto Rican artists, who played critical roles in the efforts of the group.
Continue Reading → 
On November 9, the New York Times published an article titled “Occupy Sandy: A Movement Moves to Relief.” The URL for the story, which presumably reflects either an alternate or an original headline for the story, offers a slightly more pointed take: “Where FEMA Fell Short, Occupy Sandy Was There.” And that sums up, I think, what many New Yorkers have found in the last three weeks of Hurricane Sandy relief: that the big, bureaucratic organizations and government agencies traditionally associated with emergency relief have been maddeningly limited, while Occupy Sandy, the latest arm of Occupy Wall Street that sprung up right after the storm, seems to be unendingly effective.
Continue Reading → 
At one point, Arts & Labor member Blithe Riley, who was in the audience at the round table, made a comment about “freaking out a little.” This highlighted the disconnect between the political and social aspirations of Arts & Labor and the general role of art critics for me.
Continue Reading → 
Last Thursday night at Housing Works Bookstore, Occupy Wall Street affinity group Arts & Labor organized a panel of New York art writers to discuss the labor of art criticism. Village Voice and New York Times critic Martha Schwendener opened the round table with the question, “What is the labor of writing?” Schwendener and Arts and Labor proposed a discussion about the working conditions of art criticism in an effort to dispel some prevailing myths, which she framed as power, authority, and allure. She then started things off with an open question to the panel about how they became art critics.
Continue Reading → 
The Occupy Wall Street Movement, the protest that popularized the now-ubiquitous term “99 percent, began last year on September 17. The events in Zuccotti Park kicked off an international storm of activism, and though the movement has been less visible as of late, the one-year anniversary is quickly approaching. As part of OWS’s #S17 anniversary plan, the movement is asking for volunteers to host Occupiers through a new website.
Continue Reading → 
It all started last fall, with the bat signal seen round the world. On the November 17 Day of Action, a group of Occupy Wall Street activists projected a series of phrases and statements onto the Verizon building near the Brooklyn Bridge. “99% … Look around, you are part of a global uprising,” the statement read in part, the words silently imprinting themselves onto a symbol of corporate power and from there onto viewers’ minds. It felt like an exciting, game-changing moment. Plus, this was something OWS-related that the media could easily latch onto, an image! The story went viral.
Continue Reading → 
Artist Otto Von Danger (aka Otto Ewen) has created “The Burn Wall Street Project” at this year’s Burning Man and set it on fire.
Continue Reading → 
Hyperallergic devotees may remember that the Occupy Wall Street Arts & Culture Working Group camped out at our headquarters for a two-month residency earlier this year. Now Occupy with Art, an affiliate of the working group, is taking up residence for three months at Bat Haus, a new coworking space in Bushwick, and launching the Occupational Art School (Node #1).
Continue Reading → 
