News
Chalk Activist Triumphs over Big Bank
LOS ANGELES – Political activist Jeff Olson was acquitted today of vandalism charges brought against him by the city of San Diego in a case that even the mayor called “nonsense prosecution.”
Activism
Interview
The Artists Who Gave Domestic Workers Toy Grenades
HONG KONG — "I wanted to enter Hong Kong homes forcefully, allowing these mechanisms of art to become a platform of conspiracy for the Filipino domestic workers." Sun Yuan and Peng Yu discuss their photographic series on view at Art Basel Hong Kong.
Art
Major New Multifaceted Exhibition Focuses on Ecology and Environmental Issues
The word "expo" conjures big visions: grand pavilions, ferris wheels, exotic exhibitions, a world's fair. But last Sunday, a different kind of expo opened at MoMA PS1, in Long Island City, Queens — Expo 1: New York, the latest curatorial effort of the institution's director, Klaus Biesenbach. It's n
Art
Creating Queer Communities Through Art
Sitting in an intimate audience at the LGBT Community Center on a recent Tuesday night, I observed an unexpectedly inspirational conversation: three queer artists with different practices revealed their use of art as a means to construct a community, counter invisibility, and declare acceptance of t
Opinion
See Ai Weiwei's Pro-Love AIDS Foundation Video
Would you think an artist dead set on destroying ancient vases would be quite so romantic? The Elton John AIDS Foundation has commissioned Ai Weiwei to create a short video animation published on the occasion of Valentine's Day, and the results are… unexpected.
Art
Revisiting the Radical Energy of 1968
Currently on view at the Oakland Museum of California is The 1968 Exhibit, which focuses on the culture of that unforgettable year. Organized by the Minnesota History Center, the Atlanta History Center, the Chicago History Museum, and the Oakland Museum, this expansive show explores the tumultuous y
Interview
The Power of Mobile Guerrilla Light Projections
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 s
Interview
Poetry, Immigration and the FBI: The Transborder Immigrant Tool
Almost five years ago, Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab released the first iteration of the Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT), a mobile-phone technology that provides poetry to immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border while leading them to water caches in the Southern Californi
Art
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Pandemic Scorned
The slogan “Silence=Death” remains one of the most recognizable images from the art produced during the AIDS crisis in America. Created by the activist art collective Gran Fury, it complemented a movement of creativity that held social change as its core. Now, over 30 years since the term “AIDS” was
Interview
Is Art Enough? Gran Fury in Perspective
Walking through galleries filled with reproductions of posters, flyers, takeaways and other ephemera rather than torn and yellowed scraps of archival materials, I spoke with Gran Fury member and artist Marlene McCarty and 80 Washington Square East Gallery assistant director and curator Michael Cohen
Art
AIDS, Art and Activism: Remembering Gran Fury
The collective used a heady combination of bold graphic design, guerrilla dissemination tactics, and art institutional support to communicate the urgency of the AIDS epidemic in light of disastrous government and political inaction.
Art
Could Activism Be Art?
What is the connection between art and social change? I’ve pondered this question for many years. Art is a deed staged not to accomplish a social or political goal but as an end in itself. Yes, an act could be art, but what about activism?