It seems like we broke the ice to a growing consciousness that the status quo isn’t going to work.
Occupy Wall Street
The Latest News From #OccupyWallStreet
Posted inArt
Bulls, Bears, and Others Symbols of Wall Street Protest Art
When traders on r/wallstreetbets started bankrupting short sellers of GameStop and AMC stock, social media rejuvenated imagery stretching back to the 19th century.
Posted inArt
Why Mark di Suvero Chose Public Art
The artist shares why he would rather place his art outdoors than in an institution.
Posted inArt
Seeking Solutions to My First-World Problems at Standing Rock
Feeling defeated by 2016, I went to Standing Rock seeking a post-Trump formula for resistance. What I found was far messier than what I expected, but no less practical.
Posted inNews
Guggenheim Spoof Site Targets Abu Dhabi Controversy
A spoof Guggenheim website, globalguggenheim.org, went live this morning with a satirical “Sustainable Design Competition” for the museum’s embattled Abu Dhabi branch.
Posted inNews
Activists Take Protest to the Facade of the Guggenheim Museum [UPDATED]
The OWS Illuminator, that infamous visual symbol of Occupy Wall Street, joined Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (aka G.U.L.F.) yesterday in their fight for workers’s rights on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Posted inArt
SITE:Lab Raises the Bar for ArtPrize
GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — In a smaller city like Grand Rapids, where the cost of living is far lower than American art centers like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, there can be more curatorial opportunities — if one plays their cards right.
Posted inArt
How Are Artists Getting Paid?
How are artists who have been systematically denied fair wages and access to basic services like healthcare and unemployment protections gaining access to those things today?
Posted inNews
Is it Time to Blow Up the Art Fair Model?
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.
Posted inArt
A Clear Set of Demands: How to Be a Constituency of Artists
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.
Posted inArt
Recovering the History of the Puerto Rican Art Workers’ Coalition
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.
Posted inArt
The Return of Occupy
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.