Art
In the Shadow of the DNC, Art About Politics vs. Political Art
PHILADELPHIA — It should come as no surprise that there are many ways one can experience art.
Political Art
Books
The Artists and Activists Who’ve Aimed at the Roots of Injustice
A few years ago I was covering a panel discussion for Hyperallergic featuring members of Gran Fury, an ACT UP affinity group focused primarily on producing what group members themselves called “propaganda” against a government hellbent on isolating, vilifying, and smugly looking on as tens of thousa
Art
Brooklyn Museum’s Activist Art Show Is a Messy Collision of Curation and Politics
Agitprop! ought to be an outstanding exhibition of politically engaged art. A feverish amalgam of historic and contemporary artwork, the exhibition is undermined by an ambitious but poorly executed curatorial strategy.
In Brief
Dissident Artist Convinces Russian Detective to Quit His Job
A Russian police investigator interrogates a detained political artist, with the end result being that the detective — his eyes opened to the state’s abuses of power — renounces his badge.
Art
The Revolution Has Been Digitized: Explore the Oldest Archive of Radical Posters
The oldest public collection of radical history completed a digital archive of over 2,000 posters.
In Brief
Designing a Revolutionary Visual Identity for the Black Panthers
"Art has relevancy, whether it's to exploit you or pacify you, or to enlighten and inform you. It's a language, that's the power of it," says Emory Douglas, the artist who drove the graphic identity of the Black Panthers.
Art
Portraits of Prisoners in Gold Leaf and Tar
When artist Titus Kaphar began searching for his father's prison records in 2011, he found the mugshots of 99 other black, incarcerated men who shared his dad's first and last name.
Art
Viral Image to Real Rubbers: Pop Pope
MILWAUKEE — When a story, an image of a work of art, or an essay goes viral, it has struck a cultural nerve, somewhere, and people can’t stop passing it on. The work itself becomes freed of the space where it was first realized; it is taken over by global internet culture and social networks, co-opt
Books
Reconsidering John Dewey’s Art as Experience
It’s hard to tell how many young Americans know the name John Dewey today. Those who attended New York City’s New School might know of him as a co-founder and one of the minds behind the progressive agenda that formed the intellectual and social foundation of the school’s early years. Others might r
Art
Unexpected Sounds of Protest
Sharon Hayes can be a difficult artist to like. Her work often centers around "speech acts," which the wall text in her current exhibition at the Whitney defines as "when speech functions not only as communication but as action." Just beyond that text is an example: a barren area containing only a b
Art
Without Mercy: The Bitter Comix of Anton Kannemeyer
In 1986, South Africa was still eight years away from the end of apartheid, and though opposition to the racist ruling system had been mounting for decades, the government continued to suppress rebels and dissidents. Yet that same year, the exiled Afrikaner writer and artist Breyten Breytenbach, a v
News
NYPD Can't Take Criticism, Censors Legal Mural
Proving that art does still have the power to be controversial, and that the New York Police Department pretty much does whatever it wants, the NYPD dispatched two officers on Tuesday to paint over a mural that it didn't like.