“Discovering Columbus,” by the Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi.
Nishi built a living room around the sculpture in Columbus Circle in New York City. The living room is mounted on scaffolding and turns the sculpture into a domestic center-piece.
Artist: Félix González-Torres
Media: Candies in variously coloured wrappers, endless supply, ideal weight of 175 lb
Date & Location: 1991
Where can I find this item?: Art Institute of Chicago, Contemporary Art, Gallery 293
Source: Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons)
In Oakland, artists created murals and installations to honor activist Angela Davis, celebrating her legacy in fighting for racial and gender justice. These public artworks inspire new generations to continue the struggle for social change.
JR called for the creation of a global art project - the Inside Out Project - inspired by his large‐format street “pastings.” The concept of the project is to give everyone the opportunity to share their portrait and a statement of what they stand for, with the world. IOP provides individuals and groups from all corners of the globe with a vehicle to make a statement.
Buses serving several routes in central Seoul have acquired a new and highly controversial passenger: a barefoot “comfort woman”, wearing a traditional hanbok dress with her hands resting on her knees.
What happens to explicitly political art when it’s placed inside of the White Cube? Paint the Protest, a group show curated by Nancy Spector at Off Paradise self-consciously poses this question, and further aims to reveal the place and purpose of activist art in general.
ODBK is an activist organization that aims to create a more equal, diverse, inclusive, transparent and democratic art world. ODBK seeks to do this by diversify and increase the number of people who understand and engage with contemporary art.
Tranvía Cero is a group of artists from Ecuador who have been creating artistic projects with the aim to empact community lives and change the ideas of art as an exclusive terrain. The describe their goal as a redefinition of art through the social engaging experiences.
A Centro Social Okupado Autogestionado (Self-Managed Occupied Social Center) or CSOA is an occupied building dedicated to the development of social and cultural activities. They are part of the “movimiento okupa” (“squatter movement”), a label created and circulated by the mainstream press.
Conceived and curated by Bushwick native Joe Ficalora, the Bushwick Collective has evolved into an extraordinary open-air gallery since its first mural surfaced in 2011.
Attracting a wondrous array of local, national and international artists, it showcases first-rate street art -- from legendary Blek Le Rat stencils to huge collaborative walls by such world-renowned artists as Case Ma'Claim and Pixel Pancho.
SAO PAULO, May 16 (Reuters) - At one of Latin America's largest commuter bus terminals in Brazil's gritty downtown Sao Paulo, 84-year-old Rerizenil de Paula Santos waits on a bus decorated with neon lights and bright graffiti amid the hustle and bustle of rush hour.
A unique piece captured significant attention at the Central Academy of Fine Arts undergraduate graduation exhibition in June. The work featured an "anime-style" girl's skull linked to a human skeleton and internal organs, all encased within a thin film. As visitors entered the exhibit area, her breathing and gaze would alter accordingly.
The project consists of a small mobile workspace and a micro artist residency program composed by two tiny art studios founded in Oakland. Studio 1 is a solar powered art studio which was built on the back of a flatbed trailer and Studio 2 was built in collaboration with students at Stanford University, both spaces are composed of second-hand materials.
It is exceedingly difficult to organize peaceful protests in Russia. Since the Kremlin’s “Special Operation” began on Feb. 24, police have detained nearly 15,000 people across the country in connection with peaceful demonstrations. On March 4, the Kremlin expanded the scope of illegal activity with two laws that criminalize war reporting and antiwar protest. As of March 15, 180 charges have been lodged against protesters.
In July 2015, the Empire State Building's famous light displays were used to draw attention endangered wildlife. Along with Cecil, whose death has sparked international outrage, a snow leopard, tigers, lemurs, and various snakes, birds and sea creatures were projected onto the building.
Howardena Pindell presented her solo exhibition, “Rope/Fire/Water”, her first video in 25 years and a project utilized by the artist since the 1970s that The Shed commissioned and displayed in late 2020 and into early 2021. “Rope/Fire/Water” mines the history of violence against African-Americans and features Pindell’s personal anecdotes and anthropological and historical data related to lynchings and racist attacks in the United States.
Student loan debt in the US today totals over 1.7 trillion dollars and is collectively borne by more than 44 million Americans, including artist kelli rae adams. With her installation Forever in Your Debt, adams converts this abstract burden into a tangible volume. She has crafted hundreds of wheel-thrown vessels, sized to collectively hold the average individual student debt —$37,000—in the form of coins.
Brick x Brick is a public art performance that builds human “walls” against misogyny. It is organized by the Public Displays of Affection, a collective of artists, designers, educators and organizers that engages in nonviolent direct art action. During the wall performances, participants wear brick-patterned jumpsuits adorned with colorful brick patches bearing statements of misogynistic violence made by US President Donald Trump.
These thirteen life-like sculptures resemble familiar politicians, admirals, generals, bishops, and dictators. Portrayed as frail seniors, they sit dozing off and drooling in electric wheelchairs. They roll on a slow collision course, crashing into each other like bumper cars.
School desks placed by parents, district graduates and activists block a street in front of the Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters in a demonstration against student dropout rates Tuesday, April 8, 2014, in downtown Los Angeles. Protest organizers say the 375 desks are there to represent the 375 students who drop out of the district every week during the school year.
An artist in Culiacan, Mexico—which has the highest rate of gun deaths in the country—has found a way to transform the agents of death into seeds of life.
In 2008, artist Pedro Reyes started running television ads urging locals to exchange their guns for food coupons to be redeemed at local stores.
The campaign—Palas Por Pistolas, or “Shovels for Guns"—collected 1,527 guns, which Reyes publicly smashed with a steamroller.
Sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) used her art to advocate for social change in both the U.S. and her adopted country of Mexico. Much of her work focuses on the experience of African American life and political struggle during the middle of the 20th century. Her posters of well-known activists, including Angela Davis and Malcolm X, were widely circulated at the time.
The US prison system is one of the world’s great shames. A quarter of the world’s prisoners are being detained in a country that represents only 5% of the world’s population. It is a system that has been compared to a modern-day version of the Jim Crow laws.
Text by Jessica Stewart
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In Virginia, one artist is helping his community reclaim a controversial monument in the name of Black Lives Matter. The Robert E. Lee Monument now stands as the only remaining Confederate statue on Richmond's historic Monument Avenue. While litigation ties up the statue's removal, light projection artist Dustin Klein is using his art to change the meaning of this contentious monument.