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.
On September 5th, 1991, I put a giant condom over Jesse Helms’ house. Why? Because, as the condom said, “Helms is deadlier than a virus.” Senator Jesse Helms was one of the chief architects of AIDS-related stigma in the U.S. He fought against any federal spending on HIV research, treatment or prevention.
Xu Bing, the internationally acclaimed Chinese artist, has brought his “Phoenix” installation to the majestic nave of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The two phoenixes, both Feng, the male, and Huang, the female, faced the decoratively carved bronze doors of the Cathedral, as if poised to take flight in the middle of the night.
Coal Seam Greed was going to be a simple satire showing Katso and Nowhereman posing as a mining company called Reed Gas and erecting notices stating their intent to explore for unconventional gas or CSG in inner-city Brisbane. The idea was that residents would see the signs, phone and leave messages in response, which would then be incorporated into the video.
500+ snowmen appeared outside the office of Senator Chuck Schumer in Melville Monday, Feb. 15, 2021. The snowmen appear to be placed there by climate activist @pricecarbonplz. (Source: Newsday, https://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-of-the-day-1.50139710)
Find the Future: The Game is a pioneering, interactive experience created especially for NYPL’s Centennial by famed game designer Jane McGonigal, with Natron Baxter and Playmatics.
In the Si 8 Do project, Seville activists convened in a neglected barrio during the Euromediterranean Conference on Sustainable Cities, which was taking place in Seville.
Maryland Hall, in partnership with the Banneker Douglass Museum and Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture, invited Maryland-based Black artists, whose work encapsulates activism and social justice and using the creative process to educate their audiences about diversity, equity and inclusion to send proposals to take one of six 5 ft.
This demonstration was in response to a new law (as of June, 2012) imposing fines for unauthorized protest of up to $20,000 for organizers and $10,000 for participants. After activists were turned down for a more traditional protest, Lyudmila Alexandrova and others set up small dolls, teddy bears, and figurines with demonstration slogans. Two mini protests took place in January 7 and January 14, 2012.
Forensic Architecture's Cloud Studies is a project that investigates the impact of toxic clouds on colonised and oppressed communities. The clouds, originating from sources like tear gas, industrial emissions, chemical weapons, and forest fires, often go unaddressed due to doubt and denialism.
This action was suggested in the workshop assembly by a neighbor of Arrayán street itself. At the end of this street giving the market there was a wall in a state of collapse that
concerned the neighborhood. On several occasions, either neighbors or from the same Peña Bética in front of them, they had
given by the City Council, but without results. And every day having to go all the way through that gorge with two
You’ll find Johanna Toruno on the streets of NYC plastering pictures of her flower-filtered poetry, Kendrick Lamar, and Selena on blank walls, street lights and buildings. When I came across The Unapologetically Brown Series on Instagram I was intrigued not only by the name but by the concept of being unapologetic and brown as the premise for a body of street art.
In 2005, Rebar, a design studio in San Francisco, transformed a single metered parking space into a temporary public park. The area where this two-hour park took place was one that lacked public open space. This was the first Park(ing) Day project.
The artist has assembled a set of 300 installations around New York City, based around the concept of fences and borders, to showcase the ‘narrow-minded’ attempts used to ‘create some kind of hatred between people’
Peter Marks Review from the Washington Post:
“As Far as My Fingertips Take Me,” a performance piece about the ordeal of seeking refuge by Tania El Khoury that’s being presented for the next 2½ weeks in the lobby of Woolly Mammoth Theatre. For this hypnotic, one-audience-member-at-a-time experience, you pass through the door of a white-walled booth and slip into a white lab coat before putting on a pair of headphones.
In 1982, for documenta 7, Beuys proposed a plan to plant 7000 oaks throughout the city of Kassel, each paired with a basalt stone. The 7000 stones were piled up on the lawn in front of the Museum Fridericianum with the idea that the pile would shrink every time a tree was planted. The project, seen locally as a gesture towards green urban renewal, took five years to complete and has spread to other cities around the world.