Without water, life would not exist. And yet, those of us in developed countries take it for granted; our shelves are stocked with hundreds of branded bottles, and it is freely given at restaurants, at schools, and even in parks. We seem to have an unslakable thirst for it; attained in excess, we throw it away like dirt—just as many developing countries liken its value to gold.
After winning the TED Prize on March 2, 2011, the French-artist JR launched the Inside Out Project, in his first TED Talk. Using his own artistic practice as inspiration, this participatory platform helps individuals and communities to make a statement by displaying large-scale black and white portraits in public spaces. Through their “Actions,” communities around the world have sparked collaborations and conversations.
CultureStrike in partnership with Mariposas Sin Fronteras , End Family Detention and 15 artists from across the country, brings you Visions From The Inside, a visual art project inspired by letters penned by detained migrants.
One of the most recognisable manifestations of Chinese contemporary art, Zeng Fanzhi’s era-defining Mask Series launched the artist onto the global stage, and became synonymous with the modern, urban Chinese aesthetic. Zeng’s renowned Mask Series powerfully expresses both the personal and universal anxieties, using the mask motif to emphasise the tension between the external and internal self – i.e., appearances and emotions.
By Summer Dawn Hortillosa
Jersey City’s got an art scene of movers and shakers but few can say they’ve done what David McCauley has in the past two years.
Empathy may be the cornerstone of any Global Justice movement, but how do we cultivate the conditions for empathy to thrive?
The wheelbarrow symbolises something universally useful, practical and pleasingly straightforward. A space to deliver things in an efficient and direct manner - no packaging and completely people powered.
Street activity to encourage small actions to help the bees at a local level that can impact on a global scale. By engaging the public in badge making we aimed to connect the head, hands and heart. We did this by providing a leaflet with information about the bees, badge making and encouraging people to take small actions. We did this as part of the Creativity and Change course, for more information on the course see below.
Dismaland was an experimental and interactive art installation that mimicked and mocked similar attractions and characters of the Disney franchise. He later referred to it as a ‘bemusement park.’ Although the bemusement park seemed to disappear as suddenly as it arrived, the exhibition lives on in the collective memory of the British public.
Renowned French artist JR and Oscar-nominated American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky have collaborated on The Standing March, a major public artwork exhibited in Paris during the UN’s COP21 climate conference. The video projection will remind leaders that the world is watching as they gather to negotiate a deal aimed at keeping global warming below 2°C.
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.
The Brooklyn Paper
March 26, 2012
BY ELI ROSENBERG
Occupy Wall Street wants to occupy your wall space.
A collective of poster printers in Gowanus is attempting to help reignite the social movement’s flames for a May 1 “General Strike,” with a handful of new pin-ups it hopes will be as arresting as the image of a ballerina atop a bull that kicked off the whole protest in September.
A woman’s head is bisected by a line that splits her face into positive and negative halves. Over the image, a commanding text, stated in the second person, reads: “Your body is a battleground.”
Six months before Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc in the Caribbean, a group of Puerto Rican artists were invited to participate in a residency program in Miami by local art organizations. The artists were offered abandoned storefronts-turned-studios at a historic downtown mall, where they’d exhibit their work during Miami Art Week in December to engage an art world that often overlooks the island territory.
In his ongoing street art series “The Living Wall,” Russian artist Nikita Nomerz brings life to decrepit buildings in Russia by painting faces on them. Nomerz travels extensively around Russia and makes an effort to paint a character in each place he visits. He talks about his art in this interview with Global Street Art.
The immediate prototypes of Zhang Xiaogang’s Big Family series are formal group photographic portraits from the 1950’s and 60’s, including those of Zhang’s own family, a source of the painter’s “endless reveries.” From these old black-and-white pictures Zhang Xiaogang derived the series’ paradigmatic features: a subdued, nearly monochromatic palette; a thickly layered but flat surface, without overt evidence of brushwork; a general compositional restric
Artist Nathaniel Ruleaux leads a community project called “To See If I Could Go Home: A True History Paste-Up” at the Union for Contemporary Art in Omaha on Thursday. His son, Luca, 3, walks away after handing Ruleaux a print to use to demonstrate the project. A member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, Ruleaux often uses his art to bring attention and activism to Native stories.
MEXICO CITY — Of the half-dozen pieces that form Tania Bruguera’s series “Tatlin’s Whisper,” the one that the Cuban government silenced may have resounded most.
"Puppets Against Aids was launched by Gary Friedman on 1st December 1988 in time for 'World Aids Day' in Johannesburg, South Africa. During 1987, Friedman had been studying with Muppet master, Jim Henson, in Charleville-Mézières, France. Henson provided the initial financial contribution to launch the African Research and Educational Puppetry Programme 'Puppets Against Aids'.
Grey wolves have had a tumultuous relationship with their human neighbors in the Pacific Northwest for more than a hundred years. From nearly being wiped out from the continent, Canadian grey wolves started being reintroduced to the wilderness in the U.S.'s Northern Rockies as early as 1995. The wolves were (and continue to be) placed in areas dense with wilderness and potential prey.
A young man melting into a puddle of himself is something you don’t see everyday, much less in a busy public square. Yet this humourous but surprisingly effective spectacle is the latest effort by the Red Cross of Argentina to raise awareness about climate change.
PHOENIX — As Super Bowl LVII was getting underway in Glendale, Arizona, on February 12, artist and Apache Skateboards founder Douglas Miles (San Carlos Apache, Akimel O’odham) was protesting racist mascots in the NFL by painting a mural-style portrait of Geronimo with the words “Don’t Call Me Chief” for a community event at Grassrootz, a Black- and worker-owned bookstore near downtown Phoenix.
The book bloc constitutes a line of demonstrators holding cardboard-polyurethane-and-foam shields that are made to resemble giant book covers. This tactic tends to be used in actions that oppose neoliberal reform of education and libraries, especially in the form of austerity measures.
Beginning in the early 1970s, the Los Angeles-based multi-media arts collective Asco (from the Spanish word for nausea) created performances, street theater and conceptual art that satirized the emerging styles of Chicano art and pushed the boundaries of what it might encompass.