In 2016, the Guggenheim Museum commissioned its very first robotic artwork called Can’t Help Myself (Wannmann, 2016). The artwork is created by two of China’s most controversial artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu and can be described as a robotic arm that has one specific, life-long duty: to prevent the deep-red, bloodlike liquid, which constantly oozes outwards, from straying too far (Weng, n.d.).
In Tunisia, a country gripped by economic uncertainty and still in the midst of rebuilding its identity after the Arab Spring, hip-hop culture is viewed as part of an ongoing dissident movement. Just a few events, such as the recent Mafia Wallitili Festival in the heart of downtown Tunis, offer the local hip-hop community an opportunity to share their values with the broader population.
Faith Ringgold, the 93-year-old doyenne of African American art, a trailblazing master who foreshadowed the recent rise of art activism and Black figuration, is having her first solo museum show in Chicago.
Since Christmas Eve, some lights along the streets and in the houses of Bushwick have spelled out a number of messages quite different from the festive wishes one usually finds during the holiday season. “GENTRIFICATION IS THE NEW COLONIALISM,” “NOT 4 SALE,” and “NO EVICTION ZONE,” some read.
Created by and for women, Broccoli is an independent print magazine based in Portland, Oregon. Although intended for cannabis users, Broccoli is an art and lifestyle magazine that bills itself as “playful, informed, eclectic, and thoughtful.” It encourages the discovery and appreciation of cannabis through explorations of art, culture, and fashion.
As massacres, civil wars, and violence permeated communities, people have searched for asylum in other countries. Due to its location and relative safety, Spain has become a common destination for immigrants seeking a better life. Female immigrants in particular tend to experience much more arduous journeys in that they frequently are subjugated to sexual abuse.
Alexandria "Lexi" Aniyah Rubio was looking forward to playing volleyball when she got to junior high. She dreamed of going to law school one day, and she loved astrology, butterflies, and the color yellow.
El Rey de la Ruina, aka The King of Ruin, is a local artist based in Madrid, Spain, who creates artistic activist pieces that range from the impact Covid-19 had on the social life of people in Spain, to the impact gentrification has taken on various groups of people. He tends to utilize (at least in his more recent pieces) bright colors and fun, geometric shapes in his art.
For artists exploring themes of violence towards humans and animals, there is a fine line between thoughtfully engaging and needlessly shocking the viewer; being sensationally explicit can turn people away while being tacit or innocuous may fail to make an impact.
Flower power was a slogan used during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a symbol of passive resistance and nonviolence. It is rooted in the opposition movement to the Vietnam War. The expression was coined by the American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in 1965 as a means to transform war protests into peaceful affirmative spectacles.
The website 'Street art utopia' has an amazing collection of pictures of street art from Belgium, NYC, to Brazil and Israel Palestine. Talented people sharing their art publicly for the streets and the world to see!
Activism: reclaiming a public space, maybe...not sure, but it is public art with various messages...
The Nahmads have been dealers in Modern art since Giuseppe Nahmad set up in Milan in 1957. But they have been the Warren Buffetts of the business, sticking to the tried and true. Now Joseph Nahmad, one of Giuseppe’s grandsons, is plunging into the shark pool of Contemporary art.
If Not Now, When? is an ongoing exhibition that showcases the work of 31 female sculptors, employing diverse materials and forms to address social and environmental issues such as gender equality, nuclear disarmament, and electronic waste. The Hepworth Wakefield in England is hosting the exhibition from April 3 to July 4, 2023.
National Public Radio (NPR):
There's no historical marker outside Jacob Lawrence's childhood home in New York City's Harlem neighborhood.
But Khalil Gibran Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, has an idea of what it might say: "Here lived one of the 20th century's most influential visual artists, a man named Jacob Lawrence, who was a child of southern migrants."
As the cold air bit our faces, and we hid deeper into our layer of sweaters, my family and I continued to wander around Manhattan, seeking a place which would provide warmth and food. And there it was, dimly lit: the Michelin-starred ramen restaurant, Tonchin. We ordered the highly-sought after ramen bowl, Tonkotsu, and awaited our meal. Out of the kitchen, the steam arose from a bowl of a warm, salty pork broth.
Khushboo Kataria Gulati lights an off-white candle and passes the flame to a switch of sage, casting a spell around the purple-lit room as she places paintbrush to canvas. The herbaceous smoke billows around her, time suspends and her paint strokes create a scene of three multicolored faces surrounded by plants.
UNLESS by Stephanie Cardon is a vibrant floor-to-ceiling installation that fills the main entryway of Boston’s landmark Prudential Center. Commissioned by Boston Properties and curated and produced by Now + There, UNLESS explores sustainability, climate justice, and how taking action together can create positive change.
As the female gaze comes to the fore, artists are beginning to examine and explore the possibilities of what exists, what it is to be a woman looking at the world outside of her self. For American artist Dani Lessnau, the gaze opened the door into uncharted realms in search of the things that a camera can capture that the human eye might otherwise miss.
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.
Decades of institutional corruption, elitist exploitation, and social abuses have been sewn into the political fabric of Iran’s dictatorial Islamic republic and have moulded Kermanshah-born fine art painter Nicky Nodoumi’s satirical motifs.
The artist conceived the project as a collaborative exhibition featuring five art-as-response pieces to the student loan crisis and the pressure it causes upon graduates. In its original version, Öğüt invited Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Superflex, Dan Perjovschi, Martha Rosler to present sculptures as collection points for public contribution to The Debt Collective, a student-debt canceling initiative launched by Strike Debt's Rolling Jubilee.
Samaria Rice, left, and Terrence Spivey welcome the crowd at the Tamir Rice Sweet 16 event to raise funds for a new youth oriented cultural center Thursday, June 14th, 2018, at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio. Photo by Tim Harrison/Special to The Plain Dealer
Inspired to carry on Tamir's legacy