“Everything is art. Everything is politics.” Globally renowned artist Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957) is celebrated as a disruptor of artistic canons and a champion of free expression. In his work—ranging across performance, photography, sculpture, video, and installation—he deploys humor and provocation, calling upon his viewers to examine history, society, and culture.
"Nearly 2 million decaying Goodyear tires lie submerged off the coast
of South Florida, decrepit hunks of rubber that have gradually succumbed
to the pressures of tides and tropical storms. The steel cables that
once strung them along the ocean floor have snapped, and many have
drifted into the natural reefs only 70 feet away, permanently scarring
them. What is now a 36-acre underwater junkyard was once the
The White Bikes are the best known acts of creative activism by the Dutch group Provo. The political wing of the Provos won a seat on the city council of Amsterdam, and developed the "White Plans".
For one day, a group of artists known as the INDECLINE Artist Collective turned a hotel room in New York City's Trump International Hotel into a single jail cell for Donald Trump without the hotel's knowledge. The inside the jail cell was a Donald Trump impersonator in a suit and a "Make America Great Again" hat and at his feet were McDonald's food wrappers and live rats.
The Vulvatron was created specifically for Burning Man 2014. A multi-sensory experience, the Vulvatron attempts to communicate to those whom interact with it a distinctly feminine mystery. What is woman? In a world that has politicized, exoticized, sexualized, objectified, made their stake in women, what remains? Creating a gigantic object inspired by female anatomy in a world surrounded by phallic objects is a medicine story in itself.
'Gun-sharing' stations in Chicago use art to make a point about gun violence.
Users can’t actually grab a gun from the stations, but its creators hope the installation will send a message about how disturbingly easy it is for a citizen to acquire an assault weapon—as easy as renting a bike. They can also make a donation to the Brady Center and learn more about the campaign's gun safety efforts.
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.
The son of an exiled political dissident, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s work is inherently political. Since 1995 Ai Weiwei has been traveling the world, photographing himself flipping off iconic monuments of power in his Study of Perspective series.
Object Orange (formerly Detroit. Demolition. Disneyland. is an artistic project in Detroit, Michigan which seeks to draw attention to dilapidated buildings by painting them orange.
Visible Distance / Second Sight is an art installation by Jennifer Bolande for DesertX. The temporary artwork can be found along the Gene Autry Trail near Vista Chino (33°50’41.70”N 116°30’21.02”W), where a series of consecutive billboards have been replaced by perfectly aligned photos of the landscapes they are blocking.
From the DesertX project page:
Notice Nature was a public engagement action undertaken by participants in the Erasmus+ funded training 'Creativity and Change: Empathy 2 Action - nurturing response-able global citizens' which took place in Cork from 8th - 13th April 2017. The team members were Marie-Michele Tessier, Aoife Dare, Ann Foulds, Zsofi Toth and Claire Faithorn.
Decolonizing Architecture/Art Residency (DAAR) is an art and architecture collective set up by Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal and Eyal Weizman, based in Palestine. Their work is a critical examination of the role played by architecture in the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
For one artist, the ugly and the beautiful are equivalent concepts. In 2018, designer and artist Choi Jeong Hwa featured an exhibition titled 'Alchemy' at The Artling where he uses recycled and non-biodegradable materials in his work that he has been collecting for 30 years, such as household trash, glass, and steel. 'Dandelion' is one of his masterpieces installed in the outdoors in Seoul, South Korea.
Richard Bell has often called himself ‘an activist masquerading as an artist’. Aboriginal journalist and radio broadcaster Daniel Browning has suggested that Bell is also ‘a megaphone.
Chinese artist Ai WeiWei has drawn on the stool part of that French surrealist's pioneer work for his latest exhibition, the largest ever devoted to Ai, which opens in Berlin this Thursday. The show, entitled Evidence, is at Berlin's Martin-Gropius-Bau exhibition hall, and consists of either entirely new works, or pieces never seen in Germany before. The exhibition is huge, taking up 3,000 square metres in total and running across 18 rooms.
A set of interactive experiences at the Sziget festival in Budapest, aimed at social change to improve every day life of trans and gender-nonconforming persons.
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.
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.
CENTRO San Antonio's Art Everywhere Project will celebrate its 5th anniversary in May.
As of May 2024, the project had seen numerous artists from the city's urbancore decorate areas of the city with elaborate murals reflecting the city's history and the diversity of cultures in the city.
Strap into your scuba gear — this museum is worth it.
Installation began on Museo Atlantico — the latest project of underwater sculptor James deCaires Taylor — this week, 14 meters underwater in Lanzarote, one of the Spain’s Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa. Taylor, whose creations have spanned the waters from the Bahamas to London, calls it the first underwater contemporary art museum in Europe and the Atlantic Ocean.
From Public Delivery:
Located behind a resplendent Opera House in Budapest on the same road as Louis Vuitton sits Hunger King, a place that seems to be just like any other burger joint. However, it is anything but. Hunger King is a regular fast food outlet that is pushed onto the masses; Hunger King is a critical sociopolitical art installation that highlights Hungary’s significant crises of social inequality and homelessness .
A dilapidated wooden fishing boat laden down with animals who are just skin and bone, a sort of dystopian Noah’s ark trying to escape the end of the earth and an empty city devoid of human life that has been overtaken by nature.
Birds Watching I, 2018 was created for Storm King Art Center's Indicators: Artists on Climate Change, in partnership with NRDC, which ran from May–Nov 2018, and featured 100 U.S. climate-threatened species derived from Audubon's first report. That work was reinstalled as a public sculpture in Chicago on the elevated 606 Bloomingdale Trail between St. Louis Ave. and Kimball Ave. and is fully-accessible via the Spaulding Ave. ramp.