Nick Cave is an American fabric sculptor, performance artist, and dancer. He was born on February 4, 1959, in Fulton, Missouri. Currently, Cave lives in Chicago, Illinois, where he works at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as the director of the graduate fashion program.
Kwame Brathwaite, the photographer and activist whose work gave a visual identity to the “Black is Beautiful” movement, died on April 1. He was 85.
The news was shared by his son, Kwame Brathwaite, Jr., in an Instagram post. “I am deeply saddened to share that my Baba, the patriarch of our family, our rock and my hero has transitioned,” Brathwaite, Jr. wrote. “Thank you for your love and support during this difficult time.”
The Guerilla Girls are a group of feminist activist artists, who use facts, humor, and outrageous visuals to expose gender and ethnic bias and corruption in politics, art, film, and pop culture in their artworks. In 1989, they designed this billboard for the Public Art Fund (PAF) in New York, aimed to criticize the museum institutions for under-representing female artists and objectifying women.
It was September 1738, and Benjamin Lay had walked 20 miles, subsisting on “acorns and peaches,” to reach the Quakers’ Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Beneath his overcoat he wore a military uniform and a sword — both anathema to Quaker teachings. He also carried a hollowed-out book with a secret compartment, into which he had tucked a tied-off animal bladder filled with bright red pokeberry juice.
MOTHER EARTH is broken from incessant decadent wars carelessly perpetuated by mindless ,vicious political imbeciles. Our natural wealth plundered by greedy ,gluttonous economic dare-devils, imbibing crude oil and fresh blood . Warlord-ism set the suns of our freedom, our earth is torn naked . War is ravaging the beauty of African diamond fields ,We are now Wretched Vagabonds . Warlords are frying peace in oil springs of the Gulf.
from "Laugh, O Revolution: Humor in the Egyptian Uprising" by Anna Louie Sussman, in 2011.
Revolutions can be messy. They can be tragic. As long as the Internet is working, they can be tweeted. And, as Egyptians demonstrated during their 18 days of protest, they can also be funny.
It was a quick turnaround for federal employers to recognize Juneteenth as a new federal holiday. But some cities were ready with new statues honoring George Floyd, whose killing by police in Minneapolis last year sparked a nationwide racial justice movement.
Exhibition visitors have expressed feelings of uneasiness or even pain and nostalgia when seeing Colored Vases by Ai Weiwei1. The 51 vases that make up the artwork are originally treasures from the Neolithic Age (5000–3000 BCE) and the artist has dunked them in common industrial paint.
Why did Ai Weiwei do it?
Little Amal is the 12 foot puppet of a 10 year old Syrian refugee child at the heart of The Walk. Over the last year she has become a global symbol of human rights, especially those of refugees.
Since July 2021, Amal has travelled over 9,000km and been welcomed by more than a million people on the street, including hundreds of artists and civil society and faith leaders, as well as by tens of millions online.
From October to December 2020, Chinese university students nationwide launched a viral movement to install “menstrual pad mutual aid boxes” in women’s restrooms—free, wall-mounted containers stocked with disposable pads on a take-one, replace-one basis. Nearly 250 campuses joined within weeks. Some sustained their boxes for over a year, while others saw them vanish after bureaucratic pushback, logistical hurdles, or dwindling volunteer resources.
Mural artists add color and flavor on 800 South in the Granary District of downtown Salt Lake City. There’s an old-fashioned bar on the side of a locally-owned brewery, and a Southern Utah landscape on another building. Down the street, on the south corner of 800 South and 300 West, there’s a new mural that’s far more potent.
Say hello to ArtActivistBarbie (AAB), whose modus operandi is small signs, big questions and a fabulous wardrobe. With her inviting call to arms, “Refuse to be the muse!” this fierce new incarnation of Barbie is helping to challenge art galleries and museums worldwide about their woeful lack of women and other minorities in their collections, and reluctance to consider the female gaze.
In 1987 with AIDS deaths in the thousands and government policy still criminally indifferent, activists formed ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) with the purpose of turning grief and fear into rage and action.
As leaders across the world are getting ready to gather together to discuss climate change—and what to do about it—at the UN Climate Change Summit in New York next week, hundreds of young people across the world are going on birth strike to pressure policymakers into action.
In 1996, filmmaker John Akomfrah created the character of the Data Thief as a narrative device to offer an insightful study of Afrofuturism in his film The Last Angel of History, which links Black musicians including George Clinton, Derrick May, and Sun Ra to Akomfrah’s thesis about the role of technological fantasy in Black artistry across genres and mediums.
“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.
Xiao Lu was one of the most influential women in contemporary Chinese art, better known for provoking performance art works and sharp social commentaries. Her works address sensitive social and cultural issues that counter mainstream attitudes and values. In 1989, she put her work "Dialogue" up for exhibition at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing.
The protracted queue. That was the first thing I noticed when I arrived. It was winding, unending and impossible to see exactly where it began. I asked one of the security guards if he had any indication as to the waiting time. His response was a “your guess is as good as mine” shrug. As the mammoth line snaked around the building, my heart sank further – it is a myth that Brits love to queue; we feel compelled to, we don’t love it.
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.
Gao Yaojie (Chinese: 高耀潔, Gao Yaojie; 19 December 1927 – 10 December 2023) was a Chinese gynecologist, academic, and AIDS activist based in Zhengzhou, Henan, China. Gao was honoured for her work by the United Nations and Western organizations whilst spending time under house arrest.
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.
Through the use of mythical and archetypal iconography, Bourgeois translated her encounters into a very individualized symbolic imagery, employing things such as swirls, arachnids, cages, surgical equipment, and sewed appendages to represent the feminine mind, beauty, and mental agony.
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.
Zanele Muholi, the self-proclaimed visual activist and photographer, investigates the fraught relationship between post-apartheid South Africa and its queer community, who, despite being constitutionally protected since 1996, remain a constant target of abuse and discrimination.