They call themselves feminist masked avengers in the tradition of Robin Hood, Wonder Woman and Batman. They wear costume gorilla masks to remain anonymous, and they are devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the visual art world internationally.
Last November, when you Googled the phrase “ugly Black woman,” Vanessa Rochelle Lewis’s photograph was the second to come up.
“Which I’m offended by,” says Lewis, a Bay Area–based artist and writer, “since I’m an Aries and I like to be number one in everything.”
In this solo work, Gómez-Peña tests brand new material dealing with radical citizenship and what he terms “imaginary activism,” combining live art, literature, theory, and pedagogy in a wonderfully strange mix. Not one solo performance is ever the same.
Beyoncé delivered an intensely, unapologetic celebration of Black and HBCU culture at the Coachella Festival 2 weekends in a row. Not only were her performances some of the best live performances to date but they sent a pretty significant message to the world.
Here are some assessments of this beautiful demonstration of Blackness and Black Girl Magic:
From BBC News:
Jo’Artis Ratti is sure he looked intimidating to the police officers who were suddenly confronted by his agitated dancing at a California protest Sunday.
“I’m 210 pounds,” said Ratti, 35. “I have tattoos on my neck. I don’t have a passive energy; I’m very enthusiastic. And I know this looks unfamiliar.”
The Youth Activist Art Archive (YAAA) is a dedicated platform that highlights and celebrates the creative efforts of young individuals (26 years old and younger) actively participating in diverse social movements and causes. YAAA acknowledges the vital role and innovative vision of young activists who employ their artistic talents to envision and advocate for a brighter future.
“It could have been me,” Jean-Michel Basquiat would say at the mere mention of the untimely death of Michael Stewart. Stewart, a 25-year-old artist, was allegedly drawing on the walls of the subway on 15 September 1983 when he was approached by transit cops who then placed him under arrest.
The new exhibit “MESH” at Portland Art Museum features Indigenous contemporary artists advocating for change
Visual artist, writer and activist Ka’ila Farrell-Smith says she considers herself a wartime artist.
She is a member of the Klamath tribes and lives in Modoc Point, Oregon. When asked about how history influences her work, the answer weaves through over 150 years of white colonization and Indigenous struggles in the West:
Nearly 15,000 mostly Asian-American protesters rallied in Brooklyn Saturday for former NYPD Officer Peter Liang, claiming that the rookie cop was a “pawn” of anti-police politics and was wrongly prosecuted for a tragic accident.The crowd filled Cadman Plaza Park, with many carrying signs with slogans like, “One tragedy, two victims” and, “Scapegoating won’t bring peace.” Many placards bore Martin Luther King Jr.’s photo and quote, “Injustice anywhere is
Through her work, South African art activist Athenkosi Kwinana aspires to deepen the understanding of Albinism in her native country, where she has faced discrimination in most aspects of her life from childhood days on. Working with both drawing and printmaking, Kwinana creates large self-portraits that aim to constructively reimagine the representation of Albinism in the country’s black communities and African contemporary art as whole.
On Friday, 30-year-old activist Allie Young will lead a group of trail riders through Navajo Nation to help voters cast their ballots in the 2020 election on the last day of early voting in Arizona.
Young, a citizen of the Diné, or Navajo Nation, has been leading voter registration and other voting and census efforts throughout Indian Country through her organization Protect the Sacred.
The Fast for Families on April 7-9 is the culmination of a month of action involving more than 1200 women fasting through 70 events in 35 states as well as in Washington, D.C., and Mexico City.
Drama Queens Ghana's “MoonGirls” is an Afrofuturistic graphic novel series. Through an Afrofuturistic lens, “MoonGirls follows the adventures of 4 African "supersheroes" with varying superpowers to save the world from a diverse range of forces; from patriarchy, rape culture to pollution and global warming.
In her curatorial project Making Way, Ruth Simbao brought together works that complicated the idea of globalization’s effect on African nations, especially the idea that the new phase would usher in an almost frictionless movement of labor and capital across borders. Works by artists like Athi-Patra Ruga reflected on questions of how bodies moved through settler colonialist spaces.
When Fred Wilson did an installation at the Maryland Historical Society in 1992, he shook up the museum world. Co-sponsored by the historical society and the Contemporary Museum, Mining the Museum did not involve artwork made by the artist; rather, it involved reinstalling items from the historical society's collection in such a way as to make us reconsider them.
‘‘HAMILTON,’’ the new musical biography of Alexander Hamilton created by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, kicks off with a doozy of a question. The houselights rise on Aaron Burr, the third vice president of the United States and, infamously, the killer of Hamilton in a duel in 1804. Burr steps to center stage and reels off several lines of verse:
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
Legendary activist and artist Ed Bereal will be able to have his work displayed again in the newly reopened Portland Art Museum. He is a complex figure, gaining fame in LA in the 1960s for his abstract works and radical performances. His work also includes critiquing politicians in a satirical way.
The No Hate Speech campaign has come to its fourth anniversary this week, because it was on the 18th of March 2013 when the Spanish Institute for Youth IMG_9707(INJUVE) officially launched the campaign in Spain, to commemorate the 21st of March, declared by the UN as Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of that year.
On May 14, 2022, the Buffalo community suffered a devastating act of violence when a gunman opened fire at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue, killing ten people and wounding three. Many have asked how to help.
In partnership with Tops, the National Compassion Fund has established the Buffalo 5/14 Survivors Fund to provide direct financial assistance to the survivors of the deceased and those directly affected by this tragedy.
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."
The signature angst of our time was profoundly expressed in the poems submitted for WOMAWORDS Literary Press June 2020 edition, Imaging Life After COVID-19, offering women poets an opportunity to write about their experience of the pandemic and their vision of or for the future. The universal trauma wrought by this virus, invisible and silent and pouncing with madness and mendacity, brings us to a place we’d like to forget but never will.
The Harlem Festival of Culture not only pays homage to the past but also envisions a brighter future. It serves as a platform to showcase the rich diversity and dynamism of Harlem's artistic community, while also acting as a catalyst for social change and community empowerment. The festival boasts a lineup of artists from various genres and backgrounds, including jazz, soul, hip-hop, gospel, blues, rock, Latin, and Afrobeat.