The enforcement of city and state law pertaining to graffiti, advertising, and other signage has enormous power to visually shape public space. In New York City, enforcement is heavily skewed to ignore illegal commercial advertising, while simultaneously aggressively targeting graffiti and, in some cases, symbols of dissent.
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
DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA is an ongoing project by Visible Collective/Naeem Mohaiemen that uses films, installations, and lectures to trace migration impulses, hyphenated identities, and the post-9/11 security panic. Excerpts of the project have been shown at various venues, including the 2006 Whitney Biennial.
Students at the NYC iSchool, a high school in Manhattan, worked for 9 weeks to create works of activist art with art teacher Gretel Smith. We were lucky enough to have Stephen Duncomb and Steve Lambert from the Center for Artistic Activism come to our class to teach a lesson inspiring students to think like activists; they came back later to critique students’ works-in-progress.
Through the Market Token program, wooden tokens are used as market currency, making it possible for customers with SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) food-stamp benefits to get fresh, healthy, affordable foods at the Market. Customers stop at the Market office to swipe their Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card and purchase $1 and $5 tokens that function as cash and are accepted by dozens of Market vendors.
Anti-opioid activists unfurled banners and scattered pill bottles on Saturday inside the Sackler Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which is named for a family connected to the powerful painkilling drug OxyContin.
The protest, which was organized by a group started by the celebrated photographer Nan Goldin, started just after 4 p.m., when several dozen people converged at the Temple of Dendur inside the wing.
Anthony Papa was arrested for a drug crime and with no prior offenses was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for violating New York's harsh drug laws. While in prison, Papa began to document his inner struggles via painting and ultimately earned a pardon from New York governor and has gone on to actively fight the drug war in his years since release.
John Wood and Paul Harrison are renowned British artists whose collaboration has led to the merging of video art with performance and conceptual art. Their works usually reside on the relationship between human beings, objects, and the environment, with humor and wit attached to them. They are well in place to make the artworks thought-provoking and entertaining. One such has to be 'Device'.
The Survivaball made its first appearance in 2006, when "Halliburton representatives" attended a conference on catastrophic climate change and demonstrated the functionality of the large inflatable suits ("a gated community for one"), which keep corporate managers safe from global warming. Not long afterward, in Berlin, the Yes Men learned they also work as disruptive, arrest-resistant tools.
Her name is Zaria Forman, a leading artist in contemporary art with a cause. She is not only an exceptional human being; she is also an incredible American drawer who uses art to convey the emergency of climate change.
Zaria’s ultra-realistic drawings explore moments of raw beauty, peace in the landscape, power in the ice and transition that allow the viewers to emotionally connect with places they may never see in real life.
WITH HER 2003 PROJECT UNTITLED, Andrea Fraser throws us an archetype of sexual and cultural identity. More than in her other performances, Fraser here works without the protection of a research-based script, a surrogate actor, or the remove that often characterizes analytical thinking. The central action in Untitled has Fraser and a male client of her US gallery meet for a session of sex and video recording in a New York hotel room.
In July 1976, prankster and satirist Joey Skaggs, calling himself Giuseppe Scaggoli, appeared before a rabid crowd, dressed in sharp-lapeled finery. He had some unfortunate news: that day’s planned auction of rock star sperm was cancelled due to a mysterious theft. All he could offer in the way of comfort were his assurances that more donations were to be sought as soon as possible.