In 1989, playwright, actor, and activist Safdar Hashmi was fatally attacked by political thugs while performing a street play outside of Delhi. His death led to the founding of Sahmat, an influential artist collective that has taken a consistent stance against the threats of religious fundamentalism and sectarianism in India through a vibrant mix of high art and street culture.
In 2009, the dissident artist created a work to honour the thousands of children who died in the Sichuan earthquake. He recalls how the project, Remembering, angered China’s rulers – and changed his career for ever
This is an edited extract from The Start podcast
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.
"This Ain't a Eulogy" is both a staged performance and a durational, outdoor, public performance that reclaims and takes public space. The artist statement is as follows:
This month, the art of Chinese dissident Badiucao has finally seen the light of day in Melbourne — more than a year after the Australian artist's Hong Kong exhibition was cancelled due to threats reportedly made by Chinese authorities.
This month’s blast of arctic air may have roused climate-change skeptics. But the composer Laura Kaminsky and the painter Rebecca Allan were unfazed. Holed up in their apartment in Riverdale in the Bronx on one of the coldest days in decades, these longtime artist-activists were doing what came naturally: fighting the planet’s warming.
Ladies’ Room, lasting fewer than six and a half minutes, offers a behind-the-scenes look at a women’s washroom in a nightclub located in a Beijing hotel. A male patron of Cui Xiuwen’s studio first took her there, and she acknowledges being drawn to the ladies’ room precisely because her host did not have access to it.
In this article, author Caroline Choi highlights different grafiti artists and their stories. These artists use their talent to tell their stories, ones that might not get to be told otherwise. She goes into the history of grafiti, and how it ties into how rich and white the art world has become.
Three months ago, when New York government officials ordered nonessential businesses closed to slow the spread of coronavirus, high-end retailers sheathed their stores in plywood barriers, as though readying for civil unrest.
Today’s Bad Bitch Award goes to Karmenife Paulino, a 22-year-old graduate of Wesleyan University. Raped at a fraternity during her freshman year, she reasserted her sexual agency in a photoshoot entitled “Reclamation,” where she poses as a dominatrix on fraternity grounds.
With people in Turkey and Syria still reeling from Monday’s devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake, many in the art world have united in support of the relief efforts for the disaster. The death toll has now surpassed 22,000, with close to one million people now in need of food amid freezing temperatures.
Delhi- based graffiti artist who goes by the name Daku went around South Delhi, one of the poshest places in the city, and painted on overflowing garbage cans.
Creative Graffiti at the Urban Culture Festival in Germany
By Loredana Loy
A street art project by by KD Key Detail from Minsk, Belarus--created and featured at the IBUg 2013 Urban Culture Festival in Zwickau, Germany.
The project is entitled "Bon Appetit." Images speak louder than words. Links and photos below.
Princess Hijab is an anonymous female street artist working primarily in Paris, France. Her art centres on veiling the main characters of subway advertisements using black paint. Few facts are known about Princess Hijab.
Jeff is an animation storyboard artist from Los Angeles, previously working as an animation artist on several famous Disney movies. He uses his talent to produce work highlighting environmental and social issues worldwide with Disney characters, called Unhappily Ever After. His work includes images of Elsa from Frozen on melting ice caps and Alice from Alice & Wonderland taking drugs down a dark alley.
The user muchachafanzine on instagram is an activist who writes a "decolonial native xicana feminist fanzine". They are an online activist and they spread their message through their page, the zine, and through merchandise. Daisy Salinas began Muchacha Fanzine as a feminist punk zine in 2011. Over the years, Muchacha has grown into a larger, submission-based compilation of work by marginalized voices from around the world.
The Democracy Machine! is a performative sculpture that gives participants the opportunity to experience the thrill of democracy in action, in a competitive game that challenges people to work together toward understanding a better society. Using the spectacle and play of performance drawn from Las Vegas Casinos, gambling machines and game shows, The Democracy Machine!
CultureStrike in partnership with Mariposas Sin Fronteras , End Family Detention and 15 artists from across the country, brings you Visions From The Inside, a visual art project inspired by letters penned by detained migrants.
The Xuzhou chained woman incident, also known as the Xuzhou eight-child mother incident, is a case of human trafficking, false imprisonment, sexual assault, severe mistreatment, and subsequent events that came to light in late January 2022 in Xuzhou's Feng County, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.
An oversized facsimile of Rush poppers, tipped over, pouring out its viscous contents: this example of underground gay iconography blown up to almost belligerent proportions perfectly represents the aims of Party Out of Bounds: Nightlife as Activism Since 1980, a new exhibition at La MaMa’s La Galleria. The group show, curated by Emily Colucci and Osman Can Yerebakan, gathers together works by a small yet distinct menagerie of queer artists.
RACC Satellite Space in Garden City
1205 Franklin Avenue, 3rd Floor, Garden City, NY 11530
June 26, 10 am – July 28, 7 pm
Monday – Friday, 10 am – 7 pm, free admission
Please write to racc.ny@mail.ru or call (347) 662 1456
The artist is available for interviews
Free Ai Weiwei street art campaign is a "guerilla methods" of political street art protest against the PRC government's secret detention of world famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei since April 3, 2011, organized by Hong Kong artists and art supporters, calling for the immediate release of the artist.