Art

Death Of An Oracle

October 31, 2022 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Educate! Art, Chris Hedges, Poetry

The poet Gerald Stern, who died last Friday at the age of 97, spent his life thundering against the mendacity and abuse of power; rebelling against all forms of authority, big and small; defying social conventions; and wielding his finely honed writing on behalf of the demonized, forgotten and oppressed. He was one of our great political poets. Poetry, he believed, had to speak to the grand and minute issues that define our lives. He was outrageous and profane, often in choice Yiddish, French and German. He was incredibly funny, but most of all brave. Rules were there, in his mind, to be broken. Power, no matter who held it, was an evil to be fought. Artists should be eternal heretics and rebels. He strung together obscenities to describe poets and artists who diluted their talent and sold out for status, grants, prizes, the blandness demanded by poetry journals and magazines like The New Yorker, and the death trap of tenured professorships.

Climate Protestors Throw Tomato Soup On Iconic Van Gogh Painting

October 15, 2022 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Resist! Art, climate crisis, Oil and Gas, United Kingdom

In perhaps their most controversial protest yet, two Just Stop Oil activists poured tomato soup on Vincent van Gogh’s famous “Sunflowers” painting in London’s National Gallery. The gallery said the painting itself was not damaged because the canvass was protected by glass. The action comes as Just Stop Oil has been protesting in London for two weeks with a demand that the UK government stop all new oil and gas exploration. “What is worth more, art or life?” 21-year-old demonstrator Phoebe Plummer said as she glued her hand to the wall below the painting. “Is it worth more than food? More than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?”

Support Philadelphia Museum Of Art strike

October 5, 2022 Joe Piette, Workers World. Resist! Art, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Strike, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Since Sept. 26, almost 200 workers have been on strike — not reporting for work in person or virtually — at one of the oldest and largest art museums in the U.S. with over 240,000 works of art from around the world. Members of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 397, affiliated with AFSCME District Council 47, voted for union representation in a landslide, 89% “yes” vote in August 2020. Since then, the PMA Board of Trustees and executive management have refused to come to an agreement with the PMA Union. After over two years of fruitless talks, after filing a lengthy Unfair Labor Practice charge against museum management, after a strike authorization vote of 99% and after holding a one-day warning strike Sept. 16, workers finally walked off the job Sept. 26.

This Is Not A Drill’: The Music And Politics Of Roger Waters

October 2, 2022 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Activism, Art, Music, Wars and Militarism

Roger Waters, the British rock legend and co-founder of Pink Floyd, is in the midst of his “This Is Not A Drill” tour. In his concerts he weds his musical genius to the most pressing social issues of our day, including permanent war, police violence, the crimes of Israeli occupation against the Palestinians, the killing of the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and the imprisonment of Julian Assange. Waters has been an outspoken opponent of the NATO-fueled war in Ukraine, and a vocal supporter of contemporary social movements such as the Water Protectors at Standing Rock and global protests against police violence from the United States to Brazil and Britain. He joins The Chris Hedges Report for a wide-ranging conversation: from his youth and musical career to the political worldview that undergirds his provocative ‘This Is Not A Drill‘ tour.

Without Culture, Freedom Is Impossible

September 23, 2022 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Art, culture, Socialism

In 2002, Cuba’s President Fidel Castro Ruz visited the country’s National Ballet School to inaugurate the 18th Havana International Ballet Festival. Founded in 1948 by the prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso (1920–2019), the school struggled financially until the Cuban Revolution decided that ballet – like other art forms – must be available to everyone and so must be socially financed. At the school in 2002, Castro remembered that the first festival, held in 1960, ‘asserted Cuba’s cultural vocation, identity, and nationality, even under the most adverse circumstances, when major dangers and threats loomed over the country’. Ballet, like so many cultural forms, had been stolen from popular participation and enjoyment. The Cuban Revolution wanted to return this artistic practice to the people as part of its determination to advance human dignity. To build a revolution in a country assaulted by colonial barbarism, the new revolutionary process had to both establish the country’s sovereignty and build the dignity of each of its people. This dual task is the work of national liberation. ‘Without culture’, Castro said, ‘freedom is not possible’.

Furtherfield: The Power Of Art And Play In Imagining New Worlds

March 6, 2022 David Bollier. Strategize! Art, Creativity, Rights of Nature, Transformation

Here's a fanciful but almost-real scenario: the bees, squirrels, geese, bugs, trees, and other species of your local park have decided that they've had enough of human aggression and abuse. They're not going to take it anymore, and rise up and demand equal rights with humans. Through a series of interspecies assemblies, a treaty is negotiated to ensure that every living being in the local ecosystem can flourish. This scenario is a "live action role-playing" (LARP) game devised by Furtherfield, a London-based arts collective as part of its stewardship of part of the Victorian-era Finsbury Park. Over the next three years, Furtherfield is inviting humans to don masks and play the roles of each of seven species in negotiating "The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025" -- the name of the project.

Preserving A People’s History Through Quilts

July 21, 2021 Loretta Graceffo, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! Art, Chile, COVID-19, Police

More than 600,000 people in the United States have died of coronavirus since the pandemic began, a number that is incomprehensible. Few people understand the magnitude of this loss more than 14-year-old Madeleine Fugate. Since April 2020, the eighth grader from California has spent her weekends constructing the Covid Memorial Quilt, a tribute to the casualties of the virus.

Nonprofit Arts, Culture Organizations Have Lost $17.3 Billion In Pandemic

June 16, 2021 David Walsh, World Socialist Website. Educate! Art, COVID-19, Finance and the Economy, Recession

IWhile hundreds of people in the US and 10,000 globally continue to die each day, American media outlets lose no opportunity to assure their viewers and readers that the pandemic is “over.” In fact, the suffering of the population continues, long- and short-term physical and economic suffering. For example, Feeding America reports that more than 50 million people in the US experienced food insecurity in 2020, up from 35 million in 2019, while more than 42 million face the same condition this year. A new study also indicates that one-third of Americans planning to retire now say the pandemic has delayed their retirement. Artists are faring badly, along with other vulnerable and unprotected portions of the population.

Art Against Drones

May 21, 2021 Kathy Kelly, Toward Freedom Resist! Art, Drones, Surveillance

At the High Line, a popular tourist attraction in New York City, visitors to the West side of Lower Manhattan ascend above street level to what was once an elevated freight train line and is now a tranquil and architecturally intriguing promenade. Here walkers enjoy a park-like openness; with fellow strollers they experience urban beauty, art and the wonder of comradeship.

When Will Minneapolis Start Listening To The Whole Community?

April 20, 2021 Eric Ortiz, Medium. Create! Art, Community, George Floyd, Minneapolis

Minneapolis didn’t get here alone. The actions and decisions of many people created the challenges facing the city. Solving them will require the work of many people, too. But before anything changes, people need to start listening to each other. Imagine if Derek Chauvin had listened to George Floyd and let him breathe. A 46-year-old man and father of five would not have died. Minneapolis would not have burned. The city would not have had over $1 billion in damage. And communities would not have had to deal with the fallout of the most expensive civil disorder in U.S. history. After Floyd died in police custody on Memorial Day at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, the site of his death turned into a memorial to honor Floyd’s life.

Scheer Intelligence: The Political Cartoon Is Dead

March 26, 2021 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Art, Cartoons, Creative Resistance, Politics

Political cartoons have helped us make sense of the world in which we live since they first appeared in the 18th century–though some, like the iconic cartoonist Mr. Fish, argue the art predates even newspapers. Although it’s an art form that is in many ways dying out, there are a precious few political cartoonists out there that still understand the importance of speaking truth to power through insightful humor and visual commentary. On this week’s installment of “Scheer Intelligence,” the inimitable Dwayne Booth (AKA Mr. Fish) joins host Robert Scheer to talk about his life, his passion, his art, and...

On Contact: Art – Transformative, Transcendent, Revolutionary

March 14, 2021 Chris Hedges, RT. Resistance Report Art, Chris Hedges, Mr. Fish

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to artist and cartoonist Dwayne Booth, aka Mr. Fish, about the cultural requirement for revolution. Mr. Fish's new book is ‘Nobody Left – Conversations with Famous Radicals, Progressives and Cultural Icons About the End of Dissent, Revolution and Liberalism in America’. Among those featured are: Joan Baez, Wavy Gravy, Lewis Lapham, Paul Krassner, Tariq Ali, Robert Scheer, Dennis Kucinich, Norman Mailer, Howard Zinn, Abbie Hoffman, Jon Stewart, and Lenny Bruce.

Architects Build Society’s Cage On National Mall In Bold Statement On Racial Strife

September 1, 2020 By John Zangas, DC Media Group. Resist! Art, Black America, Legal System, Racism, State Violence

A group of five designers at the internationally known SmithGroup Architecture firm set up a metallic cubic structure on the National Mall to frame the struggle of Black Lives in America. The public display titled “Society’s Cage” is a 14 foot cube pavilion timed for the 57th anniversary of the March On Washington and is made from the hidden components of sky scrapers. It depicts an architect’s visualization of ongoing racial inequality in the United States and asks the question, “What is the value of Black life in America?” The cube is constructed from 484 vertical rusted conduit pipes attached to a large metal plate, supported by four large metal supports on a pavilion, resembling a cage. One in four bars are connected to the floor, representing the rate Blacks will be incarcerated. A four-part, 8 minute, 46 second music composition, the same time length of time of George Floyd’s tragic murder, sets the mood.

Street Artists Rise To The Occasion

August 13, 2020 Paul Von Blum, Progressive.org. Resist! Art, Mural, Police violence, Rebellion2020

The massive protests in Los Angeles in response to the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and so many others organized through the Black Lives Matter movement generated an outpouring of engaging and provocative visual artworks. Open-air installations, murals, posters, “street art” works, and similar efforts abound, many in my Venice/Mar Vista neighborhood where I regularly jog. I participated in many of those protests and saw some of these efforts personally. Cumulatively, these, and similar works throughout the United States and the world, have added to the burgeoning tradition of political art—a movement that has inspired social activists for centuries.

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