January 2007
Benefit show for Justseeds
Posted January 26, 2007 by in Events
Regular readers will know that Justseeds is one of our favorite projects, and a major inspiration. Last month, Justseeds faced near-collapse when its fulfillment company suddenly went bankrupt. A month later, VR members have joined with over a dozen artists around the country to transform the pioneering radical art distro into a nation, artist-owned cooperative. We think the potential of such a project is unlimited. We're organizing a benefit gallery show on February 8th to help raise funds to build the infrastructure for this new radical art service:
Thursday, February 8, 2007, 6-10pm
Ad Hoc Art (www.adhocart.org)
49 Bogart St., Brooklyn NY 11206
Justseeds.org and Visual Resistance present a one-night benefit art show and sale at Ad Hoc Art, Thursday February 8, 2007.
There will be an exhibition of artists supporting the transformation of Justseeds into an artist owned and run collective. Art by Justseeds artists and friends will also be on the sale, with prices starting at $4. The show will also be the NYC release of the Street Art Workers (SAW) poster project.
The show will feature over 30 artists from NYC and around the country, including: Swoon, Chris Stain, Josh MacPhee, RB827, Christopher Cardinale, Michael De Feo, Kristine Virsis, Elbow-Toe, GoreB, Imminent Disaster, k.see, Nicolas Lampert, Meredith Stern, Cristy Road, Pete Yahnke, and many more.
Along with the exhibition of the above artists will be the NYC release of the Street Art Workers’ Land and Globalization poster project, a collection of 25 posters representing artists from 10 different countries and over 20 different cities.
All proceeds from the show will go toward getting the Justseeds Artists Cooperative off the ground. Posters, books, and zines start at $4, with most Artwork priced between $10 – 30.
About Justseeds
Justseeds was founded as a radical art distribution service by Josh MacPhee in 1997. In nearly 10 years of operations, Justseeds became a crucial resource for radical artists and activists throughout the US.
In December 2006, the company that was filling Justseeds’ online orders (including hosting the website, processing payments, and shipping products), unexpectedly went out of business, immediately shutting down its online store. On top of shutting down distribution, the fulfillment house owed Justseeds upwards of $10,000 (most of that money in turn was owed directly to artists and writers who sold items on the site).
Now, like the proverbial phoenix, Justseeds is rising: a national network of artists are banding together to create a self-managed cooperative that will help spread radical art around the world.
Call for Art: Support Jeffrey Luers
Posted January 19, 2007 by in Calls for Art
Jeff "Free" Luers' support network needs help creating new graphics for a sticker campaign. Free is a political prisoner currently serving a 22-year sentence for arson at an SUV dealership in 2000.
We are going to be printing more stickers soon, and we would like a new design - with your help. Please send us your submissions by February 3rd, preferably by email in an attached jpg file scan ( freefreenow@mutualaid.org) or they can be mailed to Jeff's Support Network, PO Box 3: Eugene, OR 97440.The design must be in black and white and incorporate the website name www.freejeffluers.org and the name Jeffrey 'Free' Luers (or leave room for us to add in later) and the image should be related to support of Jeff and political prisoners. The stickers will be approximately 2.5 inches x 4.25 inches.
To see previous designs, go to
1. http://freefreenow.org/drooker.jpg
2. http://images.indymedia.org/imc/portland/jeffsticker.jpg
3. http://freefreenow.org/pix/june05sticker.jpg
Again, the deadline for submissions is February 3, 2007. The artist selected will get recognition and a big stack of free stickers. Please contact us with any questions at freefreenow@mutualaid.org
Thanks so much again for all of your support!
-Friends of Jeffrey Free Luers
http://www.freefreenow.org
Free's Defense Fund; PO Box 3; Eugene, OR 97440
You can read more about Jeff Luers at freefreenow.org
Memorial for pedestrians killed by cars
Posted January 10, 2007 by in Art & Politics
Right: A memorial for Peter Hornbeck, a friend of a friend. Pete was killed January 10, 2004, when a driver going close to 100 miles an hour ran him down in the intersection of Park Ave. & 96th St. The driver abandoned the car and fled the city. He was later caught and sentenced to several years in prison.
I didn't know Pete but I know a friend of his. We worked together on this memorial and installed it during yesterday's second annual memorial bike ride for cyclists and pedestrians killed in New York.
After 19 months of installing ghost bikes for slain cyclists around New York, this is the first memorial we've created for a pedestrian. In 2006, 135 pedestrians and at least 14 cyclists were killed by motor vehicles in the five boroughs.
We tried to come up a simple visual icon (like the white bikes), but couldn't come up with any one symbol that seemed appropriate. In Bogota, Colombia, a simple black star is stenciled onto the sidewalk, but that didn't seem right. The traditional "chalk outline" seemed too gruesome. Suggestions are welcome. Email us at visual.resistance@gmail.com.
Shadow Theater Tour- Going Nowhere
Posted January 6, 2007 by in Events
Radical Artists Eric Ruin and Morgan Andrews come to NYC to perform their latest shadow puppet creations on January 9th, at Bluestockings Bookstore 172 Allen St and 10th at ABC No Rio 156 Rivington St where they will perform with Alixa & Naima of Climbing Poetree and Beth Nixon of Ramshackle Enterprises.
GOING NOWHERE, the debut shadow puppet collaboration between Erik Ruin and Morgan F.P. Andrews, journeys through a dozen short scenes framed within a question: "If you had to give up all of your senses, except one, which would you keep?" Things are not as they seem to be, with dissolving architecture, elusive mushrooms and spray-paint landscapes that refuse to stay still. A song from Three Penny Opera and stories by John Cage offer glimpses at the lives of undercover pirates, daydreaming butterflies, flag-burning patriots, and the linguistically tortured wife of a former New England mayor. Lovely soundtrack by Minneapolis duo Dreamland Faces, plus live music by local improvisers.
Erik and Morgan have been politically and creatively active in the various communities they have lived in over the years. I met erik when I stayed at his house in New Orleans during Mardi Gras years ago. I was inspired by his work and was glad to submit my own stencils to his zine Trouble in Mind. He has been active in every city he has lived in, as a member of the TrumbellPlex in Detroit, an organizer and contributor to so many projects like the Street Art Workers (SAW) poster project, and the upcoming Prison Poster Project. He's been the director of shadow puppetry for Barebones Productions' annual Halloween Extravaganza in St. Paul for the past two years, and is infamous for his papercut projections in Liberty Cabbage Theater's “An Olive on the Seder Plate.” Erik has performed at the Puppetropolis, Black Sheep Puppet Festival, and Philadelphia Fringe Festivals, and last year he pulled his show “How Can You Own?” around Europe in a bicycle cart. He recently co-edited the forthcoming book Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority (AK Press, 2007).
Morgan F.P. Andrews is a Philadelphia-based, Massachusetts-raised printmaker, puppeteer and electronic folk musician. He recently collaborated on a shadow puppet project with world-class juggler Sara Felder, and has toured dozens of puppet shows around North America and Brazil with his own Shoddy Puppet Company. Morgan curates an ongoing series of events called “Puppet Uprisings” in Philadelphia, and in 2006 co-organized the RadiCakaLacky Puppetry Convergence in North Carolina, and the Black Sheep Puppet Festival in Pittsburgh. Much of Morgan’s current dream-like puppet work dissolves the boundaries between performer and spectator, and employs random elements in its execution. Every year he takes a few weeks off to work with the Bread & Puppet Theater.
If you aren't in NYC you can catch these two "travelling via chinatown bus & regional transit lines- to a city near you?"
JANUARY PUPPET TOUR DATES
6th & 7th- Philadelphia - Puppet Uprising with the Missoula Oblongata at the Rotunda,
4012 Walnut St. 8pm
11th- Troy, NY - Teddy Bear Picnic, 51 3rd St. 7pm
13th- Montpelier,VT - Langdon Street Café, 4 Langdon St. 7pm
14th- Amherst, MA - Food For Thought Books, 105 N. Pleasant St. 5pm
15th- Providence, RI - with B. Shur at Building 16, 39 Manton Ave, 8pm
18th- Boston, MA- Infrasound, 7 Sherman St. #2X (at Sullivan Sq.)
19th & 20th- Portland, ME- Casco Bay Cabaret at Space, 538 Congress St. 7:30pm on the
19th. 1pm-on the 20th
23- 28 BALTIMORE/DC/RICHMOND/CHAPEL HILL- T.B.A.
Memorial Ride, Sunday 1/7/07
Posted January 4, 2007 by in Events
Visual Resistance has been working hard with Time's Up on the second annual memorial ride for cyclists killed in 2006. The rides are moving and powerful. Please come out for at least part of it if you're in town:
Last year hundreds of cyclists gathered as a group on the first Sunday of the year to mourn for all those who perished while riding a bike on the streets of NYC in 2005. On this day bikers rode in from the far reaches of every borough, stopping and paying respect at every crash site.
Inspired by the Visual Resistance ghost bike project which uses memorial installations as reminders of tragedies that took place on otherwise anonymous street corners and as a quiet statement in support of a biker's right to safe travel, the Memorial Ride seeks to bring bikers together to honor our fellow cyclists while bringing attention to the fact that all NYC bikers travel the same unsafe streets and face the same risks every day. And not all of us make it home...
Join us this year as we ride in honor of all the cyclists who were killed on the streets of NYC in 2006. We ride together in love and respect for our friends and loved ones, our grandfathers, husbands, and brothers, our sons and daughters, our wives, sisters, cousins, neighbors, co-workers, teammates, and classmates who were all needlessly struck down. We ride together in outrage and anger, sharing their stories--those that made the papers and those that didn't-- recognizing the fact that none of these deaths had to happen.
Ride with us. Please bring flowers, love, and rage.
Come to one memorial or ride with us all day. Check back on 1/6 and early morning 1/7 for weather updates, cancellations, and rescheduling.
Ride Schedule
Queens/Brooklyn/Manhattan Route
09:45-Meet @ Jamaica Center stop on the E or J trains.
Group will ride to Simpson Memorial together.
10:00-Frank C. Simpson, 174th St & Linden Blvd, Queens.
11:30-Jose Mora, North Conduit & McKinley, East New York
12:00-Shamar Porter, Linden Blvd & Williams, Brownsville
12:30-Keith Powell, Ave L & 93rd, Canarsie
01:00-Donna Goodson, Rockaway Pkway & Ave. D, New Lots
02:00-Bronx Jon, South 4th Street & Roebling,Williamsburg
02:45-Derek Lake, Houston Street & LaGuardia, West Village
Bronx/ Upper Manhattan Route
09:00-Meet @ Pelham Bay Subway stop. Last stop on the 6.
Group will ride to City Island Memorial together.
10:00-Ivan Morales, City Island, Bronx
12:30-Uptown Meet-up: 145th and 8th Ave, Harlem
12:45-Jamel Lewis, 145th St & 8th Ave, Harlem
01:30-Memorial for Pedestrians killed on the streets, E 96th and Park Ave.
02:00-Memorial for anonymous woman, 66th Central Park Traverse
02:45-Derek Lake, Houston Street & LaGuardia, West Village
The two group rides will converge @ the Derek Lake memorial.
02:45-Derek Lake, Houston Street & LaGuardia, West Village
03:15-Reginald Chan, 3rd ave & 17th street
03:45-Darren Lewis, 29th & 9th ave.
04:15-Dr. Carl Henry Nacht, Greenway & 38th street
04:45-Eric Ng, Greenway @ West & Clarkson
Ride will finish @ 5:15 at the Memorial for Unnamed Cyclists
(northwest corner of Lafayette and Houston Streets)
Propaganda III World Tour
Posted January 4, 2007 by in Art & Politics
Start Soma a gallery based in San Francisco is calling for work for the first global, peer-to-peer, open source art show- PROPAGANDA III. They are inviting artists from around the world to create political artwork for the third installment of the PROPAGANDA art show that began in 2003.
This year Start Soma launches PROPAGANDA III, a political poster art show that will tour the world through 2008 with dozens of one day art shows worldwide - the current schedule includes stops throughout North America, South America, Australia, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. There will be no censorship of any sort. Expressed political viewpoints, be they left, right, or center, will be displayed side-by-side, both online AND in the traveling show.
Submission Guidelines:
• 18 x 24 inch posters (45.72 cm x 60.96 cm)
• All posters must have overt political content. The nature of this content is up to the individual artist.
• Submitted posters must be produced in multiples - this includes stencils + digital prints, as well as offset, silkscreen, linocut, woodcut, and photocopies.
• Include artist name, country, and URL in the bottom right-hand corner of every poster.
• Submit three copies of each poster - one for the traveling exhibition, one for permanent archiving, and one spare in case the traveling poster is lost or damaged. Unfortunately, none of the posters can be returned.
• The final collection will be donated to the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles which houses the largest collection of Post World War II political graphics in the United States.
Send your posters to the START SOMA GALLERY by March 15, 2007:
START SOMA
672 South Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94110
Send digital versions of artwork to info@startsoma.com with the subject header PROPAGANDA III SUBMISSION - they will be creating an online gallery of all the work included in the traveling exhibition.
Start Soma will also continue to add galleries and venues worldwide to the traveling schedule. If you run a space and are interested in hosting the show contact Start Soma for details.
If you have any questions, please contact John Doffing via john@startsoma.com.
