April 2010
Protests in Mexico City to demand Justice for Bety and Tyri // Video of our Dissapeared
Posted April 30, 2010 by santi in Art & Politics
Protests in Mexico City to demand Justice for Caravan in Oaxaca and to end the Para-military attacks on Autonomous indigenous communities.
Yesterday at 4:00pm we gathered downtown Mexico City to demand Justice for the murders of Beatriz Alberta Cariño Trujillo and Tyri Antero Jaakkola, assure the immediate presentation of our disappeared comrades and an end to the para-militarization of Mexico. The following pictures are what went on there.
Domes for Haiti Benefit-NYC Tonight!
Posted April 29, 2010 by k_c_
GEOMETRY OF SHELTER: A Benefit for Domes for Haiti
Thursday, April 29, 8-10pm
Sugarland
221 N 9th St (btn Driggs & Roebling)
Brooklyn, NY
This art auction / film screening / musical performance is only $5 to attend, and all proceeds go toward this groundbreaking project.
Domes for Haiti is a grassroots project based out of Brooklyn building ten 17' diameter portable pre-fabricated geodesic domes to send to Haiti to provide transitional hurricane resistant shelters to people left homeless by the earthquake. They will be delivering the domes personally and teaching the recipients how to assemble the domes on sites that are in need of safe and solid shelter. Each dome is large enough to comfortably house at least 10 kids and shelter many more in emergencies. DFH is also sending a tool kit with each dome to help with the rebuilding efforts there. They hope to also bring enough money to hire Haitians at a living wage to do the prep work on the dome sites. Please come out for a fun evening of art, music and film to support this project.
Screening of recent footage from Haiti by filmmaker Courtney Sheetz
A silent art auction featuring many fine artist's work including:
Swoon, Imminent Disaster, Lopi LaRoe, Tod Seelie, James Vogel, Ryan O'Connor, Saul Melman, Tianna Kennedy, Tony Bones, Zito, Kevin Capliki, Ray Cross, Black Label Bike Club, Ernie Sandidge,Fred Attenborough, Syd London, Lauren Simkinburke, Thom Markee, Dan Paul Roberts, Brett Hurley Lord, David Seigel, Serra Bothwell, Katelan Foisy, Elizabeth Bentley, Angie Kaylor, A'yen Tran and many more to be announced!
Performances by piano-wielding singer/songwriters: Dan Paul and Brett Lord
Special Guest- OUTMusic Award Winner: Rachael Sage
Drawing All the Time: Week 27
Posted April 28, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Yeah, I admit it. I draw birds every once in a while.
Armed attack on the Support and Solidarity Caravan to the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca
Posted April 28, 2010 by santi
(Español Abajo)
Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca. April 27, 2010
To the news media
To the peoples of Mexico
To the peoples of the world
To the peoples of Oaxaca
Armed attack on the Support and Solidarity Caravan to the Autonomous
Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca
CONTEXT:
Yesterday, an announcement was sent to the news media about the Caravan
headed for the Triqui Region in our state of Oaxaca. Caravan
participants include members of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of
Oaxaca (APPO), Section 22 of the teachers’ union, Oaxacan Voices
Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL), CACTUS, members of MULT-I
(Independent Triqui Movement of Unification and Struggle), as well as
international observers.
Progress on the Project
Posted April 28, 2010 by roger_peet in Art & Politics
Here's some pictures from the ongoing Large Print Project in Portland. Icky, Pete and Roger have begun carving a 3' x 10' block of lino to make a counterpart to the Taring Padi print that Roger brought back from Indonesia a couple months ago. 
Wallpaper Show & Zine Release
Posted April 28, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Events
THE ZINE CIRCLE
a winter project of jen cooney, mary mack & tree:::we got together biweekly with a rotating group of woman-identified peeps to make stuff, eat snacks, and keep the winter blues at bay. lovingly printed in full color with hand-silkscreened covers
Call-out of Support for the 2010 Justseeds Portfolio: Resourced
Posted April 27, 2010 by k_c_ in Justseeds Collective Projects
Justseeds is in the middle of an ambitious project and needs your help. We are producing our second handmade portfolio: Resourced. Resourced is a collection of handmade prints tackling issues of climate change, resource extraction, and environmental justice. It follows our 2008 portfolio: Voices From Outside: Artists Against the Prison Industrial Complex. At a time when the world community is in dialogue about how to handle the human impact on the planet, this new project will inject fresh visual ideas into the conversation. We are in need of financial and material support to actualize this project.
Please read the following letter for instructions on how you can donate, or pre-purchase a portfolio. We are also in need of website design assistance. If you are capable of offering any labor or services please email us:
blog (at) justseeds.org
Seen on the streets of Montreal
Posted April 27, 2010 by Jesse_Purcell in Street Art & Graffiti
MQ-1 Predator drones kill civilians.
This great wall of screen printed street posters is up around the corner from my house.
Eric García: Activist Printmaker and Cartoonist
Posted April 27, 2010 by jmacphee in Art & Politics
We got an email a couple weeks back from Eric García, a Chicano activist printmaker whose work really resonates with a lot of what we've been doing with Justseeds. He's also a painter and political cartoonist who explores North American history from the perspective of the underdogs. His site is South Valley Art, and you can check out more of his print work, his comics HERE, and his paintings HERE. The print to the right is a great take on Carlos Cortéz, and click below for a couple more images...
Mexico City: 3 DIY Art shows at the ZAM
Posted April 27, 2010 by santi
Mexico City: 3 DIY Art shows at the ZAM
I've been away from computer access for most of these last months so I didn't get much of a chance to blog; But here it is some pictures from our last 3 Art shows at our Social Center: Zona Autonoma Makhnovtchina (ZAM) in Mexico city.
Scratchboards by Antonio Valverde Show: 04/22/10
This school is freedom - a new print "Blackboard"
Posted April 26, 2010 by bec_young in In the News
One of my new prints, Blackboard, is based on a poem by Will Copeland called "Freedom Schooling," in which he elaborates on a vision for education that sparks the imagination. Schools are an intense issue in Detroit, with many concerned parents choosing charter schools over the problem-ridden public schools, while other parents can't afford that option. Detroit faces a 50% dropout rate among teenagers, and lack of funds has caused Detroit to close over 50 schools in the last three years. Now, the school district head Bob Bobb has announced the closure of 45 more schools in conjunction with the mayor's plan to dismantle select neighborhoods in an effort to downsize the city. Raising inspired, knowledgeable, empowered young people is extremely important for Detroit, as well as all cities in crises, and I hope this poster puts the shine back on the idea that quality education is a possibility, now and infinitely. Here's a sweet video of Will performing Freedom Schooling.
Providence Talk & Screening April 27 & 28
Posted April 26, 2010 by dara_g in Events
I will be in Providence, RI this week doing a talk on Tuesday (April 27, 6:30pm
Michael P. Metcalf Auditorium, Chace Center, RISD Museum, 20 North Main Street) and Paige Sarlin and I have organized a screening (Wednesday April 28, 2010, 9:30 PM, Cable Car Cinema, 204 South Main Street) which Josh MacPhee designed the poster for. More info on our screening below. Also event invite HERE.
JBbTC 3: Liberation Support Movement pt.2
Posted April 26, 2010 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers
Part two of the covers from the LSM Information Network, some of these are less graphically powerful than last weeks, but there are still a couple gems:
Bristol IWW May Day Party
Posted April 26, 2010 by k_c_ in Events
Our comrades in Bristol are having a party this May Day. We met some of these folks during their trip to NYC for their Bristol Radical History Project presentations, good blokes! And check out their good taste in art!
images from Printervention show - Chicago
Posted April 25, 2010 by nicolas_lampert
Photos from the Printervention show at the Chicago Tourism Center Gallery. The show is a series of prints by artists who visualized what the WPA might look like if it was today. Three artists from the Justseeds Artist's Cooperative included work - Mary Tremonte, Colin Matthes, and Nicolas Lampert whose image "Books Are Weapons" can be found here.
Great work is found throughout the show, including a mobile silk screening cart by Mike Slattery.
Protests in Japan Against "Nike" Park
Posted April 24, 2010 by jmacphee in In the News
Our friends in Japan have spent months protesting the purchase of Miyashita Park in Tokyo by Nike, who intend to turn the park, now a home for many of Tokyo's homeless, it into a giant advertisement for their brand. Info about the struggle is hard to get in English, but there are a number of sites with bits and pieces, as well as tons of photos of great protest art and cultural interventions. The main protest site in HERE, and there are other photos and info HERE and HERE. A short 4 minute doc about the struggle can be viewed by clicking below:
Justeeds Portfolio 2010: Resourced-Earth Day Preview
Posted April 24, 2010 by k_c_
Here are some pictures from our Justseeds Earth Day exhibit. We used the occasion to preview 14 new designs for the upcoming Justseeds 2010 Portfolio: Resourced. The one night exhibit was at the Times Up! Brooklyn bike space, 99 S6th St.
Pete Yahnke and Gaia's contributions
Women Hold Up Half the Sky
Posted April 23, 2010 by jmacphee in Posters & Prints
Lincoln Cushing has curated another great political poster show out in the Bay Area. For those in SF, Oakland, or Berkeley, check out Women Hold Up Half the Sky: Bay Area posters of the 1970s and 1980s. It's on through June 1st at Local 123, 2049 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley. You can find all the details HERE, and for those not fortunate to be able to see the actual show, there is a virtual gallery of the posters HERE. The image to the right is from the UC Berkeley poster workshop in 1970.
Venezuela Political Graffiti
Posted April 23, 2010 by jmacphee in In the News
Last week the NY Times ran a decent short piece of political graffiti in Venezuela, well worth the read, HERE. They also posted a slide show of images HERE.
Photo: Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Rondos website
Posted April 22, 2010 by icky in Inspiration
The Rondos were a punk band from the late 1970s from Rotterdam. They have a pretty thorough website documenting not only the band, but the many collective projects that the band members (and their wider circle) were involved in. The first I heard of the Rondos was the song A Black and White Statement on a bootleg compilation a number of years ago. The musical was minimal, angry, and incredibly sharp (ouch!). The lyrics were about the bankruptcy of culture and going out on the street and spray-painting... "no oilpaint illusion/ no three colour pollution/no remote controlled artist/ no culture sick and pissed/ a black and white statement/destroy the entertainment/graffiti and aerosol/art in revolution calls". I was smitten.
Years later in Amsterdam I was shown the Red Rat comic books, made by the singer, and also Rood Rotterdam... a DIY book about Dutch left wing and anti-fascist activism in Rotterdam in the 1930s that was also produced by members of the Rondos.
I keep revisiting this site, finding new gems, listening to their music, and looking at all the great (and highly political) art, graphics, and publications that came out of this collective of people. The website is in dutch (except for their bio), so only pretty pictures for all of us non-dutch speakers! (There's been a reissue of their music both on LP and CD in Europe (LP from Red Wig) and in the US on PM press.)
rondos.nl
Happy Earth Day from John Fekner
Posted April 22, 2010 by jmacphee in Film & Video
John Fekner just passed this video along to us, a remix of a piece from 1981. To read more info, go HERE.
Recent Press Roundup
Posted April 22, 2010 by jmacphee in In the News
Justseeds and related-projects keep popping up around the web, here's a recent list of activity:
1. Spectres of Liberty (Dara Greenwald, Josh MacPhee, and Olivia Robinson) just had an interview published on the website of the Finger Lakes Experimental Film Festival. You can read it HERE.
2. Mary Tasillo did a nice write-up on the presence of Justseeds at Philagrafika on the Printeresting blog. You can read it HERE.
3. Ryan found a NY Times story about immigration illustrated by a photo that contains signs created with Claude Moller's stencil that was printed in both Stencil Pirates and Cut & Paint (wow, talk about meta-media). Nice catch! You can see the story HERE. The photo was taken by Joshua Lott.
4. I just found a very strange video presentation of my book Stencil Pirates on Vimeo. It appears to be produced by a Chilean, Javiera Andrade, for an exhibition. Weird, weird, and weird. Click below to check it out...
More H&M Protests
Posted April 22, 2010 by jmacphee in Art & Politics
My friend Charlie just sent along this follow up to last week's post about creative attacks on H&M for their support of Israeli apartheid. French activists dressed up like IDF soldiers occupied the H&M in downtown Paris. More info HERE and HERE.
Earthday is Everyday Bike Ride & Justseeds Eco-Art Show
Posted April 21, 2010 by k_c_ in Justseeds Collective Projects
Earth day bike ride starting 7pm from Union Square Park South. Dress in green with respect for the planet! Festive musical ride will end at a 8pm, BBQ and dance party at Time’s Up Brooklyn space and East River Bar at 97 South 6th Street, Williamsburg. Bring food to share.
Thursday, April 22, 2010 7pm BIKE RIDE Meet at Union Square Park South, Manhattan. 8pm AFTER-PARTY Justseeds Eco Art Show & BBQ
The Justseeds Collective will also be exhibiting members prints of an ecological & environmental nature following the Times Up Earth Day bicycle ride. Included in the exhibit will be previews of the upcoming Justseeds portfolio Resourced.
Resourced is a portfolio of handmade posters designed by over 30 different artists, including Chris Stain, Gaia, Armsrock, Design Action Collective, and many Justseeds Members. Justseeds is an artists’ owned and operated cooperative that is dedicated to producing socially engaged artworks. Prints and projects can be viewed at Justseeds.org
Go to Times Up for more information on the ride.
Christopher Cardinale Book Release Party
Posted April 21, 2010 by jmacphee in Events
Our close friend Christopher Cardinale has been working for more than two years on his first graphic novel, and it is finally done and being released! Info below, please come celebrate!
Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush
Christopher Cardinale and Luis Alberto Urrea
Book Release Party
Wed., April 28TH, 7:30PM
Word Bookstore
Greenpoint, Brooklyn
126 Franklin St. at the corner of Milton St.
(Two blocks from the Greenpoint Ave. stop on the G train)
Partisan Memorials in the former Yugoslavia
Posted April 21, 2010 by icky in Art & Politics
Here is a selection of some great photos of modernist memorials to partisans in the former Yugoslavia from Form und Zweck Zwei fanzine. I certainly can't say it better then the German socialist architect who assembled the photo essay:
Anton van Dalen online
Posted April 20, 2010 by jmacphee in Art & Politics
One of my favorite old school stencil artists, Anton van Dalen, has a (relatively) new website up, which collects a lot of his work, including an incredible selection of his crisp, direct stencil icons. Van Dalen begin stenciling in the Lower East Side of NYC in 1980, where he lived, and built a library of images around what was happening in the neighborhood, including a massive wave of gentrification. He has made some of the most iconic images that have come out of housing struggles in New York in the past 25 years. Check out van Dalen and his website HERE.
Videofreex Screening Tonight
Posted April 19, 2010 by jmacphee in Events
Videofreex
Curated by Dara Greenwald
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 7:30pm
Light Industry, 177 Livingston Street, Brooklyn
Light Industry presents a survey of work by seminal guerrilla television outfit Videofreex, featuring a number of newly restored tapes. The screening will be introduced by Dara Greenwald, who assisted with the acquisition and preservation of this collection by Video Data Bank.
JBbTC 2: Liberation Support Movement pt.1
Posted April 19, 2010 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers
This week I want to share part one of a collection of book and pamphlet covers from the Liberation Support Movement (LSM), an organization that primarily did solidarity work with African national liberation movements in the 1970s. Detailed information about LSM is pretty sparce, but it appears they were founded by Don Barnett in the early 1970s, originating in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. At some point in the mid to late 70s LSM moved to Oakland, CA, likely after Barnett's death in 1975. I believe their primary activity was direct financial and material support of liberation movements, but they also had a propaganda wing. Most of the pamphlets and books were published under the "LSM Information Center" imprint, and are either first person accounts of liberation struggles or analysis, largely written by the leadership of those struggles, or Barnett himself.
Parachute Project: Milwaukee
Posted April 18, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in Street Art & Graffiti
Must be Milwaukee to have an art show at the site of an old beer factory. Last Friday night (4/16/10), numerous Milwaukee-based artists did projects and exhibited work at the Pabst Factory, which closed down a decade ago and is now a series of abandoned factory buildings that are slowly being renovated for better and worse.
The Parachute Project "Sweeping The Pool of Light" event was organized by Makeal Flammini, Ella Dwyer, and Jes Myszka, and fans of Justseeds might recognize mud stencils by Jesse Graves, a shopping cart lounge chair by Colin Matthes, and Laura Klein projecting 16 mm films inside a beer hall. The show made for a great evening and reconfirmed the notion that rust belt cities are loaded with creative potential and locations to do art shows outside the confines of the traditional gallery setting.
Below are some photos I took of the factory and some of the projects created for the the one-day show.
Mapping of Texas Private Prisons
Posted April 18, 2010 by k_c_
Got this from a friend that does Inside Books Project in Austin. Its for those of you that like maps and hate prisons.
We are pleased to announce the launch of our new interactive map of Texas' private prisons. Texas is home to more than 70 for-profit private prisons, jails, and detention centers, and Texas Prison Bid'ness covers the details of this sordid industry.The new map gives readers a chance to see which private prison corporations operate the most prisons in Texas. The map also includes contact information for each facility, and the "facility pages" and "company pages" will track all our upcoming posts related to scandals and news involving specific private prison companies and their facilities.
The map was developed by Chadwick Wood at Coffeeshopped.com and has many additional features for people researching the private prison industry in Texas.
"On Brecht" Exhibit at NYC's Brecht Forum
Posted April 17, 2010 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
Friday April 2nd was the opening events of On Brecht at NYC's Brecht Forum. The exhibit is open Monday-Friday from 2 PM – 7 PM until April 28. I hope to get over there and check out Uruguayan printmaker Antonio Frasconi's portraits in the exhibit. I got to view some of Frasconi's incredibly powerful prints a few years back at The Disappeared "Los Desaparecidos", when it was shown at NYC's Museo del Barrio. Check out the "On Brecht" exhibit at:
Brecht Forum 451 West Street (btn Bank & Bethune St New York, NY
Certain Days Calendar Call for Submissions
Posted April 17, 2010 by jmacphee in Calls for Art
It's that time of year again, people are pulling together work for their 2011 calendars. One of our favorites, Certain Days, just sent out this call for artwork. Give it a read and send something in!:
Call for Artwork Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar, 2011 Deadline: May 1st, 2010 Art in honour of political prisoners and prisoners of war and their struggles, work and victories The Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar collective (www.certaindays.org) is excited to celebrate our tenth calendar (2011), which will be released in fall 2010. Over the years, we’ve turned our attention to various themes: grassroots organizing, the legacy of the Black Panther Party, and indigenous resistance. For our tenth anniversary, we are assembling a calendar that returns to the topic of political prisoners and prisoners of war (PP/POWs), and examines their struggles, victories and ongoing work.
Justseeds at the NYC Anarchist Bookfair
Posted April 16, 2010 by jmacphee in Events
Molly, Erik, and I will be at the NYC Anarchist Bookfair today, April 17th!!!
Please come out and say hi and check it out. Here is the poster I designed for the bookfair, and I believe there will be posters and t-shirt versions of it available tomorrow!
H&M vs. Palestine Ad Intervention
Posted April 16, 2010 by jmacphee in Street Art & Graffiti
My friend Charlie just sent along this link to images of a new ad intervention against H&M on behalf of the Campaign to Boycott and Divest from Israel. Check out more photos HERE.
Printervention // Opening in Chicago
Posted April 16, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Events
Following the success of last years' Version Festival program: the Bridgeport WPA pilot project, we have asked artists from around the country to create works that raise awareness of social and political issues of our day. Printervention debuts April 16, 2010 at the The Chicago Tourism Center Gallery and continues through Version Festival to include workshops, a mobile silkscreen cart, a window display at The Whistler and more. For more information and a complete schedule of events and participants please visit www.printervention.org
Several Justseeds Artists are in this show! Leftover prints from this exhibition will travel to the US Social Forum in Detroit June 21-26.
World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth
Posted April 16, 2010 by k_c_ in Events
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World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth
Cochabamba, Bolivia
April 19-22, 2010
From the Guardian.co.uk:
...presidents, politicians, intellectuals, scientists and Hollywood stars will join more than 15,000 indigenous people and thousands of grass roots groups from more than 100 countries to debate climate change in one of the world's poorest nations.The World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth which opens next week in the small Bolivian town of Cochabamba, will have no direct bearing on the UN climate talks being conducted by 192 governments. But Bolivian President Evo Morales says it will give a voice to the poorest people of the world and encourage governments to be far more ambitious following the failure of the Copenhagen summit.
E X P O - Review by Lisa Radon
Posted April 15, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
A review of my recent exhibition in Portland can be found here: Ultra
Thu April 22nd Graphic Artshow - Scratchboards by Antonio Valverde - Mexico City
Posted April 15, 2010 by santi
GRAPHIC ARTSHOW OPENING
Scratchboards by Antonio Valverde
Thurdsay April 22nd
7pm
RESIST THIS! IVAW hip hop show to free Marc Hall
Posted April 15, 2010 by nicolas_lampert
A night for a jailed Iraq War Veteran and war resister...
A night of cultural and political resistance...
A night to free Marc Hall!
When: April 16, 2010 7pm - 12AM
Where: Decima Musa, 1901 S. Loomis, Chicago, IL 60608-3020
Who: Local War Resisters, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Civilian-Soldier Alliance, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and YOU!!!
What: Resist This! A night of cultural and political resistance to free Marc Hall.
Hip-Hop: Chicago Hip-Hop Artist Ideologists, Dreamtek, and G-spot
Why: Marc Hall an Iraq War Veteran is currently sitting in an Army jail in Kuwait because he dared to express his opinions about the stop loss policy in a rap song and filed a complaint for not being treated for PTSD. The Army is planning a General Court Martial which could potentially send Hall to prison for years. Please help Iraq Veterans Against the War, Courage to Resist, Veterans for Peace and the family and friends of Marc Hall to raise funds to send Marc's lawyer and doctor to Kuwait so that he will have a reasonable defense at this court martial. We are demanding that the Army drop all charges against Hall and give him an Honorable Discharge. To learn more about Marc: www.stoplossmusic.org
Donation: $10 donation at the door (No one turned away)
collage of the week (27)
Posted April 15, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in Justseeds Collective Projects
family with meat
Walls: Price vs. Cost
Posted April 15, 2010 by jmacphee in Art & Politics
I've been way behind on blogging these days, and rad things keep slipping by before I can post them up here. My friend Sam Sebren had a cool art piece about Rachel Corrie's murder in Palestine which accompanied a theatre production about her, but I missed the date and didn't get it up here. But, no matter, I can still post the piece now. It's called "Walls: Price vs. Cost" and it's an 11ft long vinyl banner. The image and Sam's description are below:
NewMTA.info
Posted April 15, 2010 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
Found this behind my farm stand at Union Square a couple of weeks ago.
The poster lists a website at NewMTA.info. I've seen many spoofs of NYC MTA service posters, this one comes at a time when cities are cutting budgets for many social programs and services. NYC is planning on cutting back on many public transportation programs despite its citizens growing need for more economical alternatives.
Hopefully the efforts of engaged designers, such as the creator of the flyer, and everyone interested in public transit can triumph over the austerity measures of State and City government. All it takes is a movement(?)
Drawing All the Time: Week 26
Posted April 14, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
This is one of many "Mr." drawings.
Celebrating and Collaborating
Posted April 14, 2010 by dylanminer in Justseeds Collective Projects
A short interview that Fiona Smith, a student-activist, filmed and edited addressing the current Justseeds exhibition 'Celebrating and Collaborating' at LookOut! Gallery, Michigan State University.
Doug Minkler Retrospective!
Posted April 14, 2010 by jmacphee in Events
I've been so behind on email this almost slipped by. If you are in the Bay Area, GO SEE THIS SHOW! Doug Minkler is one of the most prolific yet under-appreciated poster artists working in the US today:
Chris Stain Skateboard Piece
Posted April 14, 2010 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
E X P O
Posted April 13, 2010 by colin_matthes
Here are some photos of my recent exhibition at Igloo Gallery in Portland, OR. It was a blast installing the show. I received a warm welcome and so much help 'n' good times from folks in Portland.
The show is on view until April 24th (by appointment: 646-763-4905)
This piece is titled Shopping Cart Lounge Chair.
The idea for the show came about when I started thinking about an inventors convention (inventor with a small i) that would occur in the near future. I was also thinking about :
-addressing current environmental and economic concerns by imagining possible futures
-human ingenuity and resourcefulness and its relationship to commerce
-small victories
-progress as in finishing the leftovers
REVIEW: Exit Through the Gift Shop
Posted April 13, 2010 by jmacphee in Reviews
REVIEW
Exit Through the Gift Shop
A Banksy Film
I never pegged Banksy as a fan of gothic novels, but he and his crew do a pretty good Shelley. Exit Through the Gift Shop is a witty remake of Frankenstein, with Los Angeles vintage clothing shop owner come videographer come street artist Thierry Guetta playing the monster. We see mild-mannered Thierry move from an obsession with filming everything in his life, to an obsession with filming street artists, to Banksy reinventing him into a street artist out of control, "Mr. Brain Wash." But more on that later.
From the beginning of the most recent street art explosion, Banksy has been the thinking man's street artist. He (and his crew, he clearly doesn't do much without a large support team, so for sake of argument, when I use the name Banksy here, I mean the collection of people that conceptualize, build, and install the artworks and events signed with the name "Banksy") is the latest in a long line of counter-culture British satirists, from Jonathan Swift to Malcolm McClaren to Crass to the KLF, but like these greats before him, his cultural attacks on the status quo have hit the limits of their effectiveness. And he seems smart enough to know it. In some ways this film seems like part of the process of any cultural producer working through the challenging questions facing anyone with a deeply ambivalent relationship to capitalism. On the one hand war, torture, government surveillance, greed, poverty, apartheid, and genocide are all products of contemporary capitalism, and Banksy takes them all on in his own way. On the other, the ability to pull art stunts off across the globe is just as much a product of this very same system. Nothing illustrates this better than Banksy's glib listing of the Disney Land rides he enjoyed while Thierry was in the Disney security dungeon being questioned for four hours after filming Banksy's placement of a life-size orange-jumpsuited Guantanamo Bay prisoner doll into one of the rides.
JBbTC 1: Novosti Press Agency
Posted April 12, 2010 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers
I've been really digging designing book covers of late, which has made me look much closer at all the other covers I come across and already have on my shelf. I'm going to try to start doing this weekly blog column (blogumn? is that a term?) sharing cool book covers I find.
For this first installment, I want to share three great covers from a series late-Soviet political books I picked up some years back in Chicago. They are aesthetically amazing, pulling together clean and crisp replicas of different moments of modernist design. And politically, like most late-Soviet material, very strange. It appears that they were produced in 1971 and 72 by the Novosti Press Agency Publishing House in Moscow, primarily to attack Chinese communism, but they are in English, and the text is so dull that they are practically unreadable. I pity the poor Communist Party member that had to read these back in the day. There's definitely no attribution or clue who the designer(s) is, but they were quite graphicly cheeky, with the "white wedge" of reaction cutting through (or infecting?) the red and black circles of Anarchism/Trotskyism/Maoism, and the "falling" Chinese architectural forms of the Peking Divisionists!
Justseeds Art Show - Milwaukee - Riverwest Food Coop
Posted April 12, 2010 by colin_matthes
Here are a few photos of the Justseeds show hanging at the Riverwest Food Coop in Milwaukee, my favorite place to eat in Milwaukee. I recommend 50 spice fridays, Bi Bim Bop, and Tempeh Reubens. Every breakfast option is great as well. The show will be up the whole month of April.
Celebrating and Collaborating: The Graphic Work of Justseeds
Posted April 12, 2010 by dylanminer in Justseeds Collective Projects
"Celebrating and Collaborating: The Graphic Work of Justseeds"
April 05 - April 23 | LookOut! Gallery
Residential College in the Arts and Humanities
Michigan State University | East Lansing, MI
Reception: 5-7pm, April 16
Gallery Talk: 7pm, April 16
Workshop: 8pm, April 16
The Latest Technique in the Art and Science of Billboard Improvement
Posted April 9, 2010 by icky in Art & Politics
"Opposition supporters burn a billboard displaying Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev during a rally in the northwestern town of Talas on April 6, 2010. (REUTERS/azattyk.org)"
More photos from Kyrgyzstan's recent protests and riots here.
Rad Printin with Teens
Posted April 7, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Justseeds Collective Projects
Harvey Milk posters! Yes that is a rainbow mustache!!!
Shaun Slifer and I just wrapped up another partnership with Schenley High School's Theory of Knowledge classes, the day before I left for Brazil, and three days before Shaun left for Australia and India.
Justseeds is Moving!
Posted April 7, 2010 by roger_peet in In the News
Hey Justseeds enthusiasts! Breaking news! Justseeds will be moving our headquarters from Portland to Pittsburgh in May. Justseedsers Mary and Shaun will be driving a well-laden U-Haul across the country, leaving behind our beloved Portland basement in the neighbourhood that smells like cookies to a much larger base of operations in the other City of Bridges. We're all excited about the move, and hopefully we'll be able to generate a photo essay or two for the blog, as well as candid shots of the flat files, dehumidifier, and piles of cardboard tubes in scenic locations across the wide continental center. Keep your eyes on this space for further updates....
REVIEW: Graffiti New York
Posted April 6, 2010 by jmacphee in Reviews
Eric "DEAL CIA" Felisbret
Graffiti New York
Abrams, 2009
Contrary to the title, this book isn't just one of the seeming endless herd of books called "Graffiti ______" (insert just about any city name here). Even though it appears that the ability to walk around, take digital photos, and be culturally connected are the only pre-requisites for a street art book deal these days, the likely interesting city/street art books, such as "Graffiti Tulsa" or "Nairobi Graffiti," never get made). But back to the book at hand, Eric "DEAL CIA" Felisbret has set his sights higher, and done the labor and put in the time to produce the rare satisfying graffiti publication. An attempt to update the classic Subway Art, I'm glad he went for the challenge, and appreciate the parts that succeed.
Stand up for Ricardo Dominguez, Electronic Disturbance Theater, and Academic Freedom
Posted April 5, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in In the News
Troubling news. Ricardo Dominguez, known for Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT)
is taking heat for a Floodnet action against the University of California Office of the President during the March 4th National Day of Action. It is incredibly inspiring to see a professor stand up for student rights and public education and now it is time for students and everyone else to stand up for Dominguez as the UC system threatens his job and important research.
Below is the latest press release from the bang lab.
Bang.Lab / EDT Update, Call for Accountability and the Criminalization of ResearchUpdate 4/1/2010: Yesterday, March 31st, 2 UCPD detectives showed up at Ricardo's office at Calit2 to question him, indicating that ...Read More
There are two main ways you can show support at this time. Thank you all for the signatures! The showing of support from around the world will surely help our case and hopefully demonstrate to the UCOP how difficult it is going to be for them to continue this repression of us.
Now, here’s what you can do to help:
What size state?
Posted April 3, 2010 by k_c_ in In the News
I've referenced this graphic a few times in the last few days. I don't remember where I came across it, I find it quite intriguing. It asks folks in the USA:
Using the density of Brooklyn as an example at about 35,000 people to a square mile, what state would we all fit into?
I nicked this from Strange Maps
Another One Bites the Dust!
Posted April 2, 2010 by jmacphee in Art & Politics
As a follow-up to the review I recently posted of the book Vietnam Posters (Prestel, 2009), I wanted to share what I thought was one of the most interesting aspects of the posters from Vietnam. Outside of Ho Chi Minh, the most replicated visual trope in Vietnamese posters from the War era is the downing of US airplanes and helicopters. Poster after poster show aircraft shot down in flames. When looked at together (see the dozen plus examples below!), it becomes quite an impressive collection of graphic interpretations, and shows how powerful this idea, knocking the militarily more advanced Americans out the sky, was to the mythology of the Vietnamese war effort. Most of these images are taken from the Vietnam Posters book, but a handful of additional examples are culled from two other sources: Jessica Harrison-Hall, Vietnam Behind the Lines (The British Museum Press, 2002) and Susan Martin, ed., Decade of Protest: Political Posters from the United States, Vietnam, Cuba (Smart Art Press, 1996).
Oaxaca Now: Young Radical Printmakers
Posted April 1, 2010 by jmacphee in Events
Mexico in Chicago 2010
Oaxaca Now: Young Radical Printmakers
April 9-May 17, 2010
Marwen's Alumni Gallery will feature brand new woodcut prints and videos from the Asamblea de Artistas Revolucionarios de Oaxaca (ASARO). In keeping with the collective's visually polemic tone, the new prints and video add breadth and depth to this traveling conversation on art, activism, and politics in Oaxaca today.
Oaxaca Now: Young Radical Printmakers is co-curated by Arielle Bielak and Professor Kevin McCloskey.
Please join us for the opening night celebration:
Friday, April 9, 2010
5-7 PM
Marwen, 833 North Orleans Street, Chicago, IL
