Art Threat | Political Art Magazine

Global Feminisms: The End of Radical Feminist Art?

Big Red & Shiny has an insightful review of Global Feminisms, a collection of present and future feminist artwork at the Brooklyn Museum. One concluding statement in particular is begging for discussion: "Feminist art today is not as radical, or harsh as it had been originally in the '70s; Global Feminisms shows that feminist art no longer requires spreading blood all over your body, burning bras, or imagery that looks suspiciously like female genitalia." As there is no place to comment on the article at BR&S, fee free to duke it out here.

Image: Ingrid Mwangi, Static Drift, 2001. Two chromogenic prints mounted on aluminum.

Vesion 3.0 of the GNU General Public License Now Available

The GNU General Public License is the copyleft license that accompanies GNU software wherever it is up or downloaded and incorporated into creative projects. GNU (stands for GNU’s Not Unix) is a freeware operating system compatible with UNIX introduced in the early 1980s in response to the frighteningly monolithic dominance that proprietary operating systems had over computing markets. “Free” does not refer to price, as explained by the Free Software Foundation, but rather to liberty, i.e. more akin to the ‘free’ in ‘freedom of speech’ than in ‘free beer’:

You may or may not pay a price to get GNU software. Either way, once you have the software you have three specific freedoms in using it. First, the freedom to copy the program and give it away to your friends and co-workers; second, the freedom to change the program as you wish, by having full access to source code; third, the freedom to distribute an improved version and thus help build the community. (If you redistribute GNU software, you may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, or you may give away copies.)

The Free Software Foundation is the primary sponsor of the GNU Project.

Of Migrants and Minutemen: The Border Film Project

With the possible exception of some work produced by post-modern wunderkind, photographs that are out of focus, poorly exposed and ill composed are rarely compelling. But The Border Film Project, a collection featuring 150 of such unskilled images, is about as compelling as a book of photography can be.

Rudy Adler, Victoria Criado, and Brett Huneycutt distributed hundreds of disposable cameras on both sides of the US-Mexico border. On one hand there were migrants preparing to illegally cross the border and enter the United States, as thousands of their compatriots do each year. On the other were the Minutemen, armed American citizens who voluntarily patrol the border in the hopes of stoping northward migration.

The three editors soon received over 2000 photographs from the migrants and Minutemen, offering perspectives from both sides of the immigration debate and opening a window through which we gain an intimate perspective of this high stakes game of cat and mouse.

Although photographs from both sides often depict friends, family, and desert landscape, the similarities end there. In documenting themselves, the Minutemen are found engaged in activities reminiscent of a hunting trip. Some have dozed off in lawn chairs, beer cans in hand and pasty bellies turned towards the sun. Others meanwhile are focused on target practice, or are found peering through binoculars off into the horizon, in search of their target. Friendly and fun, the Minutemen have painted themselves in stars, stripes and smiles, as well as the occasional Starbucks and Sam Adams. [More...]

Artists Fiddled While The Planet Burned: Can Art Save the Planet?

By Terry Fairman, originally published in the UK by a-n Magazine.

Every age rewrites its history in its own image. Each age produces art that reflects that image, whether consciously or not.

When power and patronage are in the same hands then social, religious or political agendas are clear, from Medici Popes to twentieth-century totalitarian regimes. Today, the link is less obvious and often a matter of contention amongst art historians – for example, the extent to which the Land Art movement in the final quarter of the last century – or perhaps that should read, the last quarter of the final century – was a response to the environmental crisis pointed up by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

Commissioned art can often tell us what mattered to the chattering classes in any given period. There is a long history of a strong and productive association between the art community and Amnesty International reflecting the importance placed on human freedom in the period after World War II. We demand of our artists that they respond to present dangers. Criticism of the recent exhibitions of contemporary American art in London, at the Serpentine gallery and the Royal Academy, has commonly focused on the failure of American artists to respond effectively to post 9/11. [More...]

Yoko Ono Did Not Eat Corgi: Lawyers

According to Yoko Ono's small army of lawyers, she emphatically did not eat corgi meatballs with the performance artist Mark McGowan, as reported here and across the web last month. McGowan engaged in the PETA-approved stunt to protest the Royal family's alleged cruelty to animals. Corgis are the Queen's favourite breed of dog.

I must admit that I am disappointed that Yoko didn't partake in the political stunt. To make matters worse, according to her lawyers the allegation that she was involved was "highly defamatory", "offensive" and "extremely distressing to her". When I heard the news that Yoko had participated in McGowan's latest political intervention, her credibility as an agent of social change shot way as far as I was concerned. Now that I know this is not the case, she is once again irrelevant in my eyes, or, in her own words, little more than "the wife of an ex-Beatle."

So if Yoko isn't eating Corgis what is she actually up to? A brief news search will find that she has recently broken the silence over John Lennon's last words before his murder. (Yoko: "Shall we go and have dinner before we go home?" John: "No, let’s go home because I want to see Sean before he goes to sleep.") She also admitted in the same interview that she almost aborted their son Sean, but was convinced otherwise by John.

Embedded Artist in Afghanistan

In an interesting twist on embedded journalism, artist Richard Johnson is living amongst Canadian troops in Kandahar drawing daily illustrations for the National Post. Johnson is the graphics director for Canada's right-wing newspaper, and has been blogging about his experiences on the Post's website since late May, with several entries and drawings making the crossover to the printed world.

Bonus: Scrolling to the bottom of the page will reveal a collection of nude drawings Johnson sketched while preparing for his assignment, which somehow snuck past the Post's morality police.

"This girl could really strike a pose and hold it," Johnson comments. "The drawings are good and pretty to look at, but I am still not capturing features as accurately and quickly as I will need to. Still, I don't expect to see a lot of this in Kandahar."

Via Drawn.

DAN WITZ | Killroy Variations | "During World War II, the saying "Kilroy Was Here!" began to appear as graffiti at home and wherever the American military traveled abroad. Eventually the saying, and the cartoon character that often accompanied it, came to represent America's worldwide presence."

Lessig steps down from Creative Commons

A sad day, Copyleft guru and founder of Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig has stepped down from his ten year movement, to focus on US politics. No he's not running, unfortunately, but putting his backing to Barack Obama. He announced this news during iCommons iSummit 07, and his own description and thoughtful reflection on his 10 year commitment, and where he needs to put his focus now, is worth the read on his blog.

Onward my copyleft comrads.

The Yes Men Snafu Oil Giants at Largest Petrol Industry Trade Show in Canada

The Yes Men have struck again! In a brilliant performance on June 15, Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno posed as oil executives at the GO-EXPO - Canada's largest oil industry trade show which was held at Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta. This year’s conference attracted more than more than 20,000 visitors and exhibitors from around the world.

Posing as ExxonMobil and National Petroleum Council (NPC) representatives, the Yes Men introduced Vivoleum to a 300+ crowd of oil execs. Vivoleum, they explained, was human flesh converted into oil, a future oil product that will capitalize on the catastrophe of global warming and the many deaths that it will cause.

The speech was accompanied by a 3-D rendering of the process of creating vivoleum.

During the presentation, candles were distributed throughout the crowd and attendees were asked to light the candles – supposedly made of Vivoleum -- in memorium to Reggie, a former ExxonMobil janitor. As the suit-clad listeners set about lighting their candles, the Yes Men played a video tribute to Reggie the Janitor.

It was the video that finally tipped-off organizers. As security guards ushered the Yes Men away from the stage they were swarmed by journalists to whom they continued to explain the process of rendering human flesh into oil.

"We're not talking about killing anyone," Andy Bichlbaum said to reporters, "we're talking about using them after nature has done the hard work. After all, 150,000 people already die from climate-change related effects every year. That's only going to go up - maybe way, way up. Will it all go to waste? That would be cruel."

The Yes Men were taken into custody by Calgary police and later released without charges.

Check out the photographs and press coverage at their website.

These guys are heroes!

Originally by Marisa Olson from Rhizome.org.

Live Wire, Lifeblood: Radio Journalist Tania Ketenjian Enlightens and Nourishes, One Interview at a Time

By Lucine Kasbarian, originally published in Hairenik / Armenian Weekly.

A financier is provoked to discover himself, his life, and the world anew when he awakes one morning lost, bewildered and alone, having contracted retrograde amnesia through the night.

A photo assistant scribbles his phone number on a chalkboard prop photographed for a "Crate & Barrel" catalog, only to receive 15,000 phone calls from around the country. He organizes a “National Dinner Tour” to interview his newfound friends and make art from these encounters.

An “accent elimination course” spurs a New York woman to produce a sound-art pastiche and social commentary about cultural preservation and assimilation by trying to acquire her Lebanese-Armenian father’s and Finnish-Swedish mother’s foreign accents, while they unsuccessfully try to lose theirs.

In response to rampant shoplifting and gross consumerism, an artist collective leaves behind hand-crafted objects on grocery shelves to make political statements known as “shop dropping” and “culture jamming.”

These are some of the eclectic, eccentric, and enigmatic stories heard on Tania Ketenjian’s provocative programs airing on radio stations around the country and the globe. Many of her storylines emerge from the depths of creative expression—from the lives of visual artists, actors, writers or musicians. Other interviewees are not artists at all. The common thread throughout is that the voices, ideas and emotions brought to the airwaves—and facilitated by Tania’s own discernment, aptitude and finesse—serve to tell stories that often are not, and to spotlight or question prevailing standards, preconceptions and realities held and presented in our increasingly pre-packaged and sanitized world. [More...]

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