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Friday 16 December 2011
Monday 12 December 2011
Art Activism
“It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush-fires of freedom in the minds of men.”
-Samuel Adams
(Rise of the New World Activist p.1)
Art Activism itself could be considered the art form most interested in the human condition. Unlike the contemporary idea of philanthropy, where people are mainly required to collect money and send it to an organization, then forget about it, activism tends to aim for a specific motive or idea that needs to be changed regarding the rights of humans or other causes. According to Michael Shank in his paper Redefining the Movement: Art Activism; he states that in order to make activism work, activists need to change the hearts and minds of the people. Shank believes that Art has the right tools to do just that.
What most of us must be involved in – whether we teach or write, make films, write films, direct films, play music, act, whatever we do—not only has to make people feel good and inspired and at one with other people around them, but also has to educate a new generation to do this very modest thing: change the world. (Shank, 532)
To read Shank's article, go to this website:
According to Shank there are two targets that the art activist aims for: they aim for the powerful organizations or powerful social orders or they target the powerless organizations or marginalized movements. The main goal of the first aim is to challenge and destabilize the large corporations. The goal of the second target is to unify and to strengthen the powerless movement. The art activist has four strategies to get what they need accomplished: The first is to wage conflict nonviolently.
One current example of this is an online print community called Occuprint, which is calling artists and designers to create posters in favor of the Occupy Wall Street Movement and printing their work. In all of these Images the artists enhance the conflict that is already in existence, but are using the emotions of the Occupy Movement to further rally them together and to help encourage them in the task they have ahead of them.
All Day Every Day by Cannon Hill Eat the Rich by Christy C Road On Our Watch by Mario Klingemann
The second strategy for art activists to get what they need accomplished is to reduce direct violence. One artist who is located in Boston, Massachusetts has opened a Facebook page dedicated to artists against abuse. There her goal is to collect and show pieces made by artists depicting any kind of abuse, whether it is toward man, woman or child. She calls her page, “Artists Against Sexual Abuse”. Her facebook page is:
Emotional Abuse Over Protection Empty
The third strategy for art activists is to transform relationships. Their aim in transforming relationships is to restore justice, heal trauma and transform conflict. A group of artists who call themselves “Art for Change” have created a website with their art dedicated to the specific causes they have chosen to fight for. “Art becomes a political act, a conscious effort to facilitate and participate in social change. If we want respect, love and beauty among others, and us we must actively promote it through our art” (Art for Social Change). Their Website is:
She is a Hero The Rhythem of Life has a Lovely Heart Beat Shared Fruits Should be Televised
By Rini Hartman
The final strategy is to build capacity. What the artists attempts to do is meet the needs and rights through education, training, research and evaluation. A fairly fresh French art photographer who calls himself J.R. has been traveling to war-torn or desperately poor nations, photographing the local people there and then pasting the images on walls, roofs of houses, or any public surface he can find. A particular project that he did was called “Women are Heroes” where he photographed women to praise the those who tend to be the target in conflict. To read more about JR, go to this website:
The negative side of art activism, or in activism altogether, is that the activist can become disillusioned. When this happens the activist will try and wage conflict as a last resort. When conflict occurs, it can lead to violence, which can be a deterrent rather than help the cause that they have been fighting for. These activists have been known to hijack “sacred symbols to inflict harm to the social order’s world view as an act of revenge in response to the perceived harm inflicted on the powerless” (Shank, 542).
Regardless of the negative side-effects that can occur in art activism, or what cause these art activists might be fighting for, their purpose is to win the hearts and minds of the public. Activists must create a mass amount of people to be able to get the work done, and artists have the capacity to do just that. In regards to global change, art activists have a tall order ahead of them. But no matter how seemingly impossible one’s task might be, it is up to the artist to try and tackle it by doing what they do best.
Monday 5 December 2011
The Triads
In ECA, there is a method of critique used called “The Triads”. What is involved in the triads is that there are three students and a professor. Two of these students are first year MFA and the third is in his or her second year of their MFA. The first student talks about their work for ten or fifteen minutes straight without interruption about their work: what they have done, what they are doing, what they will be doing, why they are doing these things, and what their issues are. After they are done talking, the listener talks for the same amount of time. They say what they heard, what they think some of the issues might be, and how to possibly solve these issues. Finally the third student who is “observing” these “talkers” and “listeners” just describes what happened between the two without opinion within five minutes.
Although, I have to admit some insight can come out of this method of critique, I find that it is far less useful than other methods. It is far too rigid and unnerving. It is easy enough to talk about your work and what you are trying to accomplish and feel what you are have having issues with, but to rely solely on one other individual who most likely has an extremely different opinion on what art should be altogether is a detriment to the artists needing feedback. It is also, in my opinion, far too difficult on the listener to be forced to help the artists who might be on a completely different wavelength.
My preferred critique is with a group of different artists who might be using a similar medium or completely different medium. This allows people to ask questions about the work that the artists might not have explained well in the first place (being that most artists have a hard time verbalizing things anyway). In this way, ideas can be popcorned and molded into actually helping the artists instead of further confusing them, which has been my experience so far in the triads.
Today, my triad involved an illustrative artist who mainly drew his pieces on flat surfaces, an installation/sculpting artist, and me who is a painter/videographer, three very diverse artists. I personally have nothing against different artists with different backgrounds giving critiques on each other’s work in fact I prefer it. However this strict one on one view makes it far more difficult, especially if the other artist likes nothing of what you’re doing, which can and does happen. I believe that if ECA feels that it has to have the triads as apart of the critiquing process then by all means, let it. But I cannot believe that is the only way to critique an artist and his or her work.
Monday 28 November 2011
Art at the New Hope Center
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a small center called The New Hope Center is set in the eastern city of Goma. This center was created specifically for children who have been displaced one way or other due to wartime activities. These Children experience atrocities such as witnessing massacres of entire villages, rape, child soldiering, and sometimes they are even being forced to kill their own family members. The children who come to the center can be depressed, angry and even suicidal because of what they have gone through.
Around three hundred children and teenagers come to the center with one hundred and thirty trained facilitators that come from Unicef, Norwegian Church Aid and Heal Africa (who tend to the local hospital attached to the center). Once they arrive they become involved with a number of activities: Dancing, singing, music, soccer, foosball, ping-pong, journaling, coloring and drawing. The center has a school to help orphans become educated where they tend to do exceptionally well due to the fact that they feel lucky that they can go to school, especially due to the fact that approximately forty percent of the children in Eastern Congo have the chance to go to school.
Being that the program is open-ended, there are many therapeutic methods they involve the children in. One method in particular is that the facilitators give the children a blank piece of paper and drawing utensils and let them draw whatever they want. The results usually end up being about what trauma the child went through or experienced. According to the national team leader of the New Hope Center, Anita Paden, “We never try to interpret their drawings. They themselves explain to each other. We never force a child to talk or explain. They choose to do so.” The purpose of these therapeutic sessions is to hopefully avoid the children ending up with depression, suicide, stuttering, or not talking at all, becoming bandits, using drugs and/or alcohol, or involving themselves in inappropriate and dangerous sexual behaviors.
After the children have completed their drawings, they are sometimes turned into necklaces by shredding the paper and rolling them into beads then selling the necklaces to help with their tuition. According to Anita Paden the children begin to believe in themselves and will be able to face the rest of their lives with confidence. “Negative things are maybe that people don't think we should talk with the children about grief and death because it could make them cry etc.” However, if the aim of this center's aim is to help the children stay off the streets and set them on the path of a better life, then the methods used there seems to work.
My questions are what do people from our western culture think of an organization like this? Are there negative aspects that can come out of a religious center like this, or should there be more organizations like this? For more information you can go to The New Hope Center’s website. There you can donate money if you feel so inclined or perhaps purchase the necklaces these children create to help them with their schooling.
Monday 7 November 2011
Uganda Collage
The current piece that I am working on is a collage of footage of different scenes that I have during the time I was in Uganda the summer of 2010. What I have done so far is collect the footage I have and have cut them into 20-second segments which has caused me to slow down most of the footage. I then have been processing them in After Effects to either enhance the color or to mute it down so that when they are all together they will make a silhouette of a person.
The intent behind this piece is to address the aspects of the many cultures that inhabit the nation of Uganda, the issues they face and the unique culture they have. A few of the things that they face are a history of genocide and past corrupt dictators like the infamous Idi Amin. The past decade radical and violent religious groups like the Lord’s Resistant Army have been causing strife for the northern Ugandan villages. The memory of being the country most affected by AIDS only forty years ago is prevalent, and is still a struggle. The percent of the population that is under the unemployment line is thirty five percent and the education is almost nonexistent.
Even though these are only the beginning of the things the Ugandan people have to face, they are rich with culture. Regardless of the lack of resources, the people give anything they can to a mere stranger. There is a warm feeling of community and no matter the circumstance, they never give up the chance to dance or sing.
The issues that I can think might come about from this piece are the common fears of exploitation, kitsch, and the idea that I am trying to push an agenda. The questions I ask myself is how can I correctly portray the Uganda people who have affected me so much in the past few years without bumping into these problems? Regardless, I have begun this arduous work and we will hopefully see what comes of it.
Friday 4 November 2011
RED Bono and Hirst artist auction to help AIDS relief
On Valentine’s Day, 2008, a Sotheby art auction opened in New York. U2 musician created this auction Bono along with artist Damien Hirst. The purpose of this auction was for artists to donate their work where the proceeds would be given to an organization called Product which helps fund research in help curing AIDS in Africa, as well as funding antivirus medication that helps those who have been contracted with AIDS live longer. It is called “The Lazarus Effect”.
Bono and Hirst raked in about 60 contemporary artists who contributed to this event. Artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Chuck Close, Tracey Emin, Matthew Barney, Georg Baselitz, Rachel Whiteread, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Sir Peter Blake, Jeff Koons, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha and Banksy.
The opening day seemed to be a success being that 17 of the artists sold work for prices higher than they had ever sold at an auction before. Damien Hirst sold art work for 1 million dollars or more each. During the auction Bono was heard repeating “what is the price of love”, which seemed to help patrons lighten their pockets even more. Over all the RED auction raised over 58 million dollars for the Global fund on the first night.
Cathedral Print, St. Paul
Damien Hirst
20,950.00 pounds
Though some would say that is a success others challenged this event in that it cost more than it raised. However, it is still an ongoing auction. A website displays all of the work that still can be purchased and the money will still be sent to the AIDS funds.
The fallowing links are promotional videos and the actual Valentine’s Day event the year 2008.
Thursday 13 October 2011
Do-Good Artists In History
Although the creation of institutions for artists who participate in philanthropy is a somewhat new phenomenon, artists themselves have found ways in bringing to light unjust occurrences during their time. Now, thanks to technology, though the world feels smaller and accessible, it seems that problems keep on duplicating and growing in size.
However, before I begin my search for contemporary artist philanthropists and altogether “do-gooders” and what philanthropy means, this blog will be about their predecessors: Artist who were known for their genius and who witnessed something they believed to be unjust during their time and did something about it. People that I aspire to and will be the backbone in my research of the art-philanthropy romance and hopeful marriage.
The first artist that came to my mind was Francesco Goya. Goya was a Spanish painter and printmaker during the romanticism era. He had the misfortune of being the royal painter in Spain during the Napoleonic regime.
In November 1807, French troupes entered Spain. A year of the French military rule, the Spanish people became resentful and there was an uprising on the second of May 1808. However, by dawn of the next day, hundreds of Spanish civilians were rounded up and shot in order to stop any opposition.
The Third of May, 1814
Even though Goya was not a supporter of the Spanish aristocracy, (other than being employed by them) he quickly became disenchanted by the French and their original ideals, which had been the catalyst for the French Revolution a decade earlier. With Goya’s suggestion, the government of Spain commissioned him to paint something that would depict the horrors that had been inflicted upon the Spanish people. Throughout his career Goya would also print illustrations speaking out against not only the French, but also against the Spanish government and the Spanish Inquisition.
Not long after, a different horrific event occurred regarding a French ship called “The Medusa”. The Medusa set sail with a retired viscount as their captain, who hadn’t sailed for twenty years. He aimed to make good time and pushed the ship to go faster than normal and ran it aground off the West African coast. Being that there were few lifeboats and four hundred passengers, they made a crudely constructed raft and piled 146 people on it. After two weeks of starvation, insanity and cannibalism, a ship finally rescued the survivors. However, out of the 146 people, 15 men had survived.
The Raft of the Medusa, 1818-1819
An artist who was at that time unknown named Theodore Gericault heard about this incident when it arrived to Paris and became an international scandal. Shocked by such a horrific event mainly caused by the concept concept of a hierarchy in class, Gericault commissioned himself, an act rarely done amongst artists, to paint his romanticized version of this event. His larger than life-sized painting was displayed in the famous Paris Salon and established his reputation.
After the genre of Romanticism came Realism with the master artist Gustave Courbet. Although he came from a wealthy family he himself became anti-monarchical and chose to live simply. A subject matter that was of particular interest to him was the conditions of the serfs or working class of that time. Before his time, art was limited to four subject matters: History, portraits, still life and landscape. No one ever dared to paint the lower classes for they were not of interest, nor did the higher classes wish to know the hardships of the poor. To the rich, or more importantly, the patrons, they were perfectly happy to keep things the way they were.
The Stone Breakers, 1850
The Stone Breakers was Courbet’s depiction of the hardships of the serf’s life. This painting could not have been painted during a more opportune time being that only two years before the second French Revolution broke out due to injustices placed upon people just because the station they were born into. Hardships like having jobs of breaking stones to fill potholes in the streets as depicted in this painting.
Skipping ahead nearly one hundred years later and to an artist who was a master of photography and difficulties of the American Great Depression. During this time Migrant workers were trekking down to California for some hope of a job in picking fruit. However they received barely any income to survive. Dorothea Lang was a photographer who captured the consequences of the Depression.
Migrant Mother, 1936
The best way to describe this image is through Dorothea Lang’s own words:
“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it.”
To conclude, these artists and many others like J.M.W. Turner who painted the ugly truths of slavery, Arthur Szyk who painted the horrors of the holocaust, Kathe Kollwitz who did prints and sculptures of the poor and oppressed in Germany and Pablo Picasso who’s famous painting Guernica depicted the oppression of the fascist on the Spanish people, and many others where leaders for artists of today to continue in their footsteps.
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