First Amendment Issues - The Art of the Prank

November 12, 2025February 16, 2026

The New Art Critic – Conform or Go Away

The upcoming scrotum exhibition will probably be cancelled as well.

“School Nixes Exhibition Criticized by Turning Point USA,” by Isa Farfan, Hyperallergic, October 16, 2025.

The Fletcher Exhibit of political art was hosted at East Tennessee State University for 11 years until it came under attack from right-wing figures.

A long-running art exhibition of political artwork at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) was not invited to return to the school this year after a wave of right-wing backlash, including from a Tennessee chapter of Turning Point USA.

The Fletcher Exhibit of Social and Politically Engaged Art, held annually at ETSU’s Reece Museum since 2013, came under intense scrutiny from conservatives during and after the November 2024 presidential election. The show has been organized by the family of Fletcher Dyer, who was an art student at ETSU when he died in a tragic accident in 2009, for over a decade.

Read the whole article here.

March 28, 2024March 28, 2024

Announcing NYC’s 39th Annual April Fools’ Day Parade

New York’s irreverent April Fools’ Day Parade returns, poking fun once again at the past year’s displays of hype, hypocrisy, deceit, bigotry and downright stupidity. Nothing is sacred. Our satire knows no bounds.

For the 39th year, the public is encouraged to participate, in or out of costume, with or without floats, and may join the procession at any point along the parade route. Floats can be no wider than 10’ and no longer than 30’. They can be self-propelled, towed, pushed or pulled. Customized bicycles, tricycles, baby carriages and aerial balloons are welcome.

The parade will form at Grand Army Plaza at 5th Avenue and 59th Street in Manhattan at 12:00 noon sharp on Monday, April 1, 2024, and head down 5th Avenue to Trump Tower and then to Washington Square Park for the climactic crowning of the King of Fools.

This year’s parade will feature a giant mobile billboard truck featuring “Democracy at the Guillotine” which encourages all to vote to save our democracy.

The parade press release and downloadable images are here: http://aprilfoolsdayparade.com

Here are some of the images:

Please share the message widely.

February 3, 2024

Backlash to Forward Motion

Sometimes a red balloon is an egg…

Data poisoning: how artists are sabotaging AI to take revenge on image generators, by T.J. Thomson, The Conversation, December 17, 2023

Imagine this. You need an image of a balloon for a work presentation and turn to a text-to-image generator, like Midjourney or DALL-E, to create a suitable image.

You enter the prompt: “red balloon against a blue sky” but the generator returns an image of an egg instead. You try again but this time, the generator shows an image of a watermelon.

What’s going on?

The generator you’re using may have been “poisoned”.

Read the whole article here.

November 23, 2023December 15, 2023

The High Cost of Dissent in Russia

Droplifting–adding objects or messages to store shelves to make a political statement–is treated as a minor irritant in the United States. Placing 5 labels protesting Russia’s war against Ukraine on grocery store items has yielded 7 years in a penal colony for artist Aleksandra Skochilenko.

If we take our freedoms for granted, we might lose them.

Russian artist jailed for seven years over Ukraine war price tag protest, by Andrew Roth, The Guardian, November 16, 2023

Aleksandra Skochilenko replaced five supermarket price tags with pieces of paper urging shoppers to stop the war

…“How fragile must the prosecutor’s belief in our state and society be, if he thinks that our statehood and public safety can be brought down by five small pieces of paper?” said Skochilenko, 33, in a final statement in court on Thursday.

“Despite being behind bars, I am freer than you,” she said. “I’m not afraid to be different from others. Perhaps that’s why my state is so afraid of me and others like me and keeps me caged like a dangerous animal.” Read the whole article here.