political art - The Art of the Prank

May 2, 2018December 15, 2023

Finger Painting

A lot of finger pointing here…

Mobile art project gives middle finger to Hillary and Trump
by Oli Coleman
Page Six
April 30, 2018

“DEFIANCE” (Donald Trump) and “FAIR GAME” (Hillary Clinton) are each made from 4,000 hand-cast urethane middle fingers by artist Kevin Champeny. Courtesy Kevin Champeny

An artist is arranging a massive moving art installation in which two trucks will carry giant portraits of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump around town made of thousands of rubber middle fingers pointing at each other.

Kevin Champeny’s mobile installation — the Clinton piece is called “Fair Game” and Trump’s is “Defiance” — also plays audio clips of the political rivals talking about each other via huge speakers.

With its 4,000 urethane fingers, the art will be parked from May 3 to May 6 at Union Square Park, Madison Square Park, Bryant Park, Times Square and Pier 94 — where Art New York is taking place.

March 17, 2018December 15, 2023

Banksy Immortalizes Painting That Caused Artist Zehra Dogan’s Arrest & Imprisonment in Turkey

Banksy’s new mural in collaboration with Borf, aka John Tsombikos, brings jailed Turkish artist Zehra Dogan’s work to New York.

New Banksy NYC mural supports jailed Turkish artist
by Janon Fisher
New York Daily News
March 17, 2018

The mysterious British graffiti artist Banksy created a 70-foot mural on the Houston Bowery Graffiti Wall showing Turkish artist Zehra Dogan trapped behind hashmarks. (FRANK FRANKLIN II/AP)

Mysterious British graffiti artist Banksy can”t stay away from the Big Apple.

After tagging the clock face on a West Village bank, he moved east Thursday, with a sidewalk to rooftop display drawing attention to the plight of a jailed artist.

The 70-foot mural on the Houston Bowery Graffiti Wall shows Turkish artist Zehra Dogan trapped behind a set of hashmarks meant to symbolize her prison bars.

Dogan was sentenced to nearly three years in jail for painting a the town of Nasybin laid waste by the Turkish after a battle with Kurdish forces.

She copied the photo from a newspaper then painted it in watercolor, adding Turkish flags to the scene, according to her publicist.

Dogan was arrested after she posted the image on social media.

The timing of the mural marks the one year anniversary of her incarceration.

Her watercolor stretches out across the top of the building where Banksy has painted his mural.

“I really feel for her. I”ve painted things much more worthy of a custodial sentence,” Banksy told The New York Times in a statement.

March 3, 2017December 15, 2023

R.I.P. Gustav Metzger

Gustav Metzger, a fiercely political artist, challenged and mocked consumerism and inspired several generations of creative “auto-destructivists”. He was 90 years old.

“Gustav Metzger, Pioneer of Auto-Destructive Art, Dies at 90”
by Mark Brown
The Guardian
March 1, 2017

Gustav Metzger, the inventor of auto-destructive art who spent a lifetime baffling, infuriating and thrilling audiences, as well as influencing generations of younger artists, has died aged 90.

A spokeswoman for the artist said he died at his home in London.

Metzger was born in Nuremberg to Polish-Jewish parents in 1926 and arrived with his brother in Britain on the Kindertransport in 1939. Much of his immediate family, including his parents, were murdered in the Holocaust.

He studied art in Cambridge, London, Antwerp and Oxford, and by the late 1950s was heavily involved in anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist movements, as well as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

This political activism was the motivation for his auto-destructive art manifesto of 1959 – which he described “as a desperate last-minute subversive political weapon … an attack on the capitalist system … an attack also on art dealers and collectors who manipulate modern art for profit”. Read more.

July 18, 2016December 15, 2023

In Search of Political Art

Randy Kennedy explores the state of political art in search of the iconic images that previously captured people’s imaginations as we navigate another absurd political season.

Thanks Peter!

Political Art in a Fractious Election Year
by Randy Kennedy
The New York Times
July 17, 2016

“The Truth Booth” by the Brooklyn Bridge. The booth, by the Cause Collective, is heading to Cleveland for the Republican National Convention. Credit Ben Pettey

In 2008, when the artist Shepard Fairey created the graphically striking “Hope” portrait to support Barack Obama”s presidential campaign, it seemed as if a rich tradition of American political imagery reaching back at least to the middle of the 20th century “” on posters, buttons, bumper stickers “” was still very much alive. The art critic Peter Schjeldahl called the “Hope” poster “epic poetry in an everyday tongue.”

Read the whole article here.

August 16, 2015December 15, 2023

Inside the Center for Tactical Magic

Here’s a rare glimpse behind the enigma of the legendary Center for Tactical Magic as founder Aaron Gach shares his background, philosophy, and success stories in this interview with Regine Debatty.

“Interview with The Center for Tactical Magic”
by Regine Debatty
We Make Money Not Art
August 14, 2015

…The Center for Tactical Magic uses any craft and scheme available, from the most magical to the most pragmatic, to address issues of power relations and self-empowerment.

At the CTM we are committed to achieving the Great Work of Tactical Magic through community-based projects, daily interdiction, and the activation of latent energies toward positive social transformation.

Tactical Ice Cream Unit

CTM’s work combines appealing aesthetics, humour and language with actions that invite people to think, question and reclaim their civil rights. Their most famous project is the Tactical Ice Cream Unit, a truck distributing free ice cream along with propaganda developed by local progressive groups. Another of their initiative saw them launch a bank heist contest. And a year before that, they responded to New York’s stop-and-frisk policy by screening Linking & Unlinking on a digital billboard in Manhattan. The billboard showed amateur footage demonstrating how to pick a pair of handcuffs, magicians performing a classic magic trick called “linking rings“, while a text from the American Civil Liberties Union was scrolling down and explaining passersby what their rights were if they were stopped by the police. In 2013, they set up big Witches’ Cradles that evoke the Inquisition and enveloped people into an altered state (of consciousness, or an altered political state). Most recently, Gach directed and performed a radical magic show which drew parallels between magic acts and contemporary issues such as economic manipulation, political deception, vanishing resources, and social transformation.

Read the interview here.