The 22nd Montreal First Peoples Festival has extended its entry deadline to Friday the 13th of April 2012. The Festival is looking for audiovisual works for this years’ showcase, taking place July 31st to August 8th. As always, the showcase features works by native directors and films by non-native directors
Continue readingAuthor: Michael Lithgow
Art Threat: Ai Wei Wei installs live webcams in home – Artists winks at Chinese authorities with a Big Brother flourish
Artist Ai Wei Wei has installed live webcams in his home so that authorities – and worried supporters – can keep track of his day-to-day whereabouts and welfare. Feeling hemmed in by increasingly invasive state surveillance – being followed day-to-day, round-the-clock surveillance on his home, searches of his studio, phone
Continue readingArt Threat: News Remix: Mar 23 – April1, 2012 – A bricolage of (some of) last weeks news stories
Nairobi graffiti by artists Uhuru B, Swift, Smokilah and Bankslave Kenyan graffiti artists are painting the walls of Nairobi with reminders of government corruption. Executions are up in the Middle East – in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Yemen – as governments there continue their efforts to quell political turmoil.
Continue readingArt Threat: News Remix: March 15-22, 2012 – Bricolage of (some of) last week’s headlines
This is the first in a new (ir)regular installment summing up last week’s news headlines using a ‘remix’ style — a quirky restless glance into the wreckless feckless immediate past. (Inspired by Harpers Magazine’s ‘Scientific Summary’.) Aerial photo of tsunami debris from Japan US peacekeeping forces joined with Congolese army troops
Continue readingArt Threat: Big Bang Big Boom: Animated graffiti – An endlessly fascinating warning against the temptation of war
BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo. For those who haven’t seen it, Big Bang Big Boom (2010) is yet another fabulous animated graffiti parable from the blublu art collective. Their work is endlessly fascinating — animated creatures sliding seamlessly from walls,
Continue readingArt Threat: Support WWOZ community radio in New Orleans – Fundraisng drive for the voice of New Orleans cultural renaissance
Tune in, turn on and give a few bucks to one the most fabulous radio stations anywhere. WWOZ New Orleans community radio is having their annual membership fundraising drive, and now is the time to support this treasure in the midst of New Orlean’s cultural renaissance. WWOZ is home to
Continue readingArt Threat: Artists invited to join Occupy Arts Committee – 3rd gathering in Montreal set for March 17
Bryant Park, Manhattan. Photo by Eric Walton Montreal artists are invited to join the growing collaboration of the Occupy Arts Committee, a gathering of artists from all disciplines who want to support Occupy Montreal with creative practice. According to organizers, this meeting will be a creation workshop to start imagining,
Continue readingArt Threat: Occupy Museums challenges Armory Show – Artists invited to join free art exchange at Piers 92 / 94 in NYC
New York’s prestigious Armory Show opens on March 8th at Piers 92 & 94 in New York. The Armory Show was created in 1913 amid the challenges and excitement of early 20th century avant-garde art and artists intent on denouncing the status quo. Today, the Armory Show is the status
Continue readingArt Threat: Contemporary First Nations artists in conversation – 11 women reflect on their art, colonization and home
Eleven artists were invited by the School for Advanced Research to come together in a series of seminars to share their thoughts on their art work and on their lives and experiences as indigenous women. Out of these seminars comes the book Art In Our Lives: Native Women Artists In
Continue readingArt Threat: Cinema re-opens in divided East Jerusalem – After 25 years, a welcome revival of Palestinian arts & culture
After 25 years in shuttered silence, the Al Quds cinema has reopened its doors in East Jerusalem. And it’s opening schedule was no blockbuster wasteland. Under the banner of “Freedom Films Week”, the revamped theater screened films on such topical and urgent issues as sexual harassment, the Arab uprising, Algerian
Continue readingArt Threat: Inspiring new album from performer Rodney DeCroo – Vancouver-based roots rocker releases new album of poetry and jazz
A new recording from one of my favourite performers Rodney DeCroo is always a treasure, especially coming as this one does in the midst of Winter’s least cheery days. DeCroo’s music warms from the inside capturing in a rare way the beauty, difficulties and dangers of what it means to
Continue readingArt Threat: Occupy Montreal wants your art! – City-wide callout for artists
Occupy Montreal has announced the formation of a city-wide art committee, and they are calling for artists to get involved. A first meeting has been scheduled for Friday, Feb 17, 5pm-7pm @ 4521 St Jacques, just west of Metro St-Henri. From the announcement: We are organizing a new, city-wide Arts
Continue readingArt Threat: Crowd sourcing a little curatorial control – National Gallery of Canada invites young artists to submit art & public to judge
"Beat Nation" at Grunt Gallery, Vancouver Calling young (aged 16-19) Canadian political artists. Here’s a chance to get your work noticed, publicized and into the National Gallery of Canada (NGC). The NGC has announced its second annual So You Want to Be an Artist contest. It’s a cheezey title, but
Continue readingArt Threat: Call for artists in support of ‘Occupy’ movement – Online, international platform for performances, installations, actions in real time
Project Lowlives is seeking artists for a global online live presentation of artistic work in support the Occupy movement. Lowlives: Occupy! will take place on March 3, 2012. From the website: The Occupy protests, and the myriad of perspectives and experiences related to this unique moment, will be amplified, explored,
Continue readingArt Threat: Amazing online cinema archive for educators – 2500 films & study guides in NFB’s “Campus” project
"Oxford Tire Pile #8" by Edward Burtynsky The National Film Board of Canada — producer of such great films as Manufacturing Consent, Ryan, Jesus of Montreal, The Decline of the American Empire, The Big Snit, Lonely Boy, Manufactured Landscapes, Madame Tutli-Putli, Rocks at Whiskey Trench, Walltown – has announced an
Continue readingArt Threat: Postcolonial politics threatens integrity of Documenta 13 art exhibition – Indigenous group protests artists’ use of sacred meteorite
It is a tale of postcolonial politics, cyber-archeology and art. Two Argentinian artists are being challenged by a growing international campaign to stop their plan to ship a 37 ton meteorite from Argentina to Kassels, Germany for the Documenta 13 art exhibition. The meteorite, known as El Chaco (pictured above
Continue readingArt Threat: An ugly and remarkable tale about iEmpire – Storyteller turned investigative journalist learns what happens in an Apple factory
What do you get when you combine a master storyteller and investigative journalist? Mike Daisey is one answer, a storyteller and performer whose story about what happens inside an Apple factory is touching hearts and minds. After his visit to China, tours of factories, and meetings with union organizers and
Continue readingArt Threat: Palestinian Sesame Street victim of politics – Shara’a Simsim loses its funding from USAID
Palestine’s Sesame Street – in Arabic known as Shara’a Simsim – will not go into production this season. The US Congress is to blame. In October, when Palestine was admitted membership in UNESCO, the US withheld some $200 million in retaliation. Hospitals, communications, education, government programs in Palestine have all
Continue readingArt Threat: 100 political artists profiled – New book from Gestalten
Gestalten has published a new book about art and politics — Art & Agenda: Political Art and Activism, edited by R. Klanten, M. Hübner, A. Bieber, P. Alonzo, G. Jansenby. This full-colour coffee table treat introduces, explores and has contributions from more than 100 artists whose work is pushing political
Continue readingArt Threat: VOINA member arrested, whereabouts unknown – Russian art collective faces ongoing harrassment
Leonid Nikolaev's arrest, December 4, 2011 Yesterday, founding member of the Russian art collective VOINA, Leonid Nikolaev, was abducted by Russian police and his whereabouts are unknown. Nikolaev was attending a rally against election fraud in St. Petersburg when he was grabbed by police along with other protesters and taken
Continue reading