In this 2006 work by Israeli-born, London-based video artist Guli Silberstein, painful footage from the infamous Israeli shelling of a beach in Gaza is juxtaposed with scenes of a happy family relaxing on the sand in Tel Aviv. According to the artist, “the video work refers to the thin line between tranquillity and chaos, and […]
Continue readingAuthor: Rob Maguire
Art Threat: SkyMall Liberation: White vs Non-White
Ethnographic data visualizations of the Skymall catalog made in flight with non-sharp objects.
Continue readingArt Threat: Public Access Design pairs artists and advocates on urgent social issues
The Centre for Urban Pedagogy has brought the principle of public-access television to the world of design with a project intended to provide impactful design to community advocates and empower people in their own neighbourhoods. Public Access Design creates collaborations between designers and community organizations to create visual tools that “help ordinary residents better understand […]
Continue readingRob Maguire: Email marketing is not a membership perk
Your email newsletter can be one of your most powerful marketing tools. Why a few arts organizations still think newsletters are an exclusive benefit requiring paid access completely stumps me. I get newsletters from many major art galleries, including MOMA, AGO and the Tate. For each, I signed up painlessly
Continue readingArt Threat: Who in US Congress support the arts?
Barack Obama by Tyler Streeter Other than the outrage caused by Mitt Romney’s promise to fire Big Bird, there’s been virtually no discussion on arts issues leading up to the November 6 elections in the United States. Cultural topics have been nearly absent in an election campaign dominated by the
Continue readingArt Threat: John Cameron Mitchell creates Sigur Rós music video about gay bullying
I’ve been a monumental fan of Hedwig and the Angry Inch since John Cameron Mitchell’s transexual punk rock musical first hit the small screen over a decade ago. I’ve introduced dozens of friends to the East Berlin queen, confused dozens of strangers by performing bluegrass-styled covers of Midnight Radio, and
Continue readingArt Threat: An art exhibition hidden in plain sight
Street artist JR’s pasted eye watches the corner of Berry St and South 5 in Williamsburg, NY. If you happen to be walking around Williamsburg this month, you’ll likely pass right through the inaugural exhibition of New York’s newest art museum without realizing it. The Street Museum of Art has
Continue readingArt Threat: Blasphemous maggot artist erects new illegal billboards
Provocative Polish artist Peter Fuss is back with a new pair of guerrilla billboards. Each monochrome board is wallpapered with 36 depictions of an US one-dollar bill, with the text “reasons are still the same” pasted in loud, bold type across the rightmost panel. Fuss has pushed political buttons with
Continue readingArt Threat: Vancouver Fringe brims with political plays
The Troubles (Resounding Scream Theatre) The Vancouver International Fringe Festival is underway in Canada’s westernmost metropolis, with 97 shows on offer during a program that lasts over two weeks. This year there are several plays that tackle political issues, touching on themes like human trafficking, homelessness, teen suicide, bilateral relations,
Continue readingArt Threat: How to Make Money Selling Drugs – Documentary is part how-to video, part indictment of drug policy
Of the 372 film titles listed in the Toronto International Film Festival’s program this year, few are likely to raise more eyebrows than How to Make Money Selling Drugs, a documentary that surprisingly delivers precisely what it promises. From tiff.net: Stylishly shot and cheekily framed as a subversive educational film,
Continue readingArt Threat: Blu mural tackles Italy’s Chernobyl
Italian street artist Blu has created a towering critique of the militarization of Sardinia. His latest mural depicts the devastating impact that industrialization and military bases have had on the Mediterranean island. In the south-east near Salto di Quirra, a rocket launching site run by the Italian Air Force, electromagnetic
Continue readingArt Threat: Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch forbids commercial use of his music
Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys (photo by Michael Morel). Late hip hop pioneer Adam “MCA” Yauch has explicitly prohibited any posthumous use of his music for corporate advertising. In a copy of his will obtained by Rolling Stone this week, the Beastie Boys rapper states: “Notwithstanding anything to the
Continue readingArt Threat: Rock stars demand Pussy Riot release – Feminist punk rockers jailed in Russia for performing "punk prayer" against Vladimir Putin
As Russian president Vladimir Putin visits London to engage in both Olympic and diplomatic shenanigans, several major British musicians, including Pete Townshend, Jarvis Cocker and Corinne Bailey Rae are calling for the release of members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, who have been locked away in a Moscow
Continue readingRob Maguire: An Olympic lesson on how to botch a mobile marketing campaign
I’m no fan of Coca-Cola. That said, their television ad running throughout the Olympics is quite clever. It features British DJ, producer and musician Mark Ronson, who sampled sounds produced by five Olympics athletes doing their thing. There’s the thud of a taekwondo competitor kicking her opponent, the thwack of
Continue readingArt Threat: Quebec casseroles illustrated by Ben Tardiff
Montreal illustrator Ben Tardiff depicts the casseroles, the nightly pot-clanging protests that challenge the legitimacy of the Quebec government. The ruling Liberal party’s planned university tuition hike — and the implementation of a repressive “emergency law” designed to stifle dissent — has led to massive street demonstrations and over 2500
Continue readingArt Threat: Photographer seeks arrested student strikers
Toronto-based photographer Brett Gundlock is currently in Montreal capturing portraits of demonstrators who have been detained or arrested during the ongoing student strike. The photos will be a continuation of a previous series in which he photographed people who were arrested during the Toronto G20 protests. Gundlock will be in
Continue readingArt Threat: Quebec’s red square hits Cannes’ red carpet
The team behind 'Laurence Anyways' attends the film's premiere in Cannes, France. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images.) Although Québécois filmmaker and actor Xavier Dolan may be across the Atlantic at the Cannes Film Festival, the government crackdown on civil liberties taking place in his home province doesn’t seem to be out of
Continue readingArt Threat: 99 musicians for the 99 percent – Occupy This Album features music by Yoko Ono, Tom Morello, Yo La Tango and others whose names have fewer o’s
If you support the Occupy movement, relish discovering new music, and are gainfully employed, then you seriously need to plunk down ten bucks and purchase Occupy This Album. An autonomous project designed to support Occupy, Music For Occupy has produced this epic compilation album to raise both funds and awareness
Continue readingArt Threat: Infographic Weekend: Where does US Food Aid go?
The United States is doing it’s best to feed the world … or at least that’s what they’d like you to believe. US Food Aid may be more effective as a subsidy to domestic producers, agribusiness and shipping companies than it is at alleviating hunger in the poorest parts of
Continue readingArt Threat: Advocating for a diversity of tactics – Journal of Aesthetics and Protest #8 now available in print
This chart shows how the editors ‘understand how each writer's article functionalizes distrust/trust of institutionality in relationship to how much mediation they understand is useful in reflecting on the complexity of culture.’ The eighth issue of the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest has just been released in print. While the
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