Art and Democracy

Edible Estates by Fritz Haeg

admin — Mon, 26 Nov 2018 10:56:01 +0000

Attacking, destroying, and re-vamping people’s common conception of the front yards is what Fritz Haeg does through his Edible Estates project. Haeg uses the front yard as a space to show the potential of local food growth. Additionally, the project counters a capitalist-run society, by putting the power and process of producing food back into the hand of the individual. The work challenges spaces that have become normalized to function in a particular fashion and reclaims these spaces for more productive means. These spaces also become places for people to come together and share in the local benefits of food production. Edible Estates turns the front yard from a space of stagnation to a space of joy and pleasure. Not only is the yard of the residents being transformed for their personal benefit, but it forces any viewer or community member who walks by to think about their own spaces and how their spaces can be reclaimed as well.

Adrian Piper’s The Catalysis Series

admin — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 20:58:06 +0000

When you enter into a space, do you think about the unspoken rules regarding how you are supposed to act? Adrian Piper’s Catalysis Series goes against notions of how one should act within a variety of spaces ranging from museums to subways to the street to libraries. For example in one of her works she played loud recordings of belching noises within a library, a space where one is supposed to be quiet. Another time she wore a shirt that said “WET PAINT” and was covered in sticky white emulsion paint. Viewers were tempted to touch the shirt, but many didn’t. By doing these socially outrageous acts, she makes people question the ways in which society has been structured and polices people to act or not act a certain way. She doesn’t tell people how they should act but rather disrupts the sensible making people question what powers control the ways in which a person is allowed to act in public.

When Faith Moves Mountains by Francis Alys

admin — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 20:36:54 +0000

Francis Alys successfully merges together land art and democratic art through his work When Faith Moves Mountains. With this work, Alys gathered five hundred volunteers to come together and physically move a huge sand dune several inches over the course of a day. Along with being a unique land art exercise, the piece contains meaning within the political context of Peru that the exercise took place. This work took place during a time of political turmoil in Peru with the last months of the Fujimori dictatorship and the emerging resistance within the people of Lima. The work reflects a collective act and a powerful allegory for the ability of human will to do a mythical act,. There is no visible product through the collective action, as the sand dune moved a few inches, but rather the myth of what happened and the myth of what a group of people can do through collective action.

Palas por Pistolas by Pedro Reyes

admin — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 20:16:23 +0000

One town represents the ability to turn guns into shovels for planting trees through Pedro Reyes’ Palas por Pistolas democratic artwork. In the city of Culiacan, Mexico, a city with a high rate of deaths by gunshot, Pedro Reyes invited residents to give up their guns in order to turn them into shovels for the planting of trees. By giving residents the ability to give up their guns for a better purpose, Reyes caused all residents, whether they chose to give up their guns, to think about the purpose and importance of owning guns. Through the destruction of over 1527 weapons, Reyes created an alternate fiction where owning guns didn’t need to be the norm. The guns retrieved were publicly steamrolled and melted down to created 1527 shovels which were distributed internationally as a representation of this act to denounce owning of firearms and the utopian envisionment where weapons of mass destruction were recreated to create life.

The Posters of Paris ’68

admin — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 19:37:35 +0000

Straddling art vs. propaganda, artists of from The Ecole des Beuax-Arts in Paris created posters supporting rebellion and rejection of the, at the time, status quo of French society. 1968 being in the pre-internet age, these artists were able to disseminate information through the printing thousands of posters. These posters didn’t simply deal with a singular social issue or call for a singular change but rather fought societal establishments and hoped for a more utopian and egalitarian envisionment of society. Some posters dealt with immigration, some with worker inequality, etc. Artists worked collectively and held anonymous authorship to craft visually compelling images and slogans that framed their call for revolution. Through the placement of the posters, the public of Paris could not ignore the multiplicity of posters and the variety of calls making this movement not one for a singular counterpublic but rather a multiplicity of counterpublics.

Tatlin’s Whisper #5 – Tania Bruguera

admin — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 19:12:03 +0000

The presence of the police is greatly heightened and brought into hyper-focus within Tania Bruguera’s Tatlin’s Whisper #5 in order to bring awareness to the complex relationship that exists between the public and the police. Installed at the Tate Modern in Britain, this work incorporates two policemen in uniform mounted on horses which are introduced to the gallery space and then proceed to control the participant presence in the space. Actions such as closing off the gallery entrance/exit, corraling the participants into one group, separating them into two separated groups, etc. take place within the gallery space. Through the introduction of the policemen, Bruguera creates a hyper-realistic state of police control. Through Bruguera’s exposure of the police’s often assumed presence, participants are made aware of the intervention of the police on their ability to act and make choices such as leave the gallery space or be with a certain group of people.

Francis Alys, when faith moves mountains, 2002

admin — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 00:51:48 +0000

Moving a mountain is an impossible task. Sure, moving a pile of dirt can be done with the right equipment, but a mountain? No. If someone told you to move a mountain you would probably give up before even starting. This happens with other issues that appear to be too massive to complete. Why start if there is no hope that it can be done? Francis Alÿs is not a person who ascribes to this line of thought. He moved a mountain. With the help of volunteers from the shanty towns outside of Lima, Peru and university students, Alÿs effectively moved a large sand dune. The immigrants of the shanty towns and students were not two groups of people who would ordinarily work together, but in this seemingly purposeless action they proved that they could and that the impossible could happen.

Gabriel Orozco, Tortillas and Bricks, 1990

admin — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 00:50:31 +0000

Tortillas and bricks are items you would never think to see in such harmony. The artist Gabriel Orozco loves to play with everyday objects to create unnatural still lives. If anything they make someone stop and laugh or say “huh?” In a society where we can hardly look up from our phones long enough to avoid bumping into someone on the street, it is hard to incite a sustained response out someone. Nothing appears to be that shocking anymore. However, perhaps altering our visual landscape slightly can make us stop and look a little a harder at what is around us. This is a small action that can have a large impact.

Three Weeks in May (1977)

admin — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 00:49:41 +0000

Sexual assault and rape were not always hot topics for news outlets and politicians. To discuss either was frowned upon and simply not done to large extent. Suzanne Lacy aimed to do so with a very simple action. In Los Angeles, she went to the police station everyday for three weeks to obtain rape reports and on a public map stamped out the locations of each crime. The amount of stamps on the map is shocking and the lack of public knowledge is even more so. The simple action of discussing taboo topics in such a public space disrupts the normalized beliefs of these issues. Sustaining these discussions can prove even more taxing. However, putting it in the face of the public gives people no choice but to acknowledge the issues not discussed.

The Roof is on Fire (1993-1994)

admin — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 21:40:46 +0000

Crying fire may seem like the morally wrong thing to do, but in the name of democracy it might just be the right thing. Suzanne Lacy, cried fire in order to gain media coverage of live conversations taking place between high school students. Covering the topics of family, sex, politics and more, the debates that took place were important examples of what this country is lacking. Lacy facilitated conversations allowing for people to share opinions. Instead of watching one news station give their opinion on nightly news, the people in Oakland saw their own residents sharing a number of beliefs on issues that are sometimes considered too taboo to discuss. The classroom should not be the last place that group debates are encouraged.