art activism

What does creativity mean to you? Kuumba, the 6th Kwanzaa principle that has guided this week's guest throughout his life, encourages us to do as much as we can, at the highest quality in attempts to leave our community/world better and more beautiful than how we first encountered it.  In this episode, Gaidi Finnie, the Director of the San Diego African American Museum of Fine Art (SDAAMFA), tells the stories of how he's used his creativity for good since he joined the Civil Rights Movement as a teen.  Get inspired by the SDAAMFA's incredible projects honoring African American culture, as well as those killed by racism and police violence.  Listen for how this museum without walls is crossing boundaries through innovative digital approaches. Learn from Gaidi and Rachelle about facing the challenges of running a non-profit head on, the power of dreaming big, and doing what you can to leave your community more beautiful than you inherited it.

Resources:

Learn more about the San Diego African American Museum of Fine Art here

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Artists featured in this episode: 

•     Huong Ngo 
•     Jasmina Cibic 
•     Sadie Barnette 

Further Reading

• Hương Ngô, “We are still here / Chúng ta vẫn ở đây / Narito pa rin kami,” for When the Storm Comes, a collaboration between feminist publishers Gantala Press and Bar de Force Press. https://whenthestormcomes314975986.wordpress.com/chung-toi-van-o-day-we-are-still-here-narito-pa-rin-kami/
• Chester Alamo-Costello, “Hương Ngô – Reflecting Winds of Perception & Change,” Comp Magazine, 15 October 2018, https://www.thecompmagazine.com/huong-ngo/
• Jaka Gerčar, “The Gift, And Especially The Obligation To Return It: Jasmina Cibic’ Foundation Of Endeavour (Exhibition review), Membrana 5, no. 2 (2020), https://www.membrana.org/review/the-gift-and-especially-the-obligation-to-return-it-jasmina-cibic-foundation-of-endeavour/
• Anna Furman, “A Daughter’s Reclamation of Her Father’s Past,” New York Times T Magazine, 31 Dec 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/31/t-magazine/sadie-barnette-fbi-drawings.html
• Sampada Aranke, “Material Matters: Black Radical Aesthetics and the Limits of Visibility,” e-flux journal 79 (february 2017). https://www.e-flux.com/journal/79/94433/material-matters-black-radical-aesthetics-and-the-limits-of-visibility/

The Nations by Artists podcast is produced by Aliya Pabani and is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Graphic design by Demian DinéYazhi’

Music for episode 3 by Zoon (Daniel Monkman, represented by Double Denim Management)

Artists featured in this episode: 

• Greg Hil
• Alan Michelson
• Pablo Helguera
• Native Art Department International (NADI)
• G. Peter Jemison

Further Reading

• “Alan Michelson & Jolene Rickard on Native Sovereignty,” Dec 7, 2020, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSrFZX1TQk4
• Joseph Heath, “The Citizenship Act of 1924” (report), OnondagaNation.org, June 7, 2018, https://www.onondaganation.org/news/2018/the-citizenship-act-of-1924/
• Audra Simpson, Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States (Duke University Press, 2014).
• Pablo Helguero and Sarah Demeuse (editors), School of Panamerican Unrest Anthology (United States: Jorge Pinto Books, 2011).
• Rebecca McGrew et al, It Happened at Pomona : Art at the Edge of Los Angeles 1969-1973 (Claremont, CA: Pomona College Museum of Art, 2011).
• Ming Tiampo, “Gutai: Splendid Playground,” Guggenheim exhibition website, http://web.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/gutai/'

Music: Cris Derksen: North, 21, Sorry, Dark Dance (℗©2013 Cris Derksen, represented by Latitude 45 Arts)

The Art Museum gratefully acknowledges operating support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council, with additional project support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Produced by Aliya Pabani.

Today we speak with activist, Glenn Cantave about his use of A/R to create interactive interruptions addressing social issues and highlighting the histories of overlooked communities.

-About Glenn Cantave-

Glenn Cantave is an activist, performance artist and social entrepreneur who uses immersive technology to highlight the narratives of the oppressed. Through his non-profit Movers & Shakers NYC, he organized a pop up slave auction performance piece/AR exhibit, ran the NYC Marathon in chains, and is creating AR educational content focused on highlighting the narratives of marginalized communities. He is also the Creator, Executive Producer of We the People, a 360 documentary focused on activism in the age of Trump. His team has documented the actions of several New York based activist groups and captured footage from events such as the Trump Inauguration, Charlottesville Riots, and a White Lives Matter Rally in Tennessee. He is a TED Resident, incoming artist in resident at Eyebeam NYU Something un Residence and a member at New Inc, an arts/tech incubator with the New Museum. He will be speaking about his work at TEDx in Ghent, Belgium this December.

Guest host, Michelle Hartney rounds out her month-long dive into Art & Morality with Decolonize This Place. Decolonize This Place is an action-oriented collective of activists who stage protests in cultural institutions to open conversations related to Indigenous struggle, Black liberation, free Palestine, global wage workers and de-gentrification. In this episode, Michelle and Marz Saffore, along with, Amy Weng members of Decolonize This Place, discuss the practice of "art washing," who defines what art is or isn't, issues of display, and the responsibility museum and institutions have to hold their board members accountable for actions which go against their values.

Notably, at the time of this recording, Michelle and Decolonize This Place members debated the position of Warren B. Kanders as, then, Vice-Chairman at the Whitney Museum. Kanders company, Safariland, produces tear-gas canisters and other supplies used by the military and law enforcement. Safariland canisters have been used against unarmed migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, Turkey’s Gezi Park, the Gaza Strip, Standing Rock in North Dakota, and, most recently, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Decolonize this Place has led the charge in protesting Kanders presence on the Museum's board hosting 9 weeks of art and action in the weeks leading up to the Whitney Biennial. Today, on July 25, 2019, Warren B. Kanders announced his resignation as Vice-Chairman at the Whitney.

- About Decolonize This Place -

Decolonize This Place is an action-oriented movement centering around Indigenous struggle, Black liberation, free Palestine, global wage workers and de-gentrification. Facilitated by MTL+ Collective. #decolonizethisplace

Learn more at https://www.decolonizethisplace.org/

Follow them @decolonizethisplace

Michelle Hartney kicks off Art & Morality by speaking with a founding member of the feminist art collective, the Guerrilla Girls (GG) on sexism and racism in the arts--from the study of its history to representation in museum, institutions and galleries. Michelle asks GG founder, speaking under the pseudonym Frida Kahlo, about the emergence of the Guerrilla Girls in the 80s, the Westernization of the art world, and the arguments made against "over-contextualizing" art and the fear of censorship in the art world.

*Helpful Links*

Hannah Gadsby, Nanette, Netflix Special

The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art

Guerrilla Girls, Three Ways to Write a Museum Wall Label When the Artist is a Sexual Predator, 2018

-About the Guerrilla Girls-

The Guerrilla Girls are feminist activist artists. Over 55 people have been members over the years, some for weeks, some for decades. Our anonymity keeps the focus on the issues, and away from who we might be. We wear gorilla masks in public and use facts, humor and outrageous visuals to expose gender and ethnic bias as well as corruption in politics, art, film, and pop culture. We undermine the idea of a mainstream narrative by revealing the understory, the subtext, the overlooked, and the downright unfair. We believe in an intersectional feminism that fights discrimination and supports human rights for all people and all genders. We have done over 100 street projects, posters and stickers all over the world, including New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Mexico City, Istanbul, London, Bilbao, Rotterdam, and Shanghai, to name just a few. We also do projects and exhibitions at museums, attacking them for their bad behavior and discriminatory practices right on their own walls, including our 2015 stealth projection about income inequality and the super rich hijacking art on the façade of the Whitney Museum in New York. Our retrospectives in Bilbao and Madrid, Guerrilla Girls 1985-2015, and our US traveling exhibition, Guerrilla Girls: Not Ready To Make Nice, have attracted thousands. We could be anyone. We are everywhere. What’s next? More creative complaining!!

Learn more at https://www.guerrillagirls.com/