Politics
What is an activist, really? Where does art and culture intersect with revolution? What small everyday actions are we taking to make and shape a better future? What responsibility do today’s culture-makers have toward forwarding humanitarian values and the development of more just, eco-friendly alternatives as we move forward into a new paradigm? All that and more is the focus of the Art 511 Mag Politics section, with writing from some of today’s most important progressive thinkers.
What If…
The Inequity of Wealth…
Conjuring the Sex Positive: WITCHES, SLUTS, FEMINISTS
Conjuring the Sex Positive: WITCHES, SLUTS, FEMINISTS by Kristen J. Sollee, with illustrations by Coz Conover, is a pristine work of critical theory spruced up with enough stylish words to keep the modern woman thirsty with curiosity and flushed with diabolical pride. Kristen Sollee, professor of Gender Studies at The […]
Exploring Your Extraordinary, Elaborate, Ever-unfolding Miracle
American-Pakistani Artist Qinza Najm Challenges Islamophobia in the West & Smashes Sex Taboos Back Home
Late August, following her impressive #NoHonorKilling performance during Art 511’s flash feminist art exhibition EMINENT DOMAIN, I visited multidisciplinary Pakistani artist Qinza Najm at her studio in Hell’s Kitchen to explore some of the deeper messages in her work. Gender, sexuality and (em)powerment orient her practice, which these days takes […]
In Conversation With Helen Wewiora
Alien Armageddon, Empathy & The Vine of the Soul: A conversation with Melanie Bonajo
KC: In your new film Progress vs. Sunsets (2017), you use the voice of children, the next generation, to center some profoundly fresh insights about animal rights, bio-politics, dwindling global resources, ecology, anthropomorphism, and the general welfare of our planet. How did come to work with youth in this way? […]
IN DEFENSE OF THE LINGA
From Manchester to NYC: Pankhurst in the Park Salon
The final installment of Alexandra Arts Pankhurst in the Park was a salon-style gathering for artists and art appreciators held at the Last Frontier in Greenpoint. A space stewarded by the Norwegian artist Sol Kjok, Last Frontier is a rustic open space with high ceilings, fixtures for hanging massive works […]
Alexandra Arts
We Carry Our Mother’s Pain
EMINENT DOMAIN Opens Thursday
ART511MAG PRESENTS: EMINENT DOMAIN EXHIBITION – A DYNAMIC, INTERSECTIONAL FEMINIST ART EXHIBITION IN THE HEART OF THE WEST CHELSEA GALLERY DISTRICT curated by Katie Cercone. In response to the International Women’s Movement that has captivated the Worldwide Collective Conscious and Unconsciousness of so many people, ART511 Magazine has acted and […]
The Sick Role
Samantha Conlon’s The Sick Role, 2018, is part documentation and part ritualistic photography accompanied with text composing a contemporary portrait of the mundane reality of mental illness. From a new body of work developed in Kuvataideakatemie, Helsinki, The Sick Role interrogates the experience of physical and mental illness in female […]
Joe Overstreet: Innovation of Flight
Joe Overstreet’s spectacular flock of paintings from the early ‘70s presented at Eric Firestone Gallery masterfully deploy modern painting principles as flight instruction laden with social meaning. The physical feat of flying starts with moving forward. The exhibition’s multi-dimensional selection of works begins chronologically with “North Star” (1968), whose title […]
Turning Around and Speaking Back
The overarching theme of this year’s Wonder Women radical feminist festival in Manchester has to do with women’s representation and influence in our political and cultural institutions, responding to the centenary of the Representation of the People Act. 1918 was the first time that any women were able to vote […]
The Ritualistic Healing of the Suffragettes
The suffragettes’ militant activities were shocking for their time. June Purvis describes them as ‘transgressing the gender expectations of Edwardian society’; they unconsciously drew on a history of riotous actions and ritual behaviour that Julius R. Ruff portrays as ‘almost instinctual conduct’. Their rebellious behaviour can be read in the context of both early modern riot and festive […]
OPEN CALL FOR INTERSECTIONAL FEMINIST ART EXHIBITION- July 12-14, 2018 in West Chelsea Gallery Distract
EMINENT DOMAIN: A Flash Art Exhibition in the former Robert Miller space in West Chelsea is a curated selection of radical feminist art by female artists, eco-femmes, ghetto brujas, elders, queer/trans artists and other magical gender nomads reclaiming their rightful space in the Art World. We can unpack Feminism here […]
GAIA CODEX: A New Feminine Mythology
On a blustery day this past November, I headed out to see a conversation with author Sarah Drew and futurist Schuyler Brown at Deepak HomeBase for the launch of Drew’s fictional novel GAIA CODEX: A New Feminine Mythology (Illuminating Culture and Remembering A Sacred Earth). The invitation had come via […]
10 Organizations Helping Artists Build Community
BEAT Global www.beatglobal.org BEAT Global bridges the gap between arts and education by engaging and inspiring youth to create a culture of respect, collaboration, and freedom of expression. BEAT Global offers young people a platform to discover and express themselves without fear of judgment. Through a “cypher” based pedagogy, […]
A PUBLIC CERVIX ANNOUNCEMENT TO YUNG QUEERS:
We hereby apologize, on behalf of the collective formerly known as Go! Push Pops, for what we now recognize as an utter failure to live up to our own intersectional politics (as a queer, radical, transnational feminist collective) amounting to what could hardly be described as a “career.” At best […]
Simone Leigh’s Waiting Room
In a gallery-cum-movement studio on the Fifth Floor of the New Museum, I sat amongst a circle of men and women gathered for a Thursday evening Afrocentering class. The session, led by dancer Aimee Meredith Cox, was part of Care Sessions—a three-month program led by holistic health practitioners as part […]
Interview with Whitney Director Adam Weinberg
Interview by Katie Cercone with additional questions from Linda DiGusta, Laurence Hoffmann, Scotto Mycklebust & Randee Silv KC: You are considered an innovator in terms of your contributions to the field of museum education, what do you have planned for the new Whitney? AW: First of all we have very […]
How Many Zines Can You Make About the Artistic Uses of Period Blood & Underarm Hair?
Interview by Katie Cercone Nestled inside the pastel green Mermaid Laundromat at the corner of Maria Hernandez Park is the TROLL HOLE, Bushwick’s pro-intersectional, queer, sex-positive zine shop and activist space. A “REFUGESS WELCOME” sign peeps out above the vinyl TROLL HOLE signage to bustling Knickerbocker avenue. An intimate […]
Thought Experiment and the Future of Politics
Thought Experiment is a very noble method used since the beginning of civilization to explore new situations without necessarily endangering one’s life and with the purpose of realizing some form of progress. It has been applied mostly to scientific and to philosophical investigations. The main characteristic of the method is […]
The Donald, the Damage and the Do-Over
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