Give it Away, Uncle Sam: activist folk music by Caitlin Johnstone
Catchy activist garage folk tune by activist writer – artist Caitlin Johnstone
Beuys at Ropac: embalming the revolution (or Utopia at the Stag Monuments, a case study in postmodernity)
25 April 2018. I visited the opening of the Joseph Beuys’ exhibition in London last week, hoping to catch a glimpse or an echo of the artist’s call to action, a call for personal development through creativity, that would lead to a social evolution and a democratic utopia. Instead, I found remains of a life…
We are the revolution: Joseph Beuys’ art and Jack Savoretti’s music
A 1972 photo-artwork by Joseph Beuys has the title “We are the Revolution”, which encapsulates the idea that it is our own personal evolution which will transform society. Below is a link to a 2015 song of the same name. I am researching the art of Beuys, who saw art as a process of personal…
“It’s a choice between fear and love”: Bill Hicks’ standup comedy is political art
Let Bill Hicks show you how (link to performance video below) …. “Don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, it’s just a ride …. we can change it any time we want – it’s only a choice … between fear and love.” “The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy…
Is this political art? Thích Quảng Đức, Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk burned himself to death 11 June 1963
When I think of Marina Abramovic offerring her body for members of the public to mutilate with a blade, a gun, and I think of the symbolic significance of her acts, I wonder if this act of immolation, which has huge cultural significance, might be considered an act of performance art in its broadest sense?…
Innocence and experience, and manifesting the new utopia through art – an artist’s statement
It seems that people have given up hoping for a better future, and are now resigned to a world where we need to participate in relentless pursuit of money in order to simply survive. It’s no longer possible to opt out. This feeling that there is no alternative to capitalism, or consumerism, is in contrast…
Thunder Thighs – performance by Caitlin MAFA Brighton 2017
Caitlin, a student on my course, made this video-art. It helped inspire my short video Slash. The video embodies the ideas contained in my aesthetics essay – that the artist’s body can be direct way of communicating with the audience, that removes the separation between between subject and artist and audience (especially when live…
Motherhood: (Un)speakable, (Un)spoken, by Joanna Rosenfeld
A remarkable performance piece about motherhood by Joanna Rosenfeld: ‘Motherhood; the Unspeakable Unspoken’. It was performed during Brighton’s Festival in May 2017. The excerpt below was filmed at Performing Parenthood Festival 2017 Link to a 20 minute excerpt from the 70 minute piece: https://youtu.be/S1253mS-70c Link to artist’s website about making the piece: http://www.joannarosenfeld.co.uk/motherhood-unspeakable/4588019870
Caitlin Alexander: the artist’s body as subject and object
In student crits in room 128 at Brighton Uni, Caitlin showed a short, simple and effective video that encouraged and inspired me to try video as way of using the ‘performative body’ as a medium in art, a way of engaging with the social and political using art. I’ve mentioned in other posts (Mosse, Haacke)…
Time-based event artist and founder member of APG: John Latham
British painter, sculptor, conceptual artist, performance artist, video and filmmaker, of Rhodesian birth. He studied at the Chelsea School of Art, London, from 1946 to 1950. His concern from 1954 was not with the production of art objects as an end in itself but with various processes and consequently with the recording in three dimensions…
Pina dances Song of the Stars by Dead Can Dance
This video is made by a Youtube user, combining music by Dead can Dance with clips from a movie by dancer Pina. Pina challenges the mind-body split by combining physical, athletic dance with ideas of desire, environmentalism, technology, society, and thus the political. People in a real world, showing truth through dance. Well, that’s a…
Raphael by the Sea 