So I decided today focus on an image I remember seeing a print of that my art teacher had in the clay room and found again accidentally while researching images.
I have always loved Alphonse Mucha & Aubrey Beardsley, so it was the just the right image to make my teenage heart flip out over the novel idea that there's a choice, either make Art or make war...a sentiment I appreciated over "Make Love not War". I grew up watching television news with footage of Viet Nam fighting along side so many other unrests and assassinations and protests. I think we just forgot what that felt like and got too comfortable; now we're being reminded. So I wanted to share the memory.
There is a group on Facebook now:
I think the sentiment is great in this time of social disruption and unease and want to support it. So I tried to find some others following this tactic, but alas, there was very little going. What I have found is offered here. First up is an interesting blog post on "Artivism", with a lot of evocative images to consider:
Then I found a new Ukranian artform "YAKSCHO", and had never thought of using a weapon to make art---but they did:
I needed to clear my head after viewing that and found an old but still very interesting article from the Guardian on Dada-ism:
Aside from an awful lot of websites offering copies of the posters and t-shirts of the same I couldn't find one current website following the ideal of "make art not war", so if anyone out there knows of any current artists following this lead, can you let me know? Tweet me or PM me on FB.
Today we found out that the British government, who has frozen our pay for the last two years, has just announced that they are "generously" going to offer us up to 1% pay rises for the next two years. Cost of living has raised over 5% since our pay is frozen and they are predicting it to rise up to 3% next year. Tomorrow there is a united union all-out strike because the government are changing all the rules surrounding pensions that were agreed when we were hired.
Then I found this image circa 1890s, where they were striking for better working conditions and treatment, it seems so familiar in the last year, one protest after another and we still haven't learned---the system doesn't work when only a few have power and money and make the rules 120-ish years later.
It is entirely unfair and I am very angry about it---so I really needed reminding to make art and not war right now.
Please share at will!---Gabrielle 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment