Justseeds Studio Visits (Pete & Thea)
Posted October 16, 2013 by icky in Justseeds Member Projects | Comments (0)
Here's another new series which I'm going to do for the blog, in which I ask members of Justseeds to take pictures of where they make their work, ask them to describe it, and ask what would be an ideal workspace.
Up for the first edition are visits with Pete (in Milwaukee) and Thea (in rural Oregon)....
Killjoy's Castle: A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House
Posted October 15, 2013 by mary_tremonte in Events | Comments (0)
If you are in Toronto at the end of October, you don't want to miss Allyson Mitchell's Lesbian Feminist Haunted House. I have been silkscreen printing sweet merch designed by Allyson, sneak preview pictured here.
From the promo:
"Each Hallowe’en radical evangelical groups all over the USA and Canada build hell houses. Beginning in the 70’s, these performer-animated installations showcase a gruesome retribution for the sins of fornication, abortion, suicide, occultism, and— of course—same-sex relationships. This Hallowe’en Toronto artist Allyson Mitchell reclaims this hellish scenario with her crowd-sourced, lesbian-feminist, queer-fear-fighting and reinforcing Kill Joy’s Kastle: A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House.This ground-up, maximalist, not-to-be-missed haunted house has been nailed, knit, and glued by a coven of dedicated feminists over the course of the past three months."
Opening Night with over 30 Live Performances
October 16 6:00-9:00 pm
Open for tours October 17-30 4:00-8:00 pm
303 Landsdowne Ave. Toronto, ON
Tonight! The Creators at Interference Archive
Posted October 14, 2013 by jmacphee in Film & Video | Comments (0)
The Creators: South Africa Through The Eyes of its Artists
October 14, 2013
7-9pm
with filmmaker Laura Gamse
Interference Archive
131 8th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Pittsburghers for Italian Pride without Genocide
Posted October 13, 2013 by icky in Inspiration | Comments (0)
Here's some photos from some friends here who did a creative action during the Columbus Day parade in Bloomfield (Pittsburgh's Little Italy). The pictures speak for themselves, a small group dressed in funerary attire, walking the parade route (though in the opposing direction of the parade).
Brave, bold, and awesome!
More photos below...
Amazing! (Melanie, Roger, Icky)
Posted October 12, 2013 by icky in Inspiration | Comments (0)
Welcome to the inaugural edition of a new series in which I ask the Justseeds collective members to list five things that have inspired/amazed/blown-them-away in the last month or so. Here are the lists from Melanie, Roger, and me!
Roy & Silo on the Logandog T-Shirt Gallery
Posted October 11, 2013 by mary_tremonte in Events | Comments (0)
I am so honored to have my print Roy and Silo: Powerful on exhibit this month on the body of a lovely golden retriever named Logan, who is in partnership with one homo-genuis named Sarah Mangle.
From the blog: "Logandog T-Shirt Gallery is literally the body of a friendly and handsome 9-year-old golden retreiver with a swish in his step...Logandog isn't influenced by the art market or trends." You can read more about this t-shirt celebrating gay penguins and more about the project at the Logandog T-Shirt Gallery blog HERE
Political Art Call for Entries "Exuberant Politics"
Posted October 11, 2013 by meredith_stern in Art & Politics | Comments (0)
Exuberant Politics Exhibition
Call for Entries Deadline: December 15, 2013
Send your revolutionary manifesto, your conceptual social sculpture, your political poems, your utopian films and videos, your musical anthems. Enter your political rally poster, your activist website, your play, performance, print, painting or puppet in the show “Exuberant Politics.”
EP celebrates the intersection of art and activism in new forms of creative direct action and organizing, street theater and the art of protest, and social justice political activism.
You or your groups’ artistic political “exuberance” can be expressed in any format, medium or size, but be aware that there is limited floor/wall space in our galleries. We may choose to recognize selected off-site proposals and projects, so please consider a proposal to organize an “exuberant” event in your backyard, neighborhood or locale.
Herman Wallace!
Posted October 5, 2013 by icky
I was so sad today to wake up and read the news that Herman Wallace had died just three days after he was released from prison. Herman (along with Albert Woodfox and Robert King Wilkerson) was one of the Angola 3- Black Panther political prisoners who had been held in solitary confinement at the Louisiana State Penitentiary (aka Angola Prison).
How To Make Trouble...
Posted October 5, 2013 by jmacphee in Events | Comments (0)
I wrote a foreword to this great book! The second edition just came out on PM Press, and it's well worth taking a peek at it HERE. Plus if you're in Melbourne (where the editor and designer live), check out the big book launch party! More info past the break...
Sounds of the Week #11
Posted October 1, 2013 by pete in Sounds of the Week | Comments (0)
Welcome back to Sounds of the Week, the (supposedly) weekly sound musings by members of Justseeds. This week Earth, and Sly and the Family Stone and more.
REVOLVE: An Art for Social Change Symposium October 5th in Philadlephia, PA
Posted September 30, 2013 by k_c_ in Events | Comments (0)
Justseeds members Melanie Cervantes and Jesus Barraza will be presenting at the upcoming REVOLVE symposium. While Favianna Rodriguez will be the keynote speaker!!!
In honor of the Leeway Foundation’s 20th anniversary and Grantmakers in the Arts coming to Philadelphia, we invite you to join us on Saturday, October 5, for a day-long event that will convene artists, activists, cultural workers, organizers, scholars, and community leaders to celebrate examples from the past two decades where artists and cultural producers have connected their practice to social change movements.
JBbTC 156: Gorey pt.3
Posted September 30, 2013 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers | Comments (0)
For this final week of Edward Gorey covers, I've pulled together all the stragglers I could find, covers he did that are later or not for Doubleday Anchor. The Rilke cover to the right is really striking, with a completely flat visual plain and very limited lines, the cover captures Rilke's likeness, down to the intense, searching eyes. While many of Gorey's covers are conceptually efficient or sparse, this is the only one that I've found that is graphically so. He's abandoned all the tiny, scratchy lines and intense detail for a totally graphic treatment. It really works, and makes me wonder what other work like this he has floating out in the world, collecting dust on the shelves of used bookshops.
Wild Beasties, Oct. 6th
Posted September 28, 2013 by jmacphee in Film & Video | Comments (0)
WILD BEASTIES
2 films of nature by Vanessa Renwick
with scores by untamed musicians Tara Jane ONeil and Daniel Menche
Hollywood Theatre, October 6th, 7:30PM, $8, all ages
Our art at the AFL-CIO Convention?
Posted September 26, 2013 by roger_peet in In the News | Comments (0)
A couple of weeks ago the AFL-CIO, the largest remaining union in the US, held its annual convention in Los Angeles. The centerpiece of the convention hall was a structure holding big, bright banners featuring the art of Justseeds artists, recontextualized to refer to 15 campaigns that the AFL-CIO is working on. Favianna and I (Roger) put the project together with help from Victor Sanchez of the union, and you can see all of the individual pieces here on Roger's Flickr page. A couple of them are included after the jump.
As you look at those images- notice something. Many of these campaigns are far away from the traditional purview of industrial unionism in this country: Carwash organizing, patient care workers, childcare workers- this represents something of a new direction for this sort of big-time national organizing (although I'm by no means an expert on current labor history or strategy). By bringing our art into this context, we're trying to contribute to that flexibility on strategy. Art is a tool for bringing people together, helping them realize that they agree, and giving them something to refer to when they doubt their path. While we don't often work this closely with the big unions, we found this project satisfying- helping to bring new tactics to new front lines. You can read a couple of articles about the convention and our art here, at the New York Times, and here at the Huffington Post.
Josh MacPhee in Iowa City for a Week of Events
Posted September 24, 2013 by jmacphee in Justseeds Member Projects | Comments (0)
Yup, I'm in Iowa City for a week, doing a bunch of events, and I'd love it if anyone in the area wants to swing by and say "hello" at any of them! My talk tonight is called "Space, History, Toward a Visual Commons" and later in the week I'll be meeting with students, talking about alternative archives, and presenting at stencil and screenprint workshops.
All the info is HERE.
Justseeds Sponsors Narco Cultura at the Milwaukee Film Festival
Posted September 23, 2013 by colin_matthes in Inspiration | Comments (0)
Justseeds is sponsoring a film at the Milwaukee Film Festival this year. It looks fantastic.
Narco Cultura - USA | 2012 | 106 min. Director: Shaul Schwarz
In Ciudad Juarez, thousands of homicide cases overtax the crime scene units as drug cartels slowly tilt the system's odds in their favor. Meanwhile, across the border, nestled in the safe embrace of El Paso, Texas, musicians work feverishly to meet growing demand for narco-corridos, waltz-like ballads that lionize the blood-soaked escapades of traffickers and kingpins (who play them over police radio channels in the wake of their violent acts) idolized for having escaped poverty and squalor. Cutting between these disparate scenes and showcasing a largely unknown counterculture taking hold across both borders, director Shaul Schwarz examines how a calamitous lifestyle remains so appealing as Narco Cultura continues to grow.
JBbTC 155: Gorey pt. 2
Posted September 23, 2013 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers | Comments (0)
Last week I looked at a chunk of Anchor Doubleday paperbacks from the 1950s and 60s with covers by Edward Gorey. You can see them and read it HERE. Last week I was focusing on the utter lonesomeness of the figures in Gorey's covers, and this week I found a couple covers where the figures have completely vanished, where Gorey simply captures stark landscapes. Each of the two here are both bleak and unforgiving: Travels in Arabia Deserta shows a desolate brown field with slightly darker peaks sprouting from it; American Puritans shows a nearly barren landscape populated by dead trees and lonely boulders, all under a bright red sun.
Justseeds at the Pittsburgh Zine Fair
Posted September 21, 2013 by mary_tremonte in Books & Zines | Comments (0)
Justseeds will be at the Pittsburgh Zine Fair
Sunday September 22
2:00-8:00pm
the Union Project.
801 N. Negley Ave
FREE!
Come check us out!
New hankies for your Fall Fashion, small prints and publications, stickers and smiles.
Plus I smuggled in some Maple Bacon potato chips. If you ask we'll give you a tasting. Offer good while supplies last.
Justseeds at the New York Art Book Fair
Posted September 19, 2013 by jmacphee in Justseeds Group Projects | Comments (0)
Justseeds is tabling with Interference Archive at the New York Art Book Fair at PS1 in Queens, tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday and Sunday. Come say hello!
"Basin" install / Surface Tension exhibition opens Sept 20: Kitchener, Ontario
Posted September 18, 2013 by nicolas_lampert in Art & Politics | Comments (0)
Raoul Deal, Lisa Moline, Lane Hall, and I spent the last weekend in Kitchener, Ontario completing a drawing installation for the Surface Tension: The Future of Water exhibition that opens this Friday, September 20 at THE MUSEUM.
Surface Tension is now on its third location after debuting at the Science Gallery in Dublin, Ireland and than traveling to EyeBeam in NYC.
This time around our work - Basin - was more overtly political and had the activist kick that we were looking for. We focused on the Great Lakes and the environmental issues that impacted the eight US states and the Canadian provinces that border the lakes. Our research focused on the ecological harm that is being done by the escalation of oil and gas extraction in the region (hydraulic fracturing, the expansion of pipelines carrying tarsands crude, etc.) The drawing itself was layered. The background had words, images, and phrases that talked about water privatization, the politics of water, invasive species, etc. The foreground had a map of the Great Lakes in the middle. To the left were circles that highlighted the environmental issues facing the water, land, and air in the Great Lakes region, and to the right were circles that highlighted recent environmental victories.
Blind Athena
Posted September 17, 2013 by jmacphee in Street Art & Graffiti | Comments (0)
My friend Eric Triantafillou just sent me this photo from his recent trip to Greece. In his words, "Athena is blind to the suffering of Athenians."
JBbTC 155: Gorey pt.1
Posted September 16, 2013 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers | Comments (0)
One of the great things about working at a bookstore is you start to notice more and more quirky little things about books, stuff that only the week before passed you by. In the Spring I started noticing similar covers on a wide array of mass market paperbacks from the 1950s and 60s, mostly on classic literature, but also on philosophy, poetry, sociology, and essays. There was something familiar about the artwork, but also strange and unknown. Cracking open the books led to discovering that all of them had been designed by Edward Gorey. I've never been a huge Gorey fan—although I always found "A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs; B is for Basil, assaulted by bears" somewhat charming, in a gothic kind of way—I've never been remotely driven to the kind of Gorey worship that seems popular today, with the onslaught of little gift books and tote bags, t-shirts and nick-knacks.
"How to Paralyze a Country" by Submedia
Posted September 13, 2013 by k_c_ in Film & Video | Comments (0)
Justseeds: Old School 10
Posted September 12, 2013 by jmacphee in Justseeds: Old School | Comments (0)
Meredith Stern: "My first protest poster made in 7th grade, to try to boycott plastics and styrofoam in the cafeteria. I started a petition campaign, and somehow got a ton of folks to sign, and the result is that they switched over to dishes and silverware within the next year. I wonder if my prediction about the earth in 2020 is going to hold true. It seemed so far away at the time. . . ."
New Impeach Freights/Graf 17
Posted September 10, 2013 by jmacphee in Street Art & Graffiti | Comments (0)
JBbTC 154: Studies in International Communism
Posted September 9, 2013 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers | Comments (0)
I was in San Francisco in the Spring of 2012 for the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair, and since I had a little extra time I made the rounds of the local used bookstores. One of my favorites is Dog Eared Books. Sometimes it can be a bit pricey, but at the same time there are often some great deals, and the book buyers tend to pick up quirky Left books. This visit I found a copy of Cuba: Castroism and Communism, 1959-1966 by Andrés Suárez on MIT Press. I was drawn to the book because its austere front cover—large, bold, white letters spelling out C-U-B and a big red star in place of the A. The tiny, tiny full title and author underneath is a really nice touch. The clinch for deciding to buy the book was when I flipped it over and found the same exact design on the back, but with each letter super-imposed on top of key figure in international politics in the 1960s (if not the Cuban Missile Crisis): Mao, Kruschev, Kennedy, and finally Castro, sitting comfortably behind the red star.
Justseeds: Old School 9
Posted September 5, 2013 by jmacphee in Justseeds: Old School | Comments (0)
This is another one of my (Josh MacPhee) old pieces. More info below...
New Impeach Freights/Graf 16
Posted September 4, 2013 by jmacphee in Street Art & Graffiti | Comments (0)
DIYDPW #29
Posted September 4, 2013 by shaun in DIYDPW | Comments (0)
Jersey St, New York, NY, USA (Thanks again, Kevin!)
Bill Ohrmann Paints It How He Sees It
Posted September 3, 2013 by roger_peet in Inspiration | Comments (0)
I spent two weeks in August traveling around Montana. My sweetie Elizabeth and I hiked to hot springs in the Bitterroot Wilderness, counted Golden Eagles and Nighthawks in the Paradise Valley, and watched the beetle-killed mountains burn. On our way back to Missoula we took an alternate route through the town of Anaconda, heading north on State Highway 1. Just outside the town of Drummond, we passed a small ranch-house with a yard full of impressive metal sculpture- a bear, a rhino, and was that a mammoth? A big hand-painted sign on the fence said "Usually Open". We turned back to check it out.
As we pulled into the yard, a man was leaving the building marked "Museum", moving slowly, tall and thin, bent slightly over a walker. He noticed us, waved and approached. "I just closed, but I can open up again. No, it's no problem." He swung open the door and we went in.
The interior was a big white space full of paintings and wood-carvings, lit by big windows. "This is all my work," said the tall man, who introduced himself as Bill Ohrmann. "Stay as long as you like."
We started over to the walls and began a cursory ogle of the hanging work. It became immediately obvious that we had found something absolutely amazing. Our jaws dropped as we moved from piece to piece. We were in the presence of greatness.
JBbTC 153: Seed
Posted September 2, 2013 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers | Comments (0)
Just one book this week, but a good one. Another trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan and Argos—the city's premier used book shop—led to this great find, Charles G. Norris' Seed: A Novel of Birth Control. Beyond the amazing title, the fabulous part is, of course, the Rockwell Kent-illustrated cover. It's unattributed, but surely his work.
The novel was first published in 1930, but this is a 1940 Triangle Books edition. Triangle appears to have been a New York publisher of inexpensive reprints of popular novels. There's not a lot of easy to access information out there about them, but their list seems a big grab bag, with pulpy stuff like James Cain, Conan Doyle, and Ellery Queen, more literary work like Pearl Buck and John Steinbeck, then pop book by people like Kipling and Wodehouse.
Justseeds: Old School 8
Posted August 29, 2013 by jmacphee in Justseeds: Old School | Comments (0)
flyer by Bec Young, click below to read more about it!
The Anniversary of the Farce on Washington
Posted August 29, 2013 by nicolas_lampert in Art & Politics | Comments (0)
50 years ago the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) dubbed the March on Washington the "Farce on Washington." They had good reason to level such a harsh critique.
SNCC - by far the most radical of the four major Civil Rights organizations (the others being SCLC, CORE, and the NAACP) - felt that the event was too cautious in its demands, the speeches too sanitized, and the critiques of the power structure too limited. SNCC knew that the Kennedy Administration had completely failed to protect the lives of Civil Rights workers, and African Americans in general, and they felt the March on Washington - while still important - would make a largely unresponsive Federal Government look good in the eyes of the world. That by simply allowing a mass gathering on the Washington Mall to happen, the Kennedy Administration would appear as if it truly supported the black freedom movement and its demands for racial and economic justice.
DIYDPW #28
Posted August 28, 2013 by shaun in DIYDPW | Comments (0)
Hudson Valley, NY, USA (Thanks, Kevin!)
New Impeach Freights/Graf 15
Posted August 27, 2013 by jmacphee in Street Art & Graffiti | Comments (0)
