activism & social justice

Barbara Kruger – Your body is a battleground

Paintings / 6 minutes of reading

Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) is an iconic 1989 silkscreen portrait made by artist, feminist and activist Barbara Kruger. Though the poster was meant for the pro-choice march on April 9th, 1989, in DC, the portrait is now used mainly to voice the artist’s own opinion about gender inequality. The piece is much …

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Banksy’s Rage, The Flower Thrower – Everything you need to know

Paintings, Street Art / 5 minutes of reading

Rage, the Flower Thrower Rage, the Flower Thrower or Love is in the Air is one of the most iconic stencils by Banksy. It shows a masked Palestinian throwing a bouquet of flowers. Banksy is known for displaying his works out in the open for the public to view it, in places such as walls …

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Félix González-Torres’ bed billboards – Beautifully confrontational

Installations / 5 minutes of reading

Who was Félix González-Torres Being born in Cuba, Félix González-Torres (1957-1996) left his homeland at an early age. He moved to New York City in 1979 and registered at the Whitney Independent Study Program. His revelation to Critical Theory granted him a source of inspiration and influence, especially the literature of French thinkers Michel Foucault …

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Martha Rosler invented the Semiotics of the Kitchen

Performances / 5 minutes of reading

Semiotics of the Kitchen is a work by Martha Rosler. She produced it in 1975 by using an alphabet worth of kitchen tools to participate in a feminist critique of the traditional role of gender. Her acts in the 6 minutes recording are characterized by frustration and anger at the patriarchal role of women. …

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Burmese artist Htein Lin & his powerful hand sculptures

Installations / 3 minutes of reading

Who is Htein Lin? Htein Lin (b. 1966) is an artist and pro-democracy activist. From 1998 to 2004, he was jailed for challenging the military dictatorship of Myanmar. Htein Lin was born in the tiny village of Mezaligon, in the country Burma, which was later named Myanmar, in 1989. In 1978, aged 12, Lin started …

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Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla - Land Mark (Foot Prints), 2001-2002.

Allora & Calzadilla’s Land Mark – You never saw footprints like these

Performances / 3 minutes of reading

What are Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla known for? In this fragmented world of the 21st century, if we are to name one element that unifies many distinct strings and grants them with a character of their own, then it would inevitably be art. Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla undertook this very principle in their …

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Emily Jacir - Where We Come From (Munir), 2001-2003, Chromogenic print and text panel, feat

Emily Jacir’s Where we come from & The power of her passport

Mixed media, Other / 3 minutes of reading

Armed with an American passport, Emily Jacir knew she could do something to liberate fellow Palestinians to better their lives. So, when she asked them if there was anything she could do for them right there in Palestine, anywhere in Palestine, she had prepared herself for the sacrifice. Emily Jacir using her American passport …

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Shirin-Neshat-Turbulent-1998-black-and-white-video-installation-2

Shirin Neshat’s Turbulent forces you to take a side

Performances / 5 minutes of reading

What is Turbulent? Turbulent is a two-screen film installation by famous Iranian artist Shirin Neshat. It is among her most critically acclaimed works, having won her a Lion d’Or at the Venice Biennale back in 1999. It is also her first-ever venture into the world of video, an art medium that later played a significant …

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Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch was slowly disappearing

Installations / 5 minutes of reading

You probably know Olafur Eliasson, the Danish-Icelandic artist. Some of his exceptional artworks focus on climate and environmental changes. In 2003, he installed The Weather Project, which remains one of Tate Modern’s popular installations. He is also known for his freestanding waterfall in Versailles, his installation in which he installed a riverbed in a …

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Dawoud Bey’s Birmingham project & this 1963 tragedy

Photography / 5 minutes of reading

Birmingham Project Dawoud Bey’s career focuses on portraying American youth as well as those from marginalized communities. He does so with an uncommon degree of sympathy and complexity. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing His Birmingham Project is a deeply felt and abstractly rich tribute to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing …

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Barbara Kruger’s I shop therefore I am – What you should know

Other / 5 minutes of reading

I Shop Therefore I Am (1987) is the work of Barbara Kruger. It became an iconic artwork, being reproduced on items such as shopping bags and other consumer products such as t-shirts. Kruger has often derived images from the mass media and pasted the words over them, particularly in Futura Bold. She then uses …

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Why were there seesaws at the border?

Architecture, Installations / 5 minutes of reading

The US-Mexico border wall has become a battleground for political theater, but also various artistic interventions. One of these outstanding artworks is the pink seesaws. They went viral after they were installed by the two creative architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello. Between the erect giant steel posts of the border fence lie …

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How Hans Haacke took on the Rockefellers with his MoMA Poll

Other / 2 minutes of reading

3 min 37 sec Who is Hans Haacke? Hans Haacke was born in 1936 in Cologne, Germany. He studied at Staatliche Werkakademie in Kassel and later on worked as a guard and tour guide on the second documenta in 1959 in the same city. All this under the apprenticeship of, …

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Nick Cave’s Soundsuit sculptures – Everything you need to know

Performances, Sculptures / 9 minutes of reading

Who is Nick Cave? Nick Cave is an American fabric sculptor, performance artist, and dancer. He was born on February 4, 1959, in Fulton, Missouri. Currently, Cave lives in Chicago, Illinois, where he works at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as the director of the graduate fashion program. Nick Cave’s work is …

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Arthur Jafa: Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death

Other / 3 minutes of reading

For an artist who has been fighting for the recognition of black art and black visual culture for decades, the breakthrough in the form of enjoying the art scene spotlight is victory. This is where Arthur Jafa and his Love is the message are in terms of appreciation for his work. Days after the …

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Emily Jacir’s creative way of preserving Palestinian history

Other, Photography / 4 minutes of reading

Emily Jacir is a Palestinian artist and a filmmaker. She was born in Bethlehem in 1973 and spent most of her life in Saudi Arabia. She later attended high school in Italy and eventually attended Memphis College of Arts where she graduated with an art degree. One of her most renowned work is Ex …

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Sebastião Salgado’s Salt of the Earth – Why you should watch it

Photography / 3 minutes of reading

Sebastião Salgado is a Brazilian born documentary photographer. He is also a photojournalist who has traveled about 120 countries to pursue his passion: photography. Salgado was raised in Brazil by middle-class parents and later studied economics. He was then involved in student protests against the military dictatorship, and hence he had to flee his …

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Jenny Holzer’s eerie Kind of Blue installation

Installations, Light / 5 minutes of reading

Inspirational quotes are usually found everywhere, and when we are feeling low, they help cheer us up, give us new strength, and increase our determination. Such was Jenny Holzer’s idea as they installed Kind of Blue at the Art Museum of Fort Worth. Kind of Blue, 2012 Jenny Holzer is known for her art relating …

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This was Ai Weiwei’s refugee life jacket installation

Installations / 2 minutes of reading

Life Jackets, was created by well-known and revered Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei. For this installation, Weiwei attached a total of 14,000 life jackets that had each been utilized by various refugees to the columns of Berlin’s Konzerthaus concert hall. Life Jackets was not the first installation created by Ai to highlight the …

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