The Beehive Collective‘s wonderfully complex posters have been in circulation for a decade, and to celebrate, they’re publishing their full body of work. Some of these posters have been out of print for years and others have yet to be seen.
Their work offers the full scope of complicated social and political issues; Beehive designs storytelling objects that spin tales of resistance and movement without minimizing the issues they take up. They source their material from real struggles, through direct contact with, and participation in social movements. The intricacy of these movements is mirrored in their illustrations: multi-layered pen and ink drawings that they offer to the public for educational purposes. Beehive carefully considers how their images function in the world, and their creations follow certain criteria that they hope will characterize the work’s social life: they avoid literal human depictions, ensure that the images are cross-culturally legible, and aim to avoid cultural appropriation.
Now, ten years deep in a voluntary, collective, and embedded process, they’re in need of some support. They’ve set a goal to raise $5,000 in order to print the run of posters promised above. Please contribute!
Disclosure: Beehive is from the same state I hail from, their work has been around and present in my life for as long as I’ve been politically active, and they are friends of dear friends.
Chicago’s corporate ad space was taken over last Monday by street art advocating for the care of traumatized veterans, and against their redeployment. Just Seeds teamed up with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) veterans and supporters for Operation Exposure: War is Trauma, a part of the ongoing series held by the National Veterans Art Museum, Chicago in War.
One wall plastered by Operation Exposure
Today, Platypus digs in for an all day discussion of art criticism and theory at the New School. The event focuses on the implications of a teaching of art production via critique, especially what historical understanding can be had of current art production pedagogies, and the relationship of critique to contemporary trends, especially transdisciplinary practice. A second panel will evaluate the relevance of critical theory, especially the work of Platypus darling Theodor Adorno, to what we at Groundswell call critical cultural production.
Is the ubiquitous attempt to short-circuit commodification via art as a utopian, “subversive” island (e.g. transdisciplinary practices, relational aesthetics, artistic gift economies, etc.) an adequate way of aesthetically addressing art’s role in the culture industry?
Registration for the event is closed, but a live stream will begin at 2PM.
The wonderful folks at Turbulence were gracious enough to send a review copy of What Would it Mean to Win? our way. What follows is a much delayed review of the book. Should you want to spend some time with the text yourself, which we recommend, PM Press has copies.
UPDATE: Sean Martindale’s tents remained in Trinity Bellwoods Park for nearly four weeks, but the city evicted the project for, among other things, “camping in a public park without authority,” Torontoist reports.
Photo by Spacing Magazine‘s Jenn O. Yim
Toronto’s public space advocates are no stranger to guerrilla reclamation efforts that target illegal signs. Sean Martindale counts himself among their ranks; he’s turned wheatpasted posters into potting for plants, and is now constructing tents from the illegal condo advertisements that populate Toronto’s streetscape.
These subverted ads function in a way similar to the originals; they, too, are illegal, and, since the tents aren’t meant to actually be used, they become symbols pointing at the underbelly of this creative city. The condo marketing scheme employs the stereotyped artist chic, while the dwellings themselves are priced considerably out of the average artist’s budget. To Martindale, it’s an offensive irony that artists, trying to make due on a low income, are being priced out of their own neighborhoods by none other than a real estate company’s image of them.
The artist is careful not to make the condo the sole focus of his criticism, and makes it a point to return the conversation to the blight of advertising in public space. The abusive strategies employed by the real estate agencies and their marketing cohort are more the issue Martindale wants to discuss.
The conversation continues with Sean Martindale’s solo show at 107 Shaw Gallery, opening this Friday.
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