Update: We’ve got copies of Issue 01 of Scapegoat Journal in our store.
The current economic crisis has turned attention toward volunteerism – as resources dry up, or are prevented from being distributed, companies turn would-be paid jobs into volunteer internships, and art/design firms increasingly offer their services to organizations trying valiantly to remedy the more dramatic symptoms of capitalism. These troubling and ambivalent dynamics are familiar to cultural producers, especially those whose work (like Groundswell’s) has been a labor of love.
Frank Chimero’s Design Won’t Save the World
Sacrificial labor is a seeming requirement of the cultural economy as currently configured. We’re required to work for free, or, as is sometimes worse, for ourselves, which requires all the more dedication, time, and labor, especially when workers collectively self-manage. Too often do radical democratic projects suffer from making this sacrifice. Can this kind of work be maintained, especially where it’s an act of solidarity?
Fuse Magazine turns 35 this year, and to celebrate, its new edition reviews several decades of the most stirring authorship contributed to Canada’s foremost critical periodical on art, culture, and politics. Seventeen pieces from their archives, including interviews, features, and reports – including works by such writers as Deborah Root and bell hooks – as well as six artists’ projects, comprise an issue on solidarity and how it enables political action.
Highlights from this issue include:
Join Groundswell at the launch party, tomorrow evening, at Toronto’s Feminist Art Gallery (FAG).
Disclosure: Fuse Magazine’s new editor, Gina Badger, is a friend and fellow art worker.
Groundswell was recently invited to contribute an exhibition essay for Sean Martindale’s Love the Future / Free Ai Weiwei, a sculptural installation at Whippersnapper Gallery through the end of this month. On the eve of the opening reception, the world-renown artist Ai Weiwei was conditionally released from detention in Beijing, making the event much more joyous than we could have anticipated. His condition and whereabouts were still unknown, as were the conditions of his release. What’s more, the world had yet to hear any news of his compatriots, but the promise that China had freed Ai was cause for celebration.
Love the Future / Free Ai Weiwei, is a cardboard sculpture of the Chinese artist, located on the border of Toronto’s central Chinatown, Alexandra Park (one of the cities oldest housing projects), and the eclectic Kensington Market. With all of these geographical considerations in mind, Martindale hopes to explore what it means for a North American artist to express solidarity with a Chinese dissident and fellow artist. The sunflower seeds at the base of the sculpture are a reference to Ai’s recent work at London’s Tate Gallery, the popularity of which has made the seeds an icon of his struggle. Throughout, the gallery has been transformed into an information center, sharing Ai Weiwei’s story and updates about his condition. Martindale’s creative response pushed artists and activists alike to consider further options for pressing for Ai’s release, and still functions as a criticism of the crackdown on dissenting artists and activists within China and elsewhere.
Courtesy Whippersnapper Gallery
The cardboard used in the sculpture was sourced from nearby streets, following Martindale’s commitment to using local and reclaimed materials, and during this show, he will return to those streets to create site-specific works using the materials he finds there.
Below is the full exhibition essay, which can also be downloaded here. Please note that the text was written prior to Ai’s release, and has not been updated.
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