Upcoming Exhibition

 

SIGNS OF CHANGE:
Social Movement Cultures 1960s to the Present

Guest curated by Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee

New York, NY @ Exit Art

Sept. 20–Nov. 22, 2008

·       Sept. 20, 7-10pm: Reception

 

Pittsburgh, PA @ Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University

Jan. 23–March 8, 2009

·       Jan. 23, 6-8pm: Reception

 

  War Abroad Is War on US, Northern California War Tax Resistance

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

 

Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to the Present, guest curated by Josh MacPhee and Dara Greenwald as part of Exit Art’s Curatorial Incubator program, documents forty years of social protest and political activism through more than 300 posters, graphics, photographs, films and ephemera. This important political exhibition documents international social movements and the cultural production they used to advance their ideas.

 

In 1968, a transitional time in social movements, global and political uprising around the world was catalyzed by student and worker uprisings in France; Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia; the Black Power movement in the United States; student and anti-Olympics protests in Mexico; youth protests in Japan; and anti-Vietnam war campaigns, leading to massive democratization of cultural production. In multiple countries, students and workers occupied academic printmaking facilities; counter-cultures sprung up creating music, style and imagery in direct response to a new social context. In Europe, young people inspired by the Situationists were demanding liberation from the colonization of their minds and imaginations. In the United States, marginalized groups such as women, blacks, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans were demanding representation and autonomy. Vietnam and other global conflicts inspired a new critique of state power.

 

Throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the development and further dissemination of decentralized protest culture can be traced. The Do-It-Yourself means of communication and production deeply influenced the feminist, queer liberation, housing, hippie and punk movements of the 1970s. Continuing technological developments such as copy machines and audio recording devices continued to be integrated in artist's work. In the 1980s these tendencies were taken even further, with the explosion of mass postering and stenciling on the streets of New York, Berlin, Johannesburg, Managua and Melbourne. Anti-nuclear, squatting and anti-gentrification struggles spread in the West as the Berlin Wall fell in the East. Global response to the AIDS crisis made visible the power of merging culture, art and protest. ACT-UP had massive success in part through its savvy use of posters, stickers, video, protest placards and even commercial advertising. It has been forty years since the explosive political and artistic protests of 1968. Artists seized upon accessible, reproducible, and relatively inexpensive media to disseminate political ideas. Today's artist activists are especially interested in this history-and learning from it to improve their own cultural and political practices. During the past decade new types of activism have developed due to the availability of the Internet and new digital technologies, and community-building political protests like those in Seattle in 1999. This confluence of factors has given rise to a variety of new activist strategies and such phenomenon as the Indymedia movement. The show will feature these new developments and set them within an international and historical framework.

 

Signs of Change will engage contemporary artists and activists in a dialogue about the affects of counterculture and provide a historical context for the profound cultural impact of social movements.

 

Posters, stickers and graphics in the exhibition are from the following individuals/organizations: SF Poster Brigade; People’s Democracy; Chips Mackinolty; Bread and Puppet Theatre; Slumstormerneand; Solvognen; Støt Christiania; Provos; Art Workers Coalition; Bruce Carter; Committee to Defend the Panther 21; Ester Hernández; Herbert Siguenza; Klaus Staeck; Louie “The Foot” Gonzále;, Malaquías Montoya; Tin Shed Workshop; SDS; Seth Tobocman, Chuck Sperry and Frank Morales; Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam; The Dirty Linen Corp.; Carol Wells; Berkeley Student Workshop; Taller de Comunicación Popular/Taller Alacrán; Claus Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen; El Fantasma de Heredia; Flavio Costantini; Rhode Island School of Design Student Strike; Harvard Student Strike Workshop; MassArt Student Strike Workshop; Undercurrents; Video Freex; students of the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing; Karol Sliwka; Aktiegroep Nieuwmarkt; Atelier Populaire; Boycot Outspan Aktie; Gerard Goosen; Opland; Poster Workshop; Rob Stolk; Kabouters; Machno-Marghera; Produktionskollektiv Kreuzberg; Mutherfuckers; FAMA International; István Orosz; Strike on Yugoslavia; Young Lords; Autonomen; Hafenstrasse; KuKuck Squat; Fireworks Graphics Collective; Beehive Collective; Bureau de etudes; Class War; Fantasma Squat; Fillebrook Road Protest; Group Suma; Hackney Squatter’s Centre; Incite!; John Fekner; Kate Evans; Ne Pai Plier; Starbucks Workers Union; No M11; Pollok Free State; Rini Templeton; Rocky Tobey; StopPub; Tom Civil; Trans/Action; Visual Resistance; Bruno Barbey; Eve Arnold; Henri Cartier-Bresson; Angry Wowen; Sister Serpents; WHAM; Bullet V/A; See Red Womens Workshop; Anti-War.us; David Tartakover; Earth Works Poster Collective; Johannes Gees; NSK; Trio Design; countless anonymous sources and others.

 

Countries/regions represented by works in this exhibition: Northern Ireland, Australia, United States, Denmark, Netherlands, El Salvador, Vietnam, France, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Argentina, England, China, Germany, Burma, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Bosnia, Hungary, Serbia, Nicaragua, Poland, Indonesia, Mohawk Nation, South Africa, Israel, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovinia, South Korea and others.




ABOUT EXIT ART

Exit Art is an independent vision of contemporary culture. We are prepared to react immediately to important issues that affect our lives. We do experimental, historical and unique presentations of aesthetic, social, political and environmental issues. We absorb cultural differences that become prototype exhibitions. We are a center for multiple disciplines. Exit Art is a 25 year old cultural center in New York City founded by Directors Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo, that has grown from a pioneering alternative art space, into a model artistic center for the 21st century committed to supporting artists whose quality of work reflects the transformations of our culture. Exit Art is internationally recognized for its unmatched spirit of inventiveness and consistent ability to anticipate the newest trends in the culture. With a substantial reputation for curatorial innovation and depth of programming in diverse media, Exit Art is always changing. www.exitart.org.

 

ABOUT THE MILLER GALLERY AT CARNEGIE MELLON

The Regina Gouger Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon has supported the creation, understanding, and growth of contemporary art through exhibitions, projects, events, and publications since January 2000. The 9,000 square foot space functions as a showcase for experimentation, examination, discovery, and discussion. The gallery aspires to engage diverse audiences, to create and strengthen communities through art, and to stimulate, provoke, and encourage contemplation of the visual arts of our times. The Miller Gallery is a non-collecting facility located in the Purnell Center for the Arts, on Carnegie Mellon’s campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is a unit of the College of Fine Arts and named for Regina Gouger Miller, avid art collector, alumna of the School of Art, and principal donor. www.cmu.edu/millergallery