'Decade of Fire' Reframes Facts of Relentless New York '70s South Bronx Fires

Co-directors Vivian Vázquez Irizarry and Gretchen Hildebran join forces with producer Julia Steele Allen in reframing the 1970s story of New York’s South Bronx on fire. Their new documentary ‘Decade of Fire’ airs on PBS Independent Lens November 4.

Co-director Vázquez Irizarry sits at center of the film, retracing her Bronx childhood as one of living among burning apartment buildings and determined people undaunted by catastrophic events. Fire is front and center in American minds this week, with California burning. The national consciousness was never focused on the Bronx, once the scene of a classic American “movin’ on up” story.

The three women are all activists. Hollywood and Women interviewed Vivian Vázquez Irizarry and Gretchen Hildebran in April 2019, providing a consciousness-raising backdrop of the history and evolution of the documentary. Vázquez Irizarry explains:

The concept for this film began in 2002 as a curriculum for students at a South Bronx high school, where Julia and Vivian worked together. They noticed how young people in the Bronx carried its stigma, but had little access to its true history. This curriculum was rejected for being “too radical,” but began a dialogue which Vivian and Julia invited me to join, which began a 10-year journey of uncovering and shaping Vivian’s lived history into a compelling story that could reach a broad audience who have never had a chance to glimpse behind the stereotypes that have defined the South Bronx for the last 40 years.

Artists Activism Escalates in Full Throttle Stance Against Whitney Vice Chair Warren Kanders

Artists Activism Escalates in Full Throttle Stance Against Whitney Vice Chair Warren Kanders

Eight artists have now withdrawn from the Whitney Biennial over companies linked to Whitney Museum vice chairman Warren Kanders. New evidence this week links Sierra Bullets — a weapons manufacturer partially owned by Kanders -- to violence on the Israeli-Palestinian border in Gaza, reports Hyperallergic.

Safariland, a Jacksonville, Florida–based defense manufacturing company that produces triple chasers, is run by Warren Kanders. Hyperallergic has been active in detailing instances of Safariland products being used in politically fractious situations all over the globe, including the current border conflict running along America’s southern border with Mexico. Safariland specializes in “professional and protective equipment focused on the law enforcement, public safety, military, and recreational markets.”

In 2018, Forbes covered Kanders in a story Meet The Safariland Multimillionaire Getting Rich Off Tear Gas and More in the Defense Industry. Kanders’ involvement in producing tear gas, the chemical weapon of crowd control, is the most important focus on controversy between Kanders and activists worldwide. Kanders describes his company’s offerings as benign, rejecting activism against him personally and Swaziland’s tear gas production. “Whether it’s under Obama—he was fond of using these products very frequently—or under Bush or Clinton or whomever, we are there to make nonlethal products and to provide those products to friends of our government through very prescribed channels,” Kanders told Forbes.

The newest withdrawals from the biennial include the University of London-based research group Forensic Architecture , and their Whitney Biennial submission “Triple-Chaser” (2019). Now Forensic Architecture believes that they MAY — or its highly-likely — have found an unexploded open-tip bullet in the sand in Gaza.

In this link, Forensic Architecture details their investigation into the facts behind “Triple Chaser”, which includes events on the Tijuana-San Diego border.

Activists Want a San Francisco High School Mural Removed, Saying Its Impact Today Should Overshadow the Artist’s Intentions

Activists Want a San Francisco High School Mural Removed, Saying Its Impact Today Should Overshadow the Artist’s Intentions

For nearly a century, a massive mural by painter Victor Arnautoff titled “The Life of Washington” has lined the hallways of San Francisco’s George Washington High School.

It may not be there much longer.

The mural “glorifies slavery, genocide, colonization, manifest destiny, white supremacy [and] oppression.” So said Washington High School’s Reflection and Action Group, an ad-hoc committee formed late last year and made up of Native Americans from the community, students, school employees, local artists and historians.

It identified two panels as especially offensive. One shows Washington pointing westward next to the body of a dead Native American. The other depicts slaves working in the fields of Mount Vernon.

Because the work “traumatizes students and community members,” the group concluded that “the impact of this mural is greater than its intent ever was.” They are campaigning for its removal.

The idea that impact matters more than intention has informed debates about everything from microaggressions to cultural appropriation.

But when it comes to art, should impact matter more than intention?

As historians committed to preserving our cultural heritage – and as citizens invested in the power of art to engage the public – we see the growing chorus of voices favoring impact over intention as a dangerous trend, one that makes art more vulnerable to rejection, censorship or even destruction.

Artists Demand London's Design Museum Remove Works After It Rents Event Space To Arms Fair Exhibitor

Artists Demand London's Design Museum Remove Works After It Rents Event Space To Arms Fair Exhibitor

The Design Museum in London is facing a firestorm of criticism for hosting a private reception for Italian aerospace company Leonardo on July 17 in conjunction with the Farnborough International Airshow. The Campaign Against Arms Trade has called the airshow an arms fair, and has published an open letter from artists who are demanding the museum remove their work from display by the end of the month, writes ArtNet News. 

The museum’s current exhibition “Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics, 2008–2018” explores the ways in which graphic design has influenced politics over the last ten years, starting with the famed HOPE poster designed by Shepard Fairey for President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. The show includes posters and other artworks created for movements such as Occupy Wall Street and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution, as well as Fairey’s “We the People” posters for the 2017 Women’s March.

“It is deeply hypocritical for the museum to display and celebrate the work of radical anti-corporate artists and activists, while quietly supporting and profiting from one of the most destructive and deadly industries in the world,” reads the letter. “‘Hope to Nope’ is making the museum appear progressive and cutting-edge, while its management and trustees are happy to take blood money from arms dealers.”