performance artists

This is what reality television should be like. Made Here is a new web documentary series about work and life as a performance artist as told by a variety of artists living in New York City. Broken up into easily digestible video segments, the series goes beyond "Making It In The Big City" to explore the real-world challenges of space, family, and the impediments to creativity an artist faces.

The recent Uganda death penalty bill for homosexuality has raised awareness of the inhumane treatment of LGBT people globally. The repercussions of rape, jail, and murder for expressing your sexuality are horrendous, but they sometimes make it easy to cast a blind eye to the way so-called first-world countries continue to foster homophobia, transphobia, and sexism. Gay women seeking asylum in the UK know all too well that homophobia does not stop at the border.

Through a new art project with Artangel, an organization that sponsors interactive art projects, some of these woman are able to express the dehumanizing and difficult process of gaining asylum.

I saw Ginger Brooks Takahashi's work in the art auction for the Lesbian Herstory Archive. Although her work spans illustration, multimedia, wall hangings, and music, the themes of sexuality, gender, and community run throughout. (Rabbits also seem to be a motif).

Whether it's her involvement with the Mobilivre Bookmobile, where a super cute a 1959 Airstream Overlander trailer, interior-redecorated as a mini-zine and book arts store toured the country, or Butch in the Bog, a collaboration with Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, it's clear that aesthetic is as important as community building to her. As she told the New York City News Service, "As an artist, I like to create situations for people to come together and to have an encounter."

Just a reminder that our fourth and final lecture series is tonight! Visiting Guerilla Girl "Käthe Kollwitz" will speak on sexism in the art world and upcoming projects for the Guerilla Girls. Event sponsor the Willamette Week did an interview with Käthe earlier this week where she discusses the history of the activist group, the market of museums, and the reasoning behind her alias.

but on a more positive (well, admirable at least) note....