apexart
291 Church Street
New York, New York

June 10 – July 11
Men With Balls: The Art of the 2010 World Cup
Curated by Simon Critchley

Including work by artists Miguel Calderon • Mark Leckey • Hellmuth Costard Maria Marshall • Liam Gillick • Santo Tolone • Douglas Gordon and Uri Tzaig • Philippe Parreno
memorabilia from Roger Bennett • Bill Shankly
match results read by Mark E. Smith

“The FIFA World Cup is the most important and widely watched sporting event in the world. The germinal idea for this exhibition is very simple: to create the perfect football environment, a sort of mini-soccer paradise at apexart for watching games. Around the games themselves, there will be talks, events, and a series of works, objects, and activities that will expand the spectacle into a more conceptual and sensual rumination on the meaning and significance of football/soccer.

The World Cup is a spectacle in the strictly Situationist sense. It is a shiny display of nations in symbolic, atavistic national combat adorned with multiple layers of commodification, sponsorship and the seemingly infinite commercialization. It is an image of our age at its worst and most gaudy. But it is also something more, something bound up with difficult and recalcitrant questions of conflict, memory, history, place, social class, masculinity, violence, national identity, tribe, and group. The hope of the exhibition Men With Balls is to construct a unique situation where these questions can be ruminated on collectively.

Football is working-class ballet. It’s an experience of enchantment. For an hour and a half, a different order of time unfolds and one submits oneself to it. A football game is a temporal rupture with the routine of the everyday: ecstatic, evanescent, and, most importantly, shared. At its best, football is about shifts in the intensity of experience. And stories will multiply from that experience, stories of heroes and villains, of triumph, and a gnawing sense of the injustice of defeat. The aim of the exhibition is to produce with this show some experience of being together with others in a group, watching a game, waiting for something marvelous, unexpected, and possibly magical to happen. And it will happen.”

MORE [schedule of screenings of matches and curator's statement.]

[Cross-posted to the blog of Goal 2010!, a soccer and social media project. Text and graphic from apex press release.]

The D.C. based organization Men Can Stop Rape has come up with an interesting and simple way to engage teenage boys- free pizza. Kedrick Griffin, the Senior Director of Programs, leads the year long programs, gently titled “Men of Strength” or MOST Club. The activist organization keeps things intentionally vague in the beginning, so as not to scare off the teens with their true intentions: to challenge the patriarchal structure the boys have grown up in. The weekly club meetings begin with, of course, pizza and soda, followed by a “check-in”- a time for the teens to reflect on what is going on in their lives. Griffin uses this open dialogue to segue into heavier topics, like understanding rape culture and respecting women. The idea is to slowly change the perspectives of these young men, in hopes that gender relations in D.C. schools will begin to shift.

More here.

For more on male feminism and men’s work against sexual violence, check out the work of Jackson Katz.

Saints and Sinners Literary Festival *
New Orleans, Louisiana

Marigny Theatre
2240 St. Claude Avenue
New Orleans, LA

Brushup 10
by Jerry Rabushka
Directed by Michelle Embree, author of Man Stealing for Fat Girls & Hand Over Fist, the hit from SAS’s 2008 playwriting contest

* The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival was founded in 2001 as a new initiative designed as an innovative way to reach the community with information about HIV/AIDS, particularly disseminating prevention messages via the writers, thinkers and spokes-people of the GLBT community. It was also formed to bring the GLBT literary community together to celebrate the literary arts.

Now in its eighth year, the Festival has grown into an internationally-recognized event that brings together a who’s who of GLBT publishers, writers and readers from throughout the United States and beyond. The Festival, held over 4 days each Spring, feature panel discussions and master classes around literary topics that provide a forum for authors, editors and publishers to talk about their work for the benefit of emerging writers and the enjoyment of fans of LGBT literature.

[Cross-posted to The Data Stream. Text and graphic from Festival and Theatre websites. Click on image to enlarge.]

Blank Projects
113-115 Sir Lowry Road
Woodstock
Cape Town 8001
South Africa

Khanyisile Mbongwa
Ndizakuyivula Ibhayibile

Artist’s Statement:
“Looking at the black body as raced, gendered and classed in a literal, symbolic and figurative sense – becomes manifest of the ‘othering’ and its objectification. The availability of the black female body is precisely because black is available. The placing of African female bodies as the sentient black body is bent by colonial weight and injustice into the exotic, savage and fantasies of white imagination. The element of the performing black female body is undertaken in the representation of black identities as subjugated or silent – i.e the victim or the apologetic black.

Post-colonialism is still a western concept, a political project of subversion and deconstruction concentrated on Eurocentrism by reacting against the imposition of European cultures. By no means is this a deconstruction the black female body, but instead it constructs it further for the ‘Pleasure of European Gazers’. But the black female body is not only subjected by this white capitalistic supremacist gaze, it is further subjected to black patriarchy constructing the black female body through its own objectifying lens.

The black vagina can be used as a weapon against oppressors yet it also stands as a site of oppression, i.e: it is the site of contest – men fighting against each other inside and outside the colonial and radical demarcations; it is where war can be resolved and ignited (but this by no means propagates that white will fight or die for black pussy). It can exude a politic of positivity. The impetus of religion (Christianity) in reading the racial and gendered is important for the construction of the black female body. This is only a start of interrogating the content, context and function of religion on black women’s bodies. The idea is to bring to surface the process of subsuming everyday life; the mute world of commodities; text – textures and forms; and the religious reproduction in the contemporary.”

Khanyisile Mbongwa was born in 1984 in Gugulethu, Cape Town, she is one of the founding members of the experimental art collective, the Gugulective, that has exhibited locally and internationally. In 2007 she established THE BINARY, a discussion group critically engaging with issues around the black condition and marginalization. She was part of the Cape 09 Bienalle , the fringe collective Artpays and has also served on the board of VANSA Western Cape. Khanyisile continues to produce and perform independently, while contributing to various collective arts initiatives.

In her most recent work, the physical video piece Fragments, Khanyi explores the subjects of racial inequality, intimidation and invasion as it is manifest in the Apartheid legacy.

Through May 1.

[Cross-posted to The Data Stream. Text and graphic from Blank Projects website. Caption: "Khanyisile Mbongwa. Untitled (2010). Production Still.]

The COP15 Conference, the  meeting in Copenhagen for countries party to the United Nations Framework Convention (UNFCC) on Climate Change, has begun in earnest. With it, a flood of foreigners has washed ashore in Denmark, among them NGOs, IGOs (Intergovernmental Organizations), the Press, and delegates from UNFCC signatories. Among them, unfortunately, is not your correspondent, Wilson Dizard, the one writing this blog post from Copenhagen. Others are in a similar position, and not just due to the fact that the they basically accredited twice the number of people the conference center can hold.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of interesting things going down around town that concern the arts of social change. Here are the first photos of the acts at the conference.

Alright, this is a picture of a ice flow in Iceland, where I had a rather long lay over. Iceland’s endangered glaciers are a topic of discussion at the Conference, as you might imagine.

The Bella Center. The world will have to wait to see what kind of substance, if any, might manage to emerge from this building a fortnight from now. Look at the cranes in the background, evidence of economic development chugging along. And then there’s a wind turbine, too. To be sure, Denmark is a land of contrasts.

(more…)

In a hip hop and R’n’B world dominated by men and noted for misogyny, the unstoppable female lyricists of Say My Name speak candidly about class, race, and gender in pursuing their passions as female MCs. This worldwide documentary takes viewers on a vibrant tour of urban culture and musical movement: from hip hop’s birthplace in the Bronx, to game on London’s eastside.

Featuring interviews from a diverse cast of women including Remy Ma, Rah Digga, Jean Grae, Erykah Badu, Estelle and newcomers Chocolate Thai, Invincible and Miz Korona, this powerful documentary delves into the amazing personal stories of women balancing professional dreams with the stark realities of poor urban communities, race, sexism and motherhood. The more then 18 artists featured in Say My Name battle for a place in a society that creates few changes for women. From emerging artists filled with new creativity, to true pioneers like MC Lyte, Roxxanne Shante, and Monie Love, these are women turning adversity to art.

More here.

Showing 12:00 pm, Wednesday, November 29 at Montgomery College, Takoma Park Campus, HC 122

New York Times. The Guardian. Art: 21. e-flux.

For the past decade, the work of Guatemalan artist Regina José Galindo has addressed social and political relations in the Americas. She draws attention to these issues by inflicting or mimicking direct, physical violence on her body – as in Himenoplastia (Hymenoplasty) or Perra, during which the artist carved the Spanish word for ‘bitch’ into her leg. Galindo often places herself and the viewer into difficult psychological situations – as in El Dolor en un Panuelo (The Pain in a Handkerchief), during which newspaper articles about victimized women were projected on her naked body.

Exit Art is now showing her first solo exhibition in New York until November 21st. More.

Video excepts from past performances here.

Dismantling the Corporate State and Other Amusements at Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book & Paper Arts is a one-woman exhibition of work by Anne Elizabeth Moore, artist, media activist, editor of the now-defunct Punk Planet, founding editor of the Best American Comics series, and author of Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity. The exhibition includes zines, video, and ephemera that chronicle Moore’s tireless work as a thorn in the side of corporate media and marketing culture and as an advocate of DIY culture.

Emblematic of Moore’s corporate parodies is “Operation: Pocket Full of Wishes,” in which she produced cards parodying shopping guide cards at the American Girl Place store. Her cards, displayed in the exhibition, offered such consumer goods as Domestic Partner Benefits, Free Tampons, Ample Career Opportunities, Safe, Legal Abortion Access, and Equal Pay for Equal Work. The project eventually caused her to be banned from the store.

Instead of a traditional book tour for her Hey Kidz! Buy This Book: A Radical Primer on Corporate and Governmental Propaganda and Artistic Activism for Short People, Moore went on a Radical Education Roadshow, teaching kids to create their own media with a zine called “How to make this very zine.” The show includes a plethora of examples of small zines made by kids she worked with. In a similar vein, but with more overtly political ramifications, is the collaborative project “New Girl Law,” in which young Cambodian women leaders collaborated with Moore on a revision of the Cambodian “Girl Law,” a restrictive code of behavior that, while no longer officially law, continues forcefully to shape gender norms. Together Moore and the 32 Cambodian women produced a text that was then letter-pressed and hand-bound in Rhode Island and calls for “basic human rights, gender equity, the eradication of corruption, and funding for cultural production…a re-envisioning of a potential future for the country.”

The exhibition also displays documentation from The Unlympics, held in winter 2009 as a series of alternative games and open discussions on Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid that brought attention to the potential cost to taxpayers of the event, the displacement of low-income residents, and issues of incarceration in Illinois. The Unlympics included such sports as Class-Conscious Kickball, Live Action Role Play Family Dinner, and The Solitary Isolation Game. Planning is underway for Summer Unlympics to take place in September 2009.

“Amusement” is key: Moore consistently mixes a sense of fun in with utopian imagining and fierce critique, demonstrating that activism does not have to be dour. While most of her work is thoroughly collaborative, she also spoofs corporate brand identity by making her personal identity a brand. At the exhibition’s closing festivities, on Friday, August 21 at 6:30pm, Anne Elizabeth Moore will present The Anne Elizabeth Moore Award for Excellence in Awesomeness. In the running this year are Anne Elizabeth Moore and some candidates other than Anne Elizabeth Moore.

The exhibition opened June 19 and runs until August 22, 2009. Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book & Paper Arts is located at 1104 S. Wabash (2nd floor), in Chicago, IL.

The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women, currently at Cheim & Reid in NYC is a group exhibition of many prominent female artists depicting women in hopes to reclaim the traditional domination of the “male gaze”. The idea of the “male gaze” is simple, and one women experience on a daily basis –  how a woman is perceived by others and even sometimes by herself is based on men’s desire for her physical characteristics. This exhibition does the opposite of that – it allows women, in this case female artists, the opportunity to present their womanhood as they see it. As Contemporary Art Daily states, it “attempts to debunk the notion of the male gaze by providing a group of works in which the artist and subject do not relate as “voyeur” and “object,” but as woman and woman.” 

Including works from a variety of different media, this exhibition is sure to create some dialogue about where we are right now in terms of women’s rights. Sure, we’ve come a long way, but why are women still allowing themselves to be told their worth by a man? I think many women, especially young women, are guilty of doing this subconsciously without even realizing how much emphasis they put on the approval of men to feel good about themselves. Society and this kind of consumer culture based on living up to a certain standard certainly play a chief role in making this an acceptable way to view oneself. 

For a full gallery of the works displayed, visit Time Out New York or Contemporary Art Daily.