Between The Dead Eye and the Deep Blue Sea, there are artists who step back, survey the temperature of the times, put their fingers on the pulse and paint, write, compose, all the while Regarding the Pain of Others.
There are artists who take to the streets, join the ranks of The Resisters. They can be seen Disturbing the Peace as they Rage Against the Machine.
This a Report from Planet Midnight. It contains the Tales of Two Americas, whose cities, suburbs and towns are populated with Little Gods, Ninth Street Women and a Barefoot Artist.
Artists are everywhere, working, honing their visions in times of peace and discord. We depend upon the visions of artists to help us gain further clarity about the world in which we live. Artists art protest in many different forms, genres, disciplines and modes of communication. Art is about communication and connection to ideas, schools of thought, graphic representations and the way folks move through life.
Each artist must find a way into that Deaf Republic and learn to let the unheard journey through the very fiber of their being. Artists such as Lily Yeh, Vik Muniz, Maxine Hong Kingston, Louise Erdrich, Michael Zapata and Chris Abani have found a way to meet their work and amplify ideas, then transmit them to the world. Any one of them could declare that Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, reminding us that hands and hearts are partners in the difficult dance of creating works of art.
Art is a response. Artists take in information, reconfigure it and send it out into the world. How the work is read, viewed/reviewed and taken in by others is a whole other story. In the resource list Artist Art Protest you will discover the myriad ways artists have, through their work, addressed significant issues that face humanity. In film, novels, poetry, performance, music and essays artists offer perspectives that challenge the status quo and societal issues. More than that, however, artists make interesting, compelling work that isn’t to be missed!
~ posted by Chris
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