OCCUPY MUSEUMS [2] TODAY!

This Thursday 10/27/11, Occupy Museums returns to MoMA!

Meet at 2:30 PM, Liberty Square, for an information-sharing assembly (under red sculpture) OR meet at 4:00 PM at MoMA.

We will be joined by the Art Handler’s Union, Teamsters Local 814, who have been locked out of their Sotheby’s union jobs for over three months now. Following Occupy Museums, we will march to the Teamsters’ picket line at the Sotheby’s evening auction, which starts at 6:00 PM on 1334 York Avenue.

Occupy Museums and the Teamsters Local 814 stand together in solidarity!

Please join us and to bring your own manifestos (BYOM), to read in the General Assembly at the doors of the museum! Please keep them short- 3 minutes max so that everyone can participate. For this action
we are moving away from the voice of a sole author to a collective voice. We welcome all to be part of our assembly and let your voices be heard!

What is Occupy Museums?

We are artists, art lovers, and art workers! We live and love art and are committed to its growth. However, we see many museums in their current manifestations as key elements of a larger system whose funding structure and relationship to the market, disempowers artists, and alienates art from the 99%. Value is manufactured by false scarcity, propped up by the cult of celebrity and the parlor game of speculation. This undermines the potential power of art to be a much greater force in our society.

We believe that to Occupy is to claim space for dialog and transparency through the physical presence of our bodies. It is to hold space that was previously inaccessible. As Occupiers, we bring the General Assembly to the doors of the museum, to engage in a dialog about the relationships between the arts and capitalism.
This is only the beginning.

At its core, the Occupy Movement is about imagining and building a just and democratic future. It is generative not destructive. We are shifting collective consciousness. We are here to envision what the museum can be, what art can be, and how we can create a society that works for the 100%.

Schedule:
2:30 -- Informational assembly at Liberty Square
3:15 -- Occupy 4 train to MoMA
4:00 -- General Assembly at MoMA!
5:00 – March or M31 Bus to Sotheby’s at 1334 York Avenue
5:30 -- Stand in Solidarity with Teamsters Local 814

twitter: #occupymuseums

CLICK THE OM LOGO AT THE TOP OF THE POST TO READ THE NEW ARTINFO ESSAY BY BEN DAVIS, "Why I Support the Occupy Museums Protesters, and Why You Should Too."

CLICK THE IMAGE TO GET MORE INFO AT THE OCCUPY MUSEUMS FACEBOOK PAGE.

OWS, from A-Z, by Theodore Hamm

A=arraign; arrears; arrests

Many came to Occupy Wall Street because they are in arrears, only to be arrested, with some even arraigned.

B=Bloomberg; Brookfield Properties; Brooklyn Bridge

Bloomberg and his buddies at Brookfield were dismayed when the mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge failed to stop the protests.

C= commune; cops; corporations

While some folks are creating a commune, cops are protecting corporations.

D= democracy, American; democracy, direct

American democracy is controlled by political parties that respond to money, whereas direct democracy is handled by participants answering to each other.

E= exhilaration; existentialism; experience

Joining together with your fellow ninety-nine percenters can be an exhilarating existential experience.

F= freedom of speech; free market

Fuck that free market nonsense, the protesters say, exercising their right to free speech.

G=grip, gripe

Many who gripe about the OWS protests need to get a grip.

H=Hydra; hydrate

Donated supplies continue to hydrate the Hydra.

I=individualism; indivisible

I pledge allegiance to Occupy Wall Street, and to the democracy for which it stands, indivisible, with liberty and justice for the 99%.

J=jackboots; Jacobins

Don’t let the jackboots turn you into Jacobins.

K=Kelly, Ray; kettling

Kelly and his keepers keep on kettling.

L=love

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me echo Che’s statement: “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.”  

M=money

A question for the banks: “Where’s the money, Money?”

N=Nine; Ninety-Nine

We are the 99 percent; You are the 99 percent—and all of us will gain nothing from 9-9-9 or any other nefarious nostrums.

O=occupation

The lack of meaningful occupations has led many 20-somethings to join the Occupation.

P=Percent, One

Lots of folks in the one percent will gladly tell you that they are part of the middle class.

Q=quest; quixotic

Ending inequality may seem like a quixotic quest, but the fight has to start somewhere.

R=revel; revelation; revolution

Many revel in the revelation that a revolution is upon us.

S= shambles; shame

American democracy is in shambles, and it’s a shame.

T= Tea Party

The Tea Party is astroturf, but OWS is grassroots.

U=usual; usurp

Rather than accept business as usual, OWS usurped national attention.

V=Vendetta

If there’s one flick that all the protesters seem to like, it’s V for Vendetta.

W=Wall Street

If there’s one place that none of the protesters seem to like, it’s Wall Street.

X=Malcolm

If there’s one radical figure that nobody on Wall Street likes, it’s Malcolm X.

Y=Yippies; yuppies

When OWS protesters channel the spirit of Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies, yuppies get nervous.

Z=Zuccotti Park

Though it sounds like an Italian restaurant, Zuccotti Park is actually the site of the New York City Commune.



N+1's Occupy! An OWS-Inspired Gazette

CLICK THE IMAGE TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF, FREE.

With the help of Astra Taylor (Examined Life; Zizek!) and Sarah Leonard of Dissent and the New Inquiry, we’ve put together a history, both personal and documentary, and the beginning of an analysis of the first month of the occupation. Articles deal with the problem of the police; the history of the “horizontalist” management structure at OWS; how to keep a live-in going when what you’ve tried to shut down refuses to shut down (like Harvard, or Wall Street); on whether the Fed should be abolished; on where that Citibank arrest video came from; on occupations in Oakland, Philadelphia, Atlanta; on what happens next; and more.

It’s an attempt to begin to think through what is happening, written by people both on the ground and across the river. We hope you’ll read it and discuss it with us. There’s a lot more thinking and doing to do.

“9.5 Theses on Art and Class” by Ben Davis

1.0 Class is an issue of fundamental importance for art
1.1 Inasmuch as art is part of and not independent from society, and society is marked by class divisions, these will also affect the functioning and character of the sphere of the visual arts
1.2 Since different classes have different interests, and “art” is affected by these different interests, art has different values depending on from which class standpoint it is approached
1.3 Understanding art means understanding class relations outside the sphere of the visual arts and how they affect that sphere, as well as understanding class relations within the sphere of the visual arts itself
1.4 In general, the idea of the “art world” serves as a way to deflect consideration of both these sets of relations
1.5 The notion of an “art world” implies a sphere that is separate or set aside from the issues of the non-art world (and so separates it from class issues outside that sphere)
1.6 The notion of an “art world” also visualizes the sphere of the visual arts not as a set of conflicting interests, but as a harmonious confluence of professionals with a common interest: “art” (and so denies class relations within that sphere)
1.7 Anxiety about class in the sphere of the visual arts manifests in critiques of the “art market”; however, this is not the same as a critique of class in the sphere of the visual arts; class is an issue that is more fundamental and determinate than the market
1.8 The “art market” is approached differently by different classes; discussing the art market in the absence of understanding class interests serves to obscure the actual forces determining art’s situation
1.9 Since class is a fundamental issue for art, art can’t have any clear idea of its own nature unless it has a clear idea of the interests of different classes

2.0 Today, the ruling class, which is capitalist, dominates the sphere of the visual arts
2.1 It is part of the definition of a ruling class that it controls the material resources of society
2.2 The ruling ideologies, which serve to reproduce this material situation, also represent the interests of the ruling class
2.3 The dominant values given to art, therefore, will be ones that serve the interests of the current ruling class
2.4 Concretely, within the sphere of the contemporary visual arts, the agents whose interests determine the dominant values of art are: large corporations, including auction houses and corporate collectors; art investors, private collectors and patrons; trustees and administrators of large cultural institutions and universities
2.5 One role for art, therefore, is as a luxury good, whose superior craftsmanship or intellectual prestige indicates superior social status
2.6 Another role for art is to serve as financial instrument or tradable repository of value
2.7 Another role for art is as sign of “giving back” to the community, to whitewash ill-gotten gains
2.8 Another role for art is symbolic escape valve for radical impulses, to serve as a place to isolate and contain social energy that runs counter to the dominant ideology
2.9 A final role for art is the self-replication of ruling-class ideology about art itself—the dominant values given to art serve not only to enact ruling-class values directly, but also to subjugate, within the sphere of the arts, other possible values of art

READ MORE IN THE OCCUPENNIAL LIBRARY, HERE.

(Submitted by the author for Occupennial Blog/Library - Admin)

"Why #OccupyWallStreet? 4 Reasons."

#OWS Portraits

Portraits from Liberty Plaza by Monty Stilson

To view Monty's Occupennial photo gallery, "Portraits from the Epicenter," click HERE.

BETA Statement for Review: On the AS/TAS Intervention at 38 Greene St.

We of #OWS Arts and Culture working group are dedicated to the use of non-violent action to express our Constitutionally-assured right to peaceably assemble for the redress of grievances. #OWS Arts and Culture seeks to develop strong community relations with those who also care about the future of the 99%. That community includes arts organizations with long histories of 99%-supporting activities, like those practiced by Artists Space. The individuals who intervened there this weekend acted autonomously, with no connection to, support from, or consensus with #OWS.

NOTE: The above statement is in a BETA version until tomorrow's meeting of the NYCGA Arts and Culture Working Group Meeting (6PM at 60 Wall Street). We invite all to contribute input or feedback for this statement in the COMMENTS field below. Your responses will be added as addenda to the final document arrived at through consensus in the group. This statement was developed through an online discussion thread on the Arts and Culture Google Group, which is organized as a transparent, open membership. Eleven people contributed to the statement's formation over the course of several dozen emails, before the statement's posting for group consideration on the Occupennial Blog here, in advance of full discussion at the meeting tomorrow (October 24).

Occupying the Art World

 
Occupying the Art World
By Ruth Erickson (ruthee@sas.upenn.edu)

The temporary occupation of space to confront powerful institutions has been on my mind as the Occupy Wall Street movement passes its month-long mark. The protestors condemn the increasing concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people and the precarious existence of the other 99%. They have set up camps across the country, assembling patchwork plots of sleeping bags, hand-written signs, and stations for first aid, food, and media. The camps' ad-hoc aesthetics visualize the very precariousness of the occupiers, who have been arrested, pepper sprayed, and beaten by the hundreds, but whose outraged sentiments seem to only grow with time. In late September two events took place in New York City to draw attention to the inequalities and machinations of the art market through the temporary and insurrectionary claiming of space. On September 22, Occupy Wall Street activists infiltrated a Sotheby's auction to protest the company's anti-union policies and to show support for art handlers who have been locked out of contract negotiations since mid-summer. One by one protesters disrupted the auction by standing up and making damning pronouncements about, for instance, the CEO s salary increases and the art handlers' dwindling wages before being escorted out by Sotheby s security.

On September 23, the longtime politically engaged French artist Fred Forest planned his Oeuvre Invisible for the Museum of Modern Art, which consisted of measuring a square meter and then occupying this space by placing ultra-sonic sound emitters. The project relates to Forest's conception of objects as invisible systems in his book L'Ruvre-Système Invisible (Harmattan, 2006) and continues four decades of culture jamming actions by the now 78-year-old artist. Forest's career of détournement began with his 1972 work Space Media when he inserted blank spaces in newspapers, the radio, and television and invited consumers to fill in the space with their free expressions and thoughts, thereby reversing the conventional direction of mass media communication. Oeuvre Invisible brings together two themes, in particular, that have occupied Forest throughout his career: critique of the art market and invisibility.

For his project Artistic Square Meter in 1977, Forest purchased land at the border of France and Switzerland and attempted to re-sell parcels at an art auction to illustrate speculation in the art market. When French authorities outlawed the sale, Forest replaced the square meter of land with a piece of fabric, which he bought, declared a  "non-artistic square meter," and sold for a couple thousand dollars. At Documenta in 1987, Forest created a 14,000 Hertz electromagnetic field by secretly placing transmitters in the within the Fridericianium and then used local press to reveal the existence of the uninvited work. Continuing his critique of institutions, in 1994, Forest requested that the Centre Georges Pompidou make publicly available the price paid for Hans Haacke's work Shapolsky et al. (1971), in which Haacke charts Shapolsky's dirty real estate dealings around New York City. Haacke's work was famously censored at the time of exhibition by the Guggenheim Museum but has since become a canonical work of institutional critique, purchased by many major museums for millions of dollars. The publicly-funded museum refused, and in order to reveal this lack of transparency and speculation, Forest sued the museum in a multi-year court case, which which was finally founded in favor of the institution (see Forest's Fonctionnements et dysfonctionnements de l _art contemporain, Harmattan, 2000). From March to September of 2011, Forest lived in New York City as a resident at Residency Unlimited and quickly set his sights on the MoMA for his next playful critique. (Fred Forest, The Conversation, September 23, 2011, Museum of Modern Art, courtesy the artist)

The project for the MoMA was the insurrectionary insertion of an invisible work, which would always remain beyond the grasp of institutional acquisition. Upon arriving with his group of volunteers at 4pm, Forest was greeted by three security agents who prohibited the work and threatened to call the New York City police if any performance took place. A twenty-minute conversation between Forest and the guards ensued about freedom of expression within the museum. The MoMA, Forest learned, only exhibits acquired or borrowed works, that is, works that have already participated in the art market. This is the very market being attacked sixty blocks further south by Occupy Wall Street and just a few block north by protestors at Sotheby's. This is the market that Forest had made visible through the failure of his Oeuvre Invisible. After being trailed by security guards until leaving the building and area, Forest declared the creation of a new work,  "The Conversation."

Video Documentation of Sotheby protest:
http://www.truth-out.org/occupy-wall-street-activists-disrupt-sothebys-art-auction/1316784991

Video Documentation by the Biennale Project of  The Conversation  by Fred Forest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_5rXN6nkx4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo4pneZF-0E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?víXnYf829i4

A New Addition in the Occupennial Library

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO VIEW THE E-BOOK.

ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery
Edited by Alan Moore and Marc Miller
New York: ABC No Rio with Collaborative Projects, 1985

Excerpt:

ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery is a catalogue of the gallery's first five years as well as an exploration of the broader artistic context from which No Rio emerged. Although No Rio never followed a strict agenda, it viewed itself as an interactive space where art, politics and community mixed. As such, the gallery was linked to artist groups like Colab, Group Material, and PADD, as well as the South Bronx gallery, Fashion/Moda. No Rio found inspiration in its Hispanic neighborhood, but it also connected with the East Village's newly burgeoning music and club scene, and the wave of commercial art galleries that opened in the area soon after No Rio began. During No Rio's first years, shows were generally organized by artists, and open to all who wanted to participate. The gallery specialized in theme exhibitions and was the launching pad for new ideas as well as for the careers of many successful artists.



Occupy Halloween: How to participate

Occupy Wall St. has been invited to join the largest public halloween parade in the nation!

They are going to give us a great spot and support our participation in the parade. Occupation Accomplished!

Last year over 60,000 people showed up and it was widely covered in the media, both in NYC and globally. So it's up to us to show the world what our movement is about. The whole world is watching!

TIME:  5:00 pm Meet-up. Parade begins 6:30. 

LOCATION: Parade begins at Spring St. and 6th Ave. We will meet up nearby to gather our forces before we march. Check back soon for the exact location.

MARCH ORGANIZATION:

In line with our movement's principles, we are asking people to step forward and self-organize their own costume blocs. If you are more than 30 people or so, consider having your own banner. We will all march together in our own #OccupyHalloween section of the parade.

BLOCS

We encourage you to find others doing similar themes and connect, so you can work together as a bloc. You can also contact us at occupyhalloween@gmail.com so we can help support you in this. 

Themed Blocs may include...

Wall St. Zombie Bloc

Corporate Vampire Bloc

Superhero Bloc

V-mask Bloc

Music Blocs (Marching bands, drummers, etcs)

Or whatever you want to do!

FREE FOR ALL SECTION

For those of us who do not have a bloc, we will all be marching together in the giant "Free for All' section. That will probably be most of us. Let's make it huge!

A NOTE ON MESSAGING

This is not only a chance to celebrate (which we deserve!) but also an amazing opportunity to express our message to the larger public, both in NYC and the entire world. So consider taking the following costuming tips in order to maximize your message. 

PARTICIPATE

We still need help building puppets and costumes, as well as with materials and supplies. To join in, go here.

 

For much more information, please visit the Occupy Halloween website

Occupy Sotheby's!

Rally at Sotheby’s Thursday, Oct. 20 @ 1:30pm 1334 York Ave (b/w 71st & 72nd)
6 train to 68th St.-Hunter College
Leave directly from #OccupyWallSt!
Buses depart from Liberty Pl b/w Trinity and Broadway at 1 PM!

Things are peachy for the 1%. Sotheby’s made $680 million in 2010 and gave their CEO a 125% raise—he makes $60,000 a day. 

Not so for the 99%. Sotheby’s demanded concessions from their workers and then locked them out of work. The workers have been locked out for 11 weeks.

Come support the locked-out workers.
Tell the 1%: STOP CORPORATE GREED
Keep in touch with our campaign. Text 917-657-7890 with your email to get added to our mailing list and receive updates on where the campaign is going. 
Sponsored by OWS Labor Committee: owsnyclabor@gmail.com



Common Ground

hi all, had a really interesting conversation today on the subway home as I was leaving OWS with a woman who worked for a bank on wall st. and she was open to having a dialogue, but really felt like she and her co-workers were taking the hit for the 1% even tho she was a divorced mom who had to work her way up from nothing. We tried to explain to her not to take it personally, that it was the structure of the system that was the issue but people of her ilk are very goal oriented and really was hoping to hear our demands and proposed solutions. I invited her down there to discuss and told her how important it was that she participates in the process and see for herself what is happening, rather than taking what the media says at face value....anyway, its just these types of dialogues that I think is what's best about this movement. It was an uplifting moment for all of us just to communicate.

In other news, my friend in Canada posted this amazing poem/song on facebook, and I told her there was a web archive for poetry, so Paul, or someone else out there if u have a spare moment, can you upload this, and maybe send me a link, so I can tell her it on line?

Thanks so much!
O

>

Zipporah Lomax :

The world is stirring...history unfolding beneath our feet, before our eyes.

 

Inspired by the OWS movement, I started writing a song. It quickly became more of a poem...a poetic commentary...my take on the issues we face.

 

I'd like to share it as my small contribution on this day of solidarity...

 

**************************************************************

'Common Ground'

by Zipporah Lomax

 

everything has gone awry

a great divide has grown

between the hands that hoard the pie

and the measly crumbs we're thrown

 

they enjoy their privileged lives

while our homes are foreclosed

they're keeping us in line

with all the wealth that they withhold

 

they profit off our ignorance

expecting us to play the part 

of obedient indifference

robots, with shopping carts

 

well-designed to distract

and keep us misinformed

the media's been hijacked

by those who bank offshore

 

they've poisoned our sea and sky

through oil-driven greed

they contaminate our food supply

with their modified seeds

 

they've stolen our autonomy

and our right to choose

they perpetuate inequality

through narrow-minded rules

 

they've made health a business

selling pills to those in need

they benefit from illness

growing rich off our disease

 

we know it won't be long

before they try to buy our souls

before our lives have been withdrawn

exchanged, for fool's gold

 

they've kept us on our knees

believing change would never come

but down on wall street

the revolution's just begun

 

we're waking from our slumber

it's time to stand up strong

take back what they have plundered

we've held our tongues too long

 

we'll shout until our cause is heard the whole world 'round...

they may tie our hands, but our voices cannot be bound...

something's gotta give...the wall has gotta come down...

...we all deserve to live on common ground...

 

**************************************************************



#OWS at Living as Form

September 24–October 16
Thursday–Sunday, 12–8 PM
The Historic Essex Street Market
80 Essex Street
Southeast corner of Essex and Delancey Streets, NYC

Click to read more ...

IT'S TIME

PAUL McLEAN

CLICK THE IMAGE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OCCUPENNIAL OCCU-GANDA.

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THIS POSTER FREE HERE.

BUSINESS SUIT

Paul McLean

CALLING OCCUPANT PHOTOGRAPHERS!

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO LEARN HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PHOTOS TO THE OCCUPENNIAL OCCUPATION PHOTO ARCHIVE.

THIS GRAPHIC IS FREE FOR DOWNLOAD IN THE OCCU-GANDA NEXUS.

The New NYC General Assembly Site

The NYC General Assembly is composed of dozens of groups working together to organize and set the vision for the #occupywallstreet movement. This is our official website. 

A Note from Jason Flores-Williams

....I'll never forget yesterday at OWS long as I live. Such a privilege to be around it. For me, nothing shows how things could be versus how they are, than to spend a day in the cool humanness of Zucotti Park, then to walk a block over to Wall Street and feel like the guy next to you wants to stick a knife in your neck. For what..I don't know. Maybe the wrong shoes.

Today Times Square 5:00 pm EST. 

Tomorrow, doing a reading with a bunch of cool writers - Ina P, Ted H, Mark, Paul, Brenda - at the Bowery Poetry Club 3 to 4 pm. The gig is in 110 percent solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, requested donation of five bucks that will go directly to the cause. Food, clean, up, socks - all the sort of essentials required to mount an occupation. 

Bowery Poetry Club 3 to 4 pm tomorrow. Sunday.  

No doubt this will roll into something Kesey-ish.



Paintings by Alex Powers

Occupy Wall Street,

 

Attached are 5 JPegs of paintings that express what OWS is doing politically. Use the JPegs in any way that is helpful.  Maybe post them on your website. I will donate the original paintings if you can sell/auction them.  I do not want anything for myself. I am not looking for publicity.  I want to help. There are 10 paintings total. I will send them in 3 emails. I have other paintings with similar expressions if you could use more.

 

I admire what you are doing. It is an issue that has been dear to my heart for decades.

 

Alex Powers

Myrtle Beach, SC

AlxPwrs@yahoo.com

www.AlexPowersArt.com

Occupy Museums!

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Noah Fischer <fischer.noah@gmail.com> wrote:

Occupy Museums!

Let’s dance in front of the Cannons

and tell the cultural pyramids:

You are NOT our MoMA!

I know that many people have been thinking in this direction and I’d like to add my voice.  It just might be time to band together And do some museum hopping! We'll state loud and clear and publically that the game is up: we see through the pyramid schemes that museums have set up whereby the 1% sit on boards and presume to speak with cultural authority while increasing the profit margins of their private collections. They have disempowering the hundreds of thousands of living artists - the 99% through rarified gatekeeping that has directly equated art with Wall Street capital- with all of the same shady business and BS hierarchy!!!  

As long as we accept the authority of these oppressive cannons, I’m not sure we can move forward with new aesthetics and movements:  art that is truly by and for everyone!  Art that isn’t rehashed and boring and pre-packaged and dead on arrival! Art that is alive! Art that is powerful! I think it would be wonderful to give the museums notice of the impending paradigm shift. Some serious truth to power, playfulness, and mockery is in order!

-Explaining Art to a Dead Museum.

-Reading the GA statement or A & C statement or autonomous statements in front of the Frick, using people’s mic.

-etc etc.

-etc. 

There are many museum nights in New York with long lines, which may be fruitful audiences. We can also go inside and play.

So I propose Occupy Museums next week- Thursday afternoon and evening. I’ll bring this up at an A & C meeting beforehand.

A couple Museums to Occupy:

-New Museum: Showcased Dakis Joannou’s personal collection, bumping up auction prices: use and abuse of the whole concept of “public” for personal profits. Dis-gusting!

-Frick Collection: dedicated to a long term PR campaign for the one of the “Worst American CEOs of All time.” Whose draconian policies included murdering workers striking against unhuman working conditions. We say- what the Frick is going on here! 

It’s easy to do research on these museums and who is standing behind them:

http://www.moma.org/about/trustees

Noah