Dedicated to critical cultural production at the intersection of art and activism.

Tomorrow night, sprout will offer a number of presentations and performances themed around money. Join us for a Food Not Bombs dinner at 7:30PM, performances begin at 8. The address is 339R Summer St., Somerville MA.  We’ll have copies of Art/Work available, and a description of the performances follows:

Local musicians Jon Hersh and Kathy Fletcher playing a set of old-time tunes on banjo, fiddle, and voice.

Frank Ackerman, a research scientist at Tufts, speaks about the economics of global climate change, addressing the question, “Does it make economic sense for us to try to fight global warming?”

Shauna Gordon-McKeon, a researcher in the field of moral psychology, will perform and discuss experiments in social psychology and behavioral economics looking at how money affects our decision-making processes.

Liz Hall and Casey Engels of Artists in Context will present The Fundred Dollar Bill Project, a nation-wide drawing project started by artist Mel Chin. Audience members will contribute to the project by designing their own “fundred” dollar bills to help raise money and awareness to begin clean-up efforts of lead-contaminated soil in New Orleans.

Community members will also share personal monologues responding to the prompt “Literally, money represents gold or silver; socially, it is a status symbol; personally, it might mean everything from success to security to selling-out. What has money meant for you?”

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Bilal’s tattoo design, courtesy of information aesthetics.

Wafaa Bilal (author of Shoot an Iraqi)  is known for putting his body on the line.  For his Domestic Tension, he lived under constant threat of a paintball gun, his Virtual Jihadi cast himself as a suicide bomber avatar.  Now, back in the flesh, Bilal will soon take to a 24-hour performance, called …and Counting, in which he’ll tattoo an infographic on his body that denotes the casualties of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Designed by Kyle McDonald, the tattoo of a borderless map of Iraq includes more than 5,000 red dots representing American soldier deaths in a permanent, visible link, and more than 100,000 dots of green UV ink for Iraqi casualties, which show only under a blacklight.

Bilal’s performance takes place March 8th, and includes people of varied backgrounds reading the names of the dead as he is tattooed.

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Update: The Space Hijackers are going to sue the cops over their arrest at the G20.

There’s reason to celebrate this morning, and we join Leah Borromeo in raising a toast to the Space Hijackers’ strength and determination through the several month ordeal of defeating the charges brought against them for their action at the G20.

Leah has posted an excerpt of the letter the Hijackers received from their lawyers on her site, and the official reasons – insufficient evidence – were not dissimilar to those in the dismissal of a similarly high-profile case brought against Steve Kurtz of Critical Art Ensemble.

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For the fourth consecutive year, Bread and Puppet is in residence at the Boston Center for the Arts, and will offer public performances at the Cyclorama between January 25th-31st.  The two shows, Tear Open The Door Of Heaven and the Dirt Cheap Money Circus are signature Bread and Puppet performances, with their stunning visuals and street-theater style.

Tear Open The Door Of Heaven is a pink and blue puppet show about Heaven and its effects on the Underneath, presented by the practitioners of the brand-new paper maché religion. Purchase tickets here…

The family-friendly Dirt Cheap Money Circus features the billionaire bonus celebration dance, the logic of the US Healthcare System, the history of humanity and the removal of a mountaintop, interspersed with appearances by Karl Marx, who confronts the 2010 economic situation with his existential thoughts about money and our relationship to it. All with live circus band accompaniment.The family-friendly Dirt Cheap Money Circus features the billionaire bonus celebration dance, the logic of the US Healthcare System, the history of humanity and the removal of a mountaintop, interspersed with appearances by Karl Marx, who confronts the 2010 economic situation with his existential thoughts about money and our relationship to it. All with live circus band accompaniment. Purchase tickets here…

Both shows will be aided by our friends in the Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band.

An opening reception will be held, with refreshments, an art talk given by Schumann, short skits performed by the touring company, and live music composed by Michael Romanyshyn, on January 25, from 6-8 PM.

Show performance times vary, please check the BCA’s website for further details.

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Traditionally cultural institutions have often excluded ongoing dialogue about social issues outside of the art world. Artist, Allan Kaprow wrote, “life in a museum is like making love in a cemetery,” * metaphorically equating a museum with a cemetery— a dead and sterile space. Kaprow’s quote motivated multiple collaborative community based projects currently being executed by the first year Public Practice MFA graduate students at OTIS College of Art and Design. In 2010 the graduate students in collaboration with LACMA Lab’s founding director, Bob Sain; artist, Andrea Bowers; art administrator, Pauline Kamiyama and the 18th Street Art Center will develop an exhibition as a laboratory. The social/political obligations of cultural organizations to their respective communities will be investigated through partnerships with several community based organizations. The project’s ethic of action and engagement will lead to an artistic manifestation, and the participating Public Practice artists hope the communities involved will realize positive outcomes that will outlast the exhibition.
This exhibition will be presented at the 18th Street Art Center Gallery from January 23rd — March 26th 2010.
LOVE in a Cemetery Blog

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