CALL TO ACTION will reflect, create and activate the gallery spaces with the charge to strive and build on the legacy of artistic activism that lives in the gallery. Working in collaboration, or as a series of individual responses artists will form collectives inspired by the practice of Gran Fury, Act Up and from our communities. We will construct a series of creative responses to today’s urgent political moments, immigration, executive orders, gentrification, gender neutral bathrooms, violence, boycotts, racism, sexism, homophobia, neglected and marginalized voices, and engage in social practice art with poetics, music, portraits of protest, or celebration.
CALL TO ACTION is an art action forum to occupy, to not succumb to the distance of the viewing public, to acknowledge resistance, seize the urgency, the public sphere emerging us to our present moment and imagining our future potential. The art is in dialogue with today yet inspired by collective responses while acknowledging the working within community. Of course, there are spaces of disremembering, abstraction, and voicing marginalization, ritual as opportunities for recognition.
CALL TO ACTION responses will be considered in a multitude of ways and that is the challenge and the delight. Looking at the exhibit historically as a language of a cultural movement continuum we will recognize and continue speaking, out, being engaged with our art activism together whether humor, parody, criticism or joy, sequins, selfies, karaoke, or disco the engagement does not have to encircle earlier policies but instead swirl with immediate issues and or other related concerns.