I was excited we chose Rebecca Pawel's Watcher in the Pine as our "Mystery Month" selection thinking it was great that we were going to discuss a new topic, the Spanish Civil War. Somehow, I had completely forgotten how much we had enjoyed reading Russell Martin's Picasso's War: The Destruction of Guernica and the Masterpiece That Changed the World. If you want to jog your memory about the painting, the book and the history behind it in preparation for reading this month's mystery, the Picasso's War website is a fun place to start.
For more visuals of the era, check out UCSD's collection of posters from the Spanish Civil War or Columbia University's collection of children's drawings from the period. I would love to find more books like Picasso's War that offer great works of art as an entry point into a discussion of history and human rights. Let me know if you know of any or nominate some works of art for this treatment in comments!
As many of our Loyal Readers know, our group maintains a vigilant interest in the human rights climate in China due to our on-going advocacy for the Chinese human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng who was 'disappeared' by the Chinese government a little over a year ago. So it is with increasing dismay that we have been observing the rash of detentions in the past few weeks. The recent arrests are tracked here by Chinese Human Rights Defenders and via this Guardianinteractive feature. Amnesty International offers actions for some of the detained individuals here. The most prominent of those detained is the artist Ai Weiwei. Amnesty notes in their press release about Ai, “If the authorities are so bold as to grab this world-renowned artist in broad daylight at Beijing airport, it’s frightening to think how they might treat other, lesser known dissidents.” Rather than moving in a direction that we hoped would shed more light on Gao's present location and health condition, the Chinese government seems determined to push a growing number of it's human rights defenders into the shadows.
Just before his arrest, I watched the PBS Frontline documentary about Ai Weiwei and I recommend it as a starting point to learn more about this important artist and inspiring activist. If you missed it, you can watch it a short segment below and the rest on the PBS website which has additional interviews, samples of his Twitter activism, and a slideshow of his art. (The Washington Post and Slate also have good slideshows) A longer version of this documentary, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, by director Alison Klayman is planned for fall release. I expect our Loyal Readers will be eager to see it in full. Klayman was interviewed by ArtInfo after Ai's detention,
The name of your documentary "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry," and it is true, one thing that is striking is how stubborn the guy is. I wonder if you can make a general comment on the mindset that has led him to stick it out through this kind of persecution.
I really think you can describe his activist efforts, and also his artistic efforts, as tireless. I mean, he will be thorough — once he gets into something, he really gets into something. When he gets into Twitter, he is sending sometimes 300 to 500 Tweets a day. When he undergoes injustice personally in Chengdu, when the police beat him, he continues to gather information and return to Chengdu to seek redress from authorities. When the Sichuan earthquake happened and he was so moved by the tragedy, he didn't just write some blog posts about it and say that was that. He found a way to engage people, to put new information out there. He found all those children's names, and continued to post their birthdays for more than a year afterward on Twitter. When you know him a little and you see that dedication, you really understand how genuine his efforts are. Because you always have to remember, he doesn't have to do any of this. I really think that is one of the messages of the film, and its something you can see if you watch the Frontline piece I did that draws on the same material.
PBS Independent Lens is back this week with another interesting documentary this week, The Desert of Forbidden Art,
How does art survive in a time of oppression? During the Soviet rule artists who stay true to their vision are executed, sent to mental hospitals or Gulags.
Their plight inspires young Igor Savitsky. He pretends to buy state-approved art but instead daringly rescues 40,000 forbidden fellow artist's works and creates a museum in the desert of Uzbekistan, far from the watchful eyes of the KGB. Though a penniless artist himself, he cajoles the cash to pay for the art from the same authorities who are banning it. Savitsky amasses an eclectic mix of Russian Avant-Garde art. But his greatest discovery is an unknown school of artists who settle in Uzbekistan after the Russian revolution of 1917, encountering a unique Islamic culture, as exotic to them as Tahiti was for Gauguin. They develop a startlingly original style, fusing European modernism with centuries-old Eastern traditions.
Stephen Kinzer (Crescent and Star), who discovered the obscure Uzbek museum while reporting for the New York Times, acts as a guide for the film. The LAist is enthusiastic about the documentary with this about Kinzer,
Kinzer is especially energetic, laying out a history of Soviet settlements, archaeological digs, over-irrigation, and how all came together to foster a Russian avant-garde movement
Check out the Independent Lens website for more info and showtimes.
In Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country, Louise Erdrich shares her love of a few contemporary Objibwe artists who are influenced by traditional petroglyphs (see below). I've tracked down some samples of their work online. First, Joe Geschick-- note his book cover art for Erdrich's works. Then there is Blake Debassige. Here is the seasonally appropriate Tree of Life (click on image for a larger version) and another by this artist can be found here. Finally, there is Norval Morriseau. The National Gallery of Canada has a nice selection and Macleod and Kinsman Robinson Galleries have sizable online collections (be sure to hit the arrows to scroll through all). Background on Morrisseau's painting can be found here.
Amnesty International has released a Children's Edition Urgent Action for the Tibetan refugee case we highlighted earlier. In addition to writing letters, children are encouraged to express their feelings about the case through artwork. We just wanted to give a pointer to an art activity we designed for the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which could easily be adapted for this purpose: The Tibetan Prayer Flag Project.
Portrait of a Textile Worker makes one person among millions of unseen workers, visible. Her image was constructed with thirty thousand clothing labels stitched together over two years. The idea came from a simple observation. One day while shopping in a department store I noticed huge signs everywhere -- Calvin Klein, Liz Claiborne, Kathy Lee and so on. They were all proper names. I'd recently met two garment workers and realized that by contrast, their identity was rarely thought of and often deliberately hidden. That anonymity could be undone by assembling a view of one worker using the well-known names on apparel she produced.
A little more detail can be seen on this page. Visit Behind the Label for more info on in anti-sweatshop organizing.
I'm a bit late with this but I meant to recommend NPR's recent series on Life in Solitary Confinement. In addition to the audio series, much of it focusing on California's "supermax" prison at Pelican Bay, there are some "web extras" including an interview with Human Rights Watch's Jamie Fellner on the human rights implications of indefinite solitary confinement.
The art teacher in me was drawn to today's Los Angeles Times which tells us that a Pelican Bay inmate, Donny Johnson, who paints with dyes made from M&Ms, faces disciplinary action because he's been allowing his work to be sold to benefit a charity, Pelican Bay Prison Project, that supports children of prisoners. The New York Times has a profile of the artist, with a slideshow, also linked via this article. (A couple of images are also on view at CNN.) Very vibrant! So much for "melts in your mouth not in your hands!" Pelican Bay Prison Project's site also has some columns written by Donny.
All about the original Persepolis, capital of the Persian-Achaemenid-Empire. Be sure to visit page 2 and the slideshow at the bottom of the page.
Explore more Iranian visual arts here I especially like the Murals of Tehran Metro Stations and Contemporary Graphic Design slideshows. (Does No. 06 look like an Amnesty write-a-letter-save-a-life poster gone wrong?)
Time to explore Marjane Satrapi's artistic inspirations. How about a visit to the Tehran Museum of Contempary Art (though these paintings don't really qualify as contemporary). Hmm, panels, stories... could these be... comic books? Here is a simple introduction to Persian miniatures.
Last but not least, because I love children's art, check out these galleries of Persian miniature-inspired jewels by the students of Greenhill School in Texas.
Feeling a little inspiration from Satrapi's drawings, I found a little art activity for you all, Magic Carpet. Hey what did you expect, I do teach art! Have fun with the other art games, very math-geeky art games I would add, at the Protozone Interactives site. Maybe it's the homesick Midwesterner in me, but I'm partial to Snowflaker.
More pop genres with human rights-themed subjects:
Here's a slick little cartoon that aims to explain the recent Paris riots: The French Democracy
Even more intriguing is this description of a soon to be released video game, A Force More Powerful which "teaches nonviolent strategies and tactics that have been used successfully all over the world by individuals and groups struggling to win freedom or secure human rights." Creator of the game, Ivan Marovic describes it as "a game where a player will be able to organize a mass movement against a dictatorship. It's going to be violent game with prosecutions, with arrests, with kidnapping. The only person that will not be allowed to be violent is the player." More on how Marovic's creative thinking aided Serbian and Ukrainian democracy advocates here.
Here are two articles for those (and we know exactly who you are!) who had trouble taking this month's assignment seriously-- from the NYT: Not Funnies and from the LAT: Serious about Comics.
(Testing my image upload capabilities...) Here's a mask made by one of my students at Villa Parke Art Project.
While we are on the topic of masks, take a look at some Ogoni masks here and here. I especially like the antelope masks. Try to picture antelopes grazing along the rivers and streams of Ogoniland. Just a little counterpoint to the slideshows of gas flares and oil spills in the Niger Delta I posted a few days ago.
I was excited we chose Rebecca Pawel's Watcher in the Pine as our "Mystery Month" selection thinking it was great that we were going to discuss a new topic, the Spanish Civil War. Somehow, I had completely forgotten how much we had enjoyed reading Russell Martin's Picasso's War: The Destruction of Guernica and the Masterpiece That Changed the World. If you want to jog your memory about the painting, the book and the history behind it in preparation for reading this month's mystery, the Picasso's War website is a fun place to start.
As many of our Loyal Readers know, our group maintains a vigilant interest in the human rights climate in China due to our on-going advocacy for the Chinese human rights lawyer, 
