New Guest Bloggers: #OccupyArt21

Graphic: Anna Mayer.

A warm thanks to previous guest blogger Jason Lahman for his thoughtful posts that explored, among numerous other topics, the fate of the body in contemporary art and culture. To read more of Lahman’s work, visit his personal blog here.

Next up, we launch an ambitious guest-blogging stint by a collective of artists and writers. On the heels of Time magazine naming The Protestor as its 2011 Person of the Year, the Art21 Blog is pleased to host the writings of #OccupyArt21, a loosely-affiliated group of activists all based in Los Angeles. Writer Carol Cheh, who did a great job filling in for Lily Simonson recently on Looking at Los Angeles, serves as the conceptualizer, organizer, and editor of these guest posts, but importantly, everyone in the group has equal agency, in the spirit of the leaderless Occupy movement. The participants in #OccupyArt21 are writers and artists who are active in the Occupy LA movement, and who are in alignment with Occupy Wall Street in general. They have an unofficial website which can be found here: https://a-a-a-a-a-a.org/. (Note: the reach of this website extends far beyond the writers participating here, providing them and others not affiliated with this guest blog with an online gathering place and archive.)

During the next two weeks, posts written by #OccupyArt21 will blend art practice and visual aesthetics with sociopolitical critique and activism, and in this way, seek to embody and manifest the Occupy phenomenon through writing. The artists/writers participating in the #OccupyArt21 guest blog are as follows, in alphabetical order: ARLA (Elana Mann & Juliana Snapper), Teresa Carmody, Carol Cheh, Dorit Cypis, Mikal Czech, Robby Herbst, Anna Mayer, Christy Roberts, Mathew Timmons, and Matias Viegener. Welcome all — the Art21 Blog is ready to be “Occupied!”