New York City, May 6, 2024. In what they called a “Day of Rage,” pro-Palestinian agitators defaced two of New York City’s finest public sculptures, the107th Infantry Memorial and the William Tecumseh Sherman memorial, both located in New York’s Central Park. On that day anti-Israel militants gathered at Hunter College in New York City for a march meant to disrupt…
When I first saw the bizarre dispatch from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that was circulating on the internet, I thought it was fake, so I checked the official NATO Twitter account. The communique was there, beaming with all the pride the military alliance could muster. The quirky missive read: “Ukraine is hosting one of the great epics of…
I created the silkscreen print No Más Guerra (No More War) in 1983. It was a statement against the wars then raging in Central America and around the globe during the Cold War, including the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Later, in the 2000s, I distributed the poster at antiwar protests against the US war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now unbelievably,…
November 11, 2022 is Veteran’s Day in America, but you’d hardly know it by reading the corporate press; there’s not a single mention of it on the “Google News” web page. To honor the veterans of all wars fought by the United States, Veteran’s Day is celebrated annually in November. It is a day of reflection, contemplation, and gratefulness. Many…
Perhaps we can understand our jingoist present by examining our warring past. Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962), was the first woman artist in the avant-garde of Russia. She was a painter, print maker, writer, and provocateur. She created costumes and set backdrops for the Ballet Russes of Sergei Diaghilev. She married fellow avant-garde artist Mikhail Larionov, the two becoming inseparable life partners….
Imagine being an artist in a country that banned art. Furthermore, to save yourself and your family, you had to burn all of your paintings before the theocratic zealots of the unelected “government” could discover them. “My heart shatters to see and talk to Afghan artists who have started destroying their own art out of fear. Afghanistan is becoming black…
On April 9, 2021, VICE, the digital media and broadcasting company that touts itself as “the definitive guide to enlightening information,” published a ghastly interview with Matt Loughrey, a successful 42-year-old Irish photo restorer who developed a lucrative career colorizing historic photos. The article was titled, These People Were Arrested by the Khmer Rouge and Never Seen Again. It was…
I see things through the eyes of a socially engaged artist. Making art is intellectual work that entails conceptual thinking and problem solving, capabilities that must also be applied to the world of politics. As a painter I believe that art is the enemy of war, the converse is also true: war is the enemy of art. In 1999 I…
