"You Don't Own Me" PSA by Leslie Gore

Women constitute more than half of the population. In 2008, 60% of voters were women. It is estimated that 10 million more women than men will vote in this election. Despite this, women make up only 16% of Congress. Women earn only 70 cents to each dollar men make. Women of color and undocumented women make less than white citizens. Mitt Romney and the Republican Party are determined to overturn Roe V. Wade. Romney has not supported equal pay for women (The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act). Romney has vowed to defund Planned Parenthood. Romney has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Romney doesn't want health care to cover birth control. Romney says same sex marriage should be banned with a Constitutional Amendment. Women, let's rise up. Our vote alone can win this election. A vote for Obama is a vote for your health and your right to choose. It is a vote for equal pay and equal rights. A vote for Obama is a vote for our families. It is a vote to marry who you choose. It's a vote to start a family when you choose. A vote for Obama says that we won't stand for violence against women and that rape is rape. Our vote ensures that our daughters will grow up with the same rights that we've had. A vote for Obama sends a message: This war on women must end. We will not go backwards. This election is shockingly close. Our safety is at stake. Our silence is consent and our vote is our voice. Let’s get active. Let’s get out every vote we can. Let’s make this election a mandate. A mandate to finally ensure women the respect, dignity and equality we all deserve! This is now. This is our call to action. Once and for all, let's take back the power that is so inherently and naturally ours!

James Clar's Iris Was a Pupil on View At Carbon 12

iris_was_a_pupil_carbon_12_james_clar

Carbon 12 gallery in Dubai presents the solo exhibition of the American multi-media artist James Clar, Iris was a Pupil, which opens today. As the title clearly suggests it, the new works are about the sensation of visual stimuli, the constant challenge of finding new viewpoints, and the demand to keep seeing things from fresh perspectives. “Iris was a Pupil” (also the title of a song by techno legends Autechre) also calls the connotation of synaesthesia to mind. The theme of crossing borders is always present in the work of Clar, who lives and works between New York and Dubai: not only in the sense of redefining the physical limitations and boundaries of media (mediums), but also in the metaphysical sense of investigating subjects such as nationalism and globalism in the age of social technologies. Here, he takes a step further, blurring the lines between dreams and reality, synthetic and real. Iris Was a Pupil opens today November 5 and will be on view until December 8, 2012 at Carbon 12, Warehouse D37, Alserkal Avenue, Street 8, Al Quoz 1, Dubai

FAILE in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

While in town for the unveiling of a new permanent sculpture in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Brooklyn-based artistic collective FAILE worked with local Mongolian artists on a mural. They stenciled an image of a young girl clutching a skateboard – a nod to the quickly modernizing nature of Mongolia contrasted by its vast unpaved landscape – on the wall of an archway located in the central university district of Ulan Bator. Each Mongolian artist worked on customizing the girl’s dress in their own style. The emerging Mongolian artists are recent finalists of the Tiger Translate Festival and were selected by a prestigious panel of judges that included the National Arts Council. 

Rene Ricard Exhibition @ Highlight Gallery in San Francisco

Highlight Galleryin San Francisco presents “new paintings and not so new” by the American poet and painter Rene Ricard. On view are numerous works created over the past decade by Ricard are presented. The paintings consist of oil on linen with hand-painted poems in Ricard’s signature font over “poison green” canvasses and over figurative paintings taking inspiraton from various photographic sources. Ricard has served as mentor, muse, inspiration and critic for the New York City art scene for the past four decades. He was also a seminal figure in Andy Warhol's factory appearing in many of his films. In 1981, he wrote the cover article “Radiant Child” in Art Forum magazine, and he since then has been credited in helping Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring transform from underground figures to art stars. The exhibition will be on view until December 9 at Highlight Gallery, 17 Kearny Street  San Francisco, CA. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Joseph Beuys Iphigenie @ Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

One of Joseph Beuys' most powerful action events was Titus Andronicus/Iphigenie, performed on 30 May 1969 in the Theater am Turm in Frankfurt, for Experimenta 3. Wearing a fur coat, Beuys appeared on a darkened stage with a shining white horse. He used the myth and the drama of Iphigenia to draw attention to the freedom and the creativity of the individual. Here, William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (1589-92), with its excessive violence and cruelty, reminiscent (in the context of this performance) of Nazi crimes, is linked with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris (1779), in which Iphigenia – the personification of humanity – redeems her brother Orestes through her love and her forgiveness. Joseph Beuys Iphigenie is on view now until January 27, 2013 at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, 69 avenue du Général Leclerc 93500 Pantin

Nippon-ismes @ Galerie Da-End in Paris

From 
the 
10th of 
November
 to 
the 
28th 

of
 December 
2012,
to 
mark
 the 
month
 of
 photography,
 the 
Da‐End
 Gallery 
is
 showing ‘NIPPON‐ISMES’ an
 exhibition 
which 
brings 
together
 seven 
photographers
 from 
different
 generations
 whose 
works, 
from 
either 
a 
journalistic
 or
 visual 
approach
 to 
the
 medium,
 all 
question 
contemporary 
Japanese
 identity
 and 
culture.

[FASHION FILM] Blow by Adi Hitchcock

Presenting Rylee Jean Ebsen and Shelly Carmel's fashion film for jewelry designer Adi Hitchcock's BLOW collection which consists of full octave harmonicas made of stainless steel, silver, gold and diamond and crystal paved. The collection has garnered attention from the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Marc Jacobs, and model Bar Rafaeli. The film is based on a old black and white photograph that was brought to life. 

Torbjørn Rødland's Vanilla Partner

Torbjørn Rødland's photography is direct but idiosyncratic, pushing at the boundaries of aesthetic and social norms. His fifth book, Vanilla Partner, continues in this vein, combining images of fetishized isolation in a layout that rejects the linear structure of thematic photography books. Rødland’s practice navigates through the problematic and seemingly unchanging heart of popular photography. Accepting neither the humanist realism of most photographic portraiture nor the postmodern role-play, Vanilla Partner explores the cultural complexities and archaic foundation of contemporary image-making. Reconstructed scenes of ultrasoft BDSM read like twisted metaphors for photography’s ability to freeze or capture. The book title, dripping in innuendo, also poses a question about the ambiguity of the relationship between the artist and his medium. Is Rødland acknowledging the medium’s straight foundation or does he see himself dominated by it? Many of the images also have explicit political references, often linked to the 1980 US Presidential election. Vanilla Partner brings together works made in Oslo, Tokyo, Beijing and Rødland’s current home, Los Angeles. Torbjørn Rødland was born in 1970 in Hafrsfjord, Norway. Since the mid-90s his photographs have been exhibited widely. Vanilla Partner is available to purchase here.

Grey Area for Helmut Lang

Fashion label Helmut Lang has teamed up with online shop and gallery Grey Area in collaboration with artist Shelter Serra (nephew of sculptor Richard Serra) for a series of installations called Engine Blocks which will be on view at Helmut Lang boutiques November 1 to January 17. Stores will also offer several gift items curated by Grey Area, which specializes in artist-designed objects including James DeWoody’s note cards, Michelle Lopez’s Band-Aid rings and Serra’s Fake Roley bracelets.