Given the tone of the campaign, the election of Donald Trump, and the swiftly ensuing threats to basic rights, many of us are both terrified and more engaged in the political process. Within the first few weeks of 2017 I already participated in two shows titled " Nasty Women", including the massive cash-and-carry show at the Knockdown Center in Queens that earned 35K for Planned Parenthood, a benefit for the ACLU and personally auctioned pieces on facebook for Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.
The critic Jerry Saltz wrote on November 13, 2016: "The election left many feeling alienated, alone, in shapeless psychic pain. But in fact this foul, broken, alien place is a very old locus of art. Rectly, art has been this high-powered-success-machine mainstream sensation; artists have beome celebrities; we've been treated to narcissistic pictures of pretty people at glamorous events wearing $2,000 worth of clothes". The gist is, politically the situation sucks, but it may turn out to be a great thing for art.
Time will tell if that turns out to be true but the political reality has motivated me and many artists I know to be vocal, active and communal in new ways.
