Then we have artist and animal rights activist Sue Coe talking about her career and love of animals. With Coe are political artists Mel Chin and Dread Scott. Motivated largely by political, cultural, and social circumstances, Chin works in a variety of art media to calculate meaning in modern life. Chin places art in landscapes, in public spaces, and in gallery and museum exhibitions, but his work is not limited to specific venues.
Dread Scott makes revolutionary art to propel history forward. He first received national attention in 1989 when his art became the center of controversy over its use of the American flag. President G. H.W. Bush declared his artwork What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?“disgraceful” and the entire US Senate denounced this work and outlawed it when they passed legislation to “protect the flag.” To oppose this law and other efforts which would effectively make patriotism compulsory, he, along with three other protesters, burned flags on the steps of the US Capitol. This resulted in a Supreme Court case and a landmark First Amendment decision.
State of the Arts will also talk to the team for the production of La Medea that is apart of the COIL Festival affiliated with APAP and lastly we will have a very special audio essay and conversation with The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and John Biewen on El Nuevo South and how the citizens of Siler City in North Carolina embraced their new Mexican neighbors.
“State of the Arts NYC will feature a conversation with John Biewen, host and producer of the Scene on Radio podcast from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. We’ll discuss and hear excerpts from Scene on Radio’s documentary, El Nuevo South. The documentary takes us to Siler City, North Carolina, and explores this small town’s response, over two decades, to the cultural change brought on my large-scale Latino immigration — leading ultimately to a degree of acceptance and embrace.”