2017Debtfair was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. In 2012, Occupy Museums launched Debtfair, an exhibition and organizing platform that groups artists and artworks by their debts and other financial realities. The system reveals the relationships binding individuals to the banks holding their loans as a hidden but highly consequential layer underneath the surface of American art. For the Whitney Biennial iteration of Debtfair, Occupy Museums announced a national call for American artists to answer questions relative to their economic realities for inclusion on debtfair. org.
- 2017
On #J20- the day of Trump’s inauguration ceremony in Washington DC, I co-organized a speakout with artists, poets, and activists responding to the following questions at the Whitney Museum.
- 2016
Occupy Museum’s project Debtfair will be included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. The first stage is a national open call to collect profiles on art and debt. We will then sift through the data and create a platform of artwork “bundles” to be installed in the museum and presented online in March 2017. DEBTFAIR OPEN CALL
- 2015
Debtfair is an ongoing artistic campaign dedicated to exploring the relationship between economic inequality in the art market and artists’ increasing debt burdens. Debtfair at Art League Houston is organized by Noah Fischer and Kenneth Pietrobono with Tal Beery, Imani Jacqueline Brown and Arthur Polendo: Occupy Museums members. Occupy Museums is a direct action art group that grew out of the Occupy Wall Street Movement in 2011.www.debtfair.org debtfair@gmail.com
- 2014
Debtfair is Occupy Museum’s ongoing campaign and series of proposals to reveal the hidden debt in the art market. The extractive mechanisms of interest-bearing loans from education or credit cards increasingly keep artists poor, even as the overall wealth in the art market increases.
- 2014
As the world prepares to converge on NYC in a mass call for Climate Justice, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will honor David H. Koch, a 4-star general in the dirty energy industry’s war against planet earth. The public space and two grand fountains in front of the Met’s facade will be renamed as the David H.
- 2013
Decentralized, on- and off-line, crossing institutional hierarchies in both public and private spaces, artists contextualize their work within the narratives of their actual economic lives. Collectors receive artwork in exchange for checks directly to the artist’s loaning banks.
- 2013
http://www.popularresistance.org/occupy-museums-calls-on-deans-to-support-debtfair-for-students/
- 2013
DebtFair is a project of Occupy Museums and friends. It’s a series of experimental market-actions to address the massive debt crisis in art today. Decentralized, on- and off-line, crossing institutional hierarchies in both public and private spaces, artists contextualize their work within the narratives of their actual economic lives. Collectors receive artwork in exchange for checks directly to the artist’s loaning banks. In DebtFair, Art = Liberation.
- 2012
Occupy Museums hosts a Discussion #2 of Occupy Your BFF: 7 Billion Bloombergs at Momenta Art http://www.momentaart.org/ As we stand in the face of an escalating coup of the public sector by private interests, Occupy Museums asks the following questions of New York City’s art workers:
- 2012
http://artfcity.com/2012/10/03/the-big-trouble-with-bloomberg-at-momenta-art/
- 2012
http://www.berlinbiennale.de/blog/en/allgemein-en/an-open-letter-to-occupybiennale-31367
- 2012
Occupy Museums (OWS) participated in the 7th Berlin Biennial from June 1-14th. We saw this as an opportunity to share ideas, resources, tactics, challenges, and solutions with our international partners in a world struggle for economic justice. It was as a risky experiment between activists, governments, and cultural institutions which could possibly offer unique exposure and international connectivity. The risk was co-optation of our movement’s grassroots power. We hope that the relationships we build will open lasting lines of communication for this global- movement.
- 2012
Last weekend, the luxury contemporary art fair called “Frieze” arrived on Randall’s Island in New York via London. Frieze is a highly exclusive affair where a selected group of international taste-making galleries sell their wares to the wealthiest people in the world, many of whom were intimately connected to the credit crisis and are now busy shopping for art objects, private jets, and fourth or fifth houses as people in their respective countries suffer foreclosures, unemployment and austerity measures.
- 2012
I will be speaking on this panel along with other members of Occupy Museums: The Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS) has altered conceptions of the international socio-political environment on the left, and has accordingly sent shock-waves throughout the realm of art and culture.
- 2012
Note: this text was written by consensus by the Occupy Museums group, and represents an update of the original manifesto of October 20th, 2011.
- 2012
On Friday night, Jan. 13, 2012, a trumpet sounded outside the Museum of Modern Art at exactly 6 pm and a banner was unfurled by its front door, announcing the presence of Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Museums, a working group of OWS, had decided to take advantage of Free Fridays at the museum and enter the premises for a well-organized teach-in.
- 2012
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York last night got Occupied again — by Teamsters from Local 814, Occupy Wall Street, museumgoers, artists, arts enthusiasts and culture activists. The groups gathered outside of the multimillion-dollar exhibition of Diego Rivera’s legendary murals and disrupted museumgoers’ quiet viewing experience.Organizer Noah Fischer addressed the crowd, giving them an alternative interpretation of Rivera’s art:
- 2012
By Erin SicklerWho really runs and most profits from the current art system. Not 99% of artists and not 99% of the general public, now forced to pay ever-escalating museum admission fees to gaze at contemporary artworks they could never afford…Read article here: http://issuu.com/erinmariesickler/docs/art_and_99percent
- 2011
They were madmen, but they had in them that little flame which never dies.—Pierre-Auguste Renoirhttp://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Commune-plus-one-7227
- 2011
By Ravenna Koenig for Columbia Spectator
- 2011
Printed Matter is pleased to announce a collaboration with Occupy Wall Street, coordinated by the OWS Occupennial and a team of occupant artists. Through November 26th the Printed Matter storefront window will feature Occupy Printed Matter, a rotating installation of work created by artists participating in the #OccupyWallStreet arts and culture working group, the inaugural artist action from that committee.
- 2011
http://galleristny.com/2011/10/occupy-art-street-a-guide-to-recent-art-world-protests/ by: Andrew Russeth
- 2011
In a piece yesterday at artINFO, Karen Archey asks, “Why is Occupy Wall Street Protesting NYC Museums, and Not Super Rich Galleries and Art Fairs?” The post is aimed at Occupy Museums, the Occupy Wall Street Arts and Culture Working Group project that began protesting yesterday outside MoMA and the New Museum.
- 2011
http://paddyjohnson.tumblr.com/post/11652516894/occupy-museums-speaking-out-in-front-of-the-cannons
- 2011
By Maura Judkis
- 2011
New York-based artist Noah Fischer has officially launched the “Occupy Museums!” movement as an offshoot to Occupy Wall Street. The movement was approved by OWS’s Arts and Culture group. The Art Info blog published the news on Wednesday, after Fischer …
- 2011
Is Occupying Museums Misguided? by Hrag Vartanian on October 19, 2011 56 This Occupy Museum effort is the most peculiar Occupy Wall Street/art-related thing I’ve heard about yet. A protest is slated for tomorrow and intends to “occupy” the Frick Museum, MoMA and the New Museum. How is occupying the Frick Museum constructive? They don’t even show contemporary art but historic work that isn’t exactly driving the art market.
