http://www.spsounds.com

Showtime 9pm

Hosted by Sasha Jenkins

Plus a special screening of the FUSE docu-series

THE BROOKLYN WAY

**A Lupus charity event**

Reiss traveled to 5 continents and interviewed almost 200 artists.  Personalities such as Cornbread, Lady Pink, KRS One, Shepard Fairey, Os Gemeos, and others share their lives with the camera. 

The myriad complexities regarding public space were explored in New York, Philadelphia, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Barcelona, Berlin, Cape Town, São Paulo, and Tokyo, and Los Angeles.

The 93-minute film screens across the country this spring (http://bombit-themovie.com/blog/?p=275).  Docurama Films will release it on DVD May 27th.

Here’s all the info… NYC info first, followed by our press release.

FYI, the DVD comes out May 27, 2008 through Docurama Films.

event info:

Urban Artists and the Politics of Visibility:  A Conversation with Angela Davis

April 23 12:30 to 2:30 Memorial Hall
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn (G train to Clinton/Washington)
Community Participation Welcome!  Event Free
Contact the Initiative for Art, Community and Social Change at:  InitiativeACSC@gmail.com

Panelists:
Angela Davis, Hank Willis Thomas, Dread Scott, Amy Sananman, Alan Ket

One of the unequalled powers of art has always been its ability to speak the unspoken and make visible the invisible-- and nowhere is this more true than in New York City.  On April 23rd, 2008, Pratt will host a conversation between Angela Davis and a range of New York-based artists exploring their shared passion for the “politics of visibility.” Like Davis, these artists defy the separations and silences imposed by institutions like prison, the police, and the military; by categories like race, gender, and class; and by the increasing division between public and private urban space.  They work across genres including film and photography, graffitti and mural painting, theater and spoken word.  And whether through creative content or social context, their work transcends the confines and conventions of the established art world, politicizing the collective act of seeing and making art, and making visible and audible issues and communities long marginalized in the contemporary city.  The event will include short presentations by the artists, an open discussion with Angela Davis, and Q&A from the audience.

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.  He works in a range of media, including installation, photograph, screen printing, video and performance.

AMY SANANMAN is Groundswell Community Mural Project’s founder and Executive Director.  Sananman conceived of Groundswell in 1996 with themission to bring together professional artists, grassroots organizations and communities to create high quality murals in underrepresented neighborhoods.

ALAN KET is a Brooklyn native who became an artist while painting subway trains.  He is an active aerosol artist traveling extensively to document the street art movement as well as to share his work.  Most recently he faced a year long criminal case against the city and lost.  He is now a convicted felon.

HANK WILLIS THOMAS creates works that reflect on the symbols of commodity culture and the impact of violence in African American communities.  He is interested in the subject of perception of reality as it is manipulated in photography and media.

All three movies were heart breakers and tragic. The oppression, fear and despair are too much to even watch. I feel so privileged after watching the struggle of the main characters, the young kids. Our so called recession is a joke compared to these war ravaged lands. And its getting worse....

At this urgent time, MOVE is asking for support by writing letters, making telephone calls (717-787-5699), and signing the online petition that will be delivered to the Board later this month.

Along with Chairman Catherine C. McVey, the other eight Parole Board Members are Charles Fox, Michael L. Green, Jeffrey R. Imboden, Matthew T. Mangino, Benjamin A. Martinez, Gerard N. Massaro, Judy Viglione, Lloyd A. White.

It is best for individuals to personally send a letter to Chairman McVey, and if folks have the resources, to also send a copy to each of the other eight board members, at the same address.

[name of Board member]
Board of Probation and Parole
Attn: Inmate Inquiry
1101 South Front Street, Suite 5300
Harrisburg, PA 17104
(717) 787-5699
WEBSITE

However, if individuals lack the resources, the letter can be sent to:

Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 30770
Philadelphia, PA, 19104

How the subways wiped out graffiti

by patrick arden / metro new york

APR 1, 2008

MANHATTAN. While envisioning the future of the MTA recently, transit boss Elliot Sander recalled the past.

The city’s fiscal crisis of the 1970s had led to a decade of neglect. Trains derailed every 18 days. “Subway crime was a fact of life in a system covered with graffiti,” Sander said.

That described the situation in 1984, when David Gunn was named president of the New York City Transit Authority.

The MTA was two years into its first capital improvement plan, and the 4 line began to get new stainless steel cars. Gunn asked about plans to keep the new trains clean of graffiti.

“They had no plans,” Gunn, still amazed today, told Metro. “They had sort of given up.”

Repainted cars were simply sent back into the system. “You’d have one virgin car in the middle of a train completely covered in graffiti,” Gunn said. “You might as well put a sign on it: ‘Paint me.’”

Adding field managers, Gunn hatched a plan to rid graffiti, starting on the 4 and 7 lines and then focusing all efforts on one line at a time.

“We had to put in place not only clean trains, but the means to keep them clean,” he said. “We also decided that once you put out a clean train it would never go out dirty. If we could keep them clean, we could make a projection as to when the last train with graffiti would run.”

One line at a time isn’t a new tactic

The line-by-line solution of the Gunn Era sounds similar to the broader plans of current NYC Transit President Howard Roberts, who wants to make every line more autonomous.

Now retired, David Gunn is reluctant to draw a comparison. “We isolated subway lines in terms of priority, but we ran the trains as a system,” he said. “Yet the best way to attack a problem is to break it down into small pieces.”

The authority versus the artists

In a train yard at 132nd Street, the graffiti was sophisticated. With the same trains laid up every evening, taggers could take their time: one night for an undercoat, the next for an outline and the third for color.

“These kids worked three nights, all night long, until they had something they were proud of,” Gunn said. “Just before the train would go into service ... we’d have cops dressed as car cleaners come in to slosh paint all over it. The kids would be in hysterics, literally, crying and begging you to let it make just one trip.”

The new scourge: Scratchiti

Graffiti is still a problem, though not as daunting as in the old days. NYC Transit is now waging a war on the more menacing scourge of acid-etched scratchiti. Newer train

models even have Mylar sheets on their windows that can be removed once marked. The NYPD’s transit bureau keeps a database of about 1,500 tags to identify repeat offenders. Locations are staked out, often planting a car on an isolated stretch of track and hiding cops inside.