Russian LGBTQ artist goes on hunger strike; artist targeted by racism turns to video games

A SUMMARY OF THE MOST EXCITING ART NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

While we focus on Indian art, we can’t obviously function in a vacuum. It’s a small world and everything is connected, especially on the web. So, let’s train our spotlight across the world map to see what’s going on — from art trends to socio-political issues to everything that affects the great aesthetic global consciousness. Or, let’s just travel the world and have some fun!

Russian artist starts hunger strike over prison for feminist art

The 27-year-old Russian LGBTQ activist-artist Yulia Tsvetkova is demanding that her criminal trial be held in public. She faces up to six years in prison on criminal charges for distributing pornography over the internet. The images, posted on the feminist social media group The Vagina Monologues, also includes abstract images of female genitalia intended to promote body positivity. She declared a hunger strike on May 1, and wants her trial, which began on April 12 in Russia’s Far East Amur, be made accessible to the public and not dragged out indefinitely. The Art Newspaper reports.

Targeted in hate crime, artist designs video game

After the Covid-19 pandemic heightened xenophobia especially against Asians, digital artist Chanhee Choi, a South Korean student at the University of Washington, reported an attack in downtown Seattle by a racist assailant, ranting about Chinese people and the coronavirus. Afterwards, she decided to bring awareness to the issue — by making a video game. She used her skills in digital arts and experimental media, her major, to incorporate her experiences into a game. In it, a 3D avatar of the Covid-19 molecule is featured for players. Wired elaborates.

Mr Doodle become a market sensation

Till last year, Sam Cox — or Mr Doodle as he is well known all over Instagram — was busy posting videos of him doodling all over large surfaces and making his own unique art. But in 2020, he became an art market sensation, after a canvas called Spring by him sold for almost $1 mn at the Tokyo Chuo Auction. Over the following months, he sold $4.7 mn worth of 158 works in total at public auction. Financial Times narrates the incredible tale.

Celebrates female talent and mothers

An art and design exhibition organised and curated by all-female trio Egg Collective and photographer Tealia Ellis Ritter celebrates female designers and motherhood in New York till May 29. The show, ‘Designing Women III: Mother’, is inspired by a Harvard study that found that a large proportion of the pay gap between men and women can be explained by the so-called ‘motherhood penalty’. This is the third exhibition by Egg Collective celebrating female designers, following a debut of the concept in 2017 during NYCxDesign, and a 2018 show titled ‘Masters, Mavericks and Mavens’. Wallpaper reports.