Ralph Fasanella

14 03 2015

Fasanella served two stints in reform schools run by the Catholic Church for truancy and running away from home. He later said he was sexually abused (“used as a girl”) by the priests.[2] These experiences instilled a deep dislike for authority and reinforced Fasanella’s hatred for anything which broke people’s spirits. Fasanella later depicted his experience in reform school in a painting titled Lineup at the Protectory 2 (1961). The melancholy image features rows of boys standing at attention, watched over by scowling, ominous-looking priests. Fasanella quit school after the sixth grade.

During the Great Depression, Fasanella worked as a textile worker in garment factories and as a truck driver. He became a member of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1227 while working as a machinist in Brooklyn. He became strongly aware of the growing economic and social injustice in the U.S., as well as the plight and powerlessness of the working class.

In late 1930s, Ralph Fasanella volunteered to fight in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, an American paramilitary force fighting to support the Second Spanish Republic against the successful fascist rebellion led by General Francisco Franco.


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the lies we tell ourselves

14 03 2015

the lies we tell ourselvesby David Halliday


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Wilhelm Camphausen

14 03 2015

Wilhelm Camphausen, German painter, was born and died at Düsseldorf, and studied under Alfred Rethel and Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow. 1818 to 1885. These paintings are almost all from the imagination. With no photography, the accounts of battles must have been written/oral accounts and the artist made up the rest. Or as in Camphausen’s case he accompanied the troops and made sketches of the battle from a nearby hillside.

 


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mentalgassi

14 03 2015

Love street art. Can’t get enough of it. Especially when it is clever or funny.

Mentalgassi is a street art collective.


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Peter L. Johnson

14 03 2015

I’m not too sure about Mr. Johnson. Certainly his images of the pollution of the Mississippi River and other rivers in his country must be shocking. But to immerse yourself in the water and take a chance of health problems, seems somewhat radical. And will it change anything?

The other question. When does social consciousness leave the realm of art? There is a difference between the pamphlet and the short story. Between the movie and propaganda.


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