(LP) Action-Interview at WBAI Radio Station - N.Y. by The Guerrilla Art Action Group
This is a recording of a performance by the Guerrilla Art Action Group, an artist group formed in 1969 by artists Jon Hendricks and Jean Toche.
The live performance, which took place on January 5, 1970 at WBAI Radio Station-NY, features a series of statements addressing the issues of art and business, art and the military, art and class, art and community, and art and race. Some of the statements are directed at the general public, while others challenge artists on their role in an inhuman, oppressive, and corrupt system.
"How long are you going to accept being an oppressed idiot manipulated by society?"
"Do you feel guilty about being an oppressor?"
"What is more important to you? To sell your paintings or to help humans?"
"What is more important to you? To exhibit in a museum or to fight for the human rights of oppressed people?"
These questions, like much of the group's work, challenged the idea that there was a separation between art and life, or that art could enjoy freedom from the systemic discrimination and corruption that permeated all aspects of American society. The group explored an artist model for political and social change, encouraging fellow artists to focus on direct personal experience and expression rather than aesthetic abstraction. They felt that artists had been dehumanized by their willingness to operate within a racist, sexist cultural system that relied on corporate funding while also aiding and abetting troops who used art to distract people from wartime atrocities.
"Racism and poverty will continue as long as business is valuable."
"As long as art is a business, it will be racist and oppressive."
"Are you guilty of supporting racist and oppressive cultural institutions?"
The backdrop to this conversation, like many of the Guerrilla Art Action Group's other activities, was the Vietnam War, the ongoing fight for civil rights, and artists' radical questioning of the role of cultural institutions. They staged guerilla performances to draw attention to the moral failings of cultural institutions and the U.S. government. Although this recording was made only a few months before the activity, the group had already launched a series of actions demanding that the Museum of Modern Art sell $1 million worth of art and distribute the money to poor communities of all races, close along with other museums until the end of the Vietnam War, and kick the Rockefeller family, who profited from the production of weapons used in the war, off its board of directors.
The gatefold sleeve contains the full text of the performance.
Limited to 500 copies.
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Title: Action-Interview at WBAI Radio Station-NY
Artist: The Guerrilla Art Action Group
Primary Information, 2018
LP, 43:12 minutes
Gatefold Sleeve, 314 x 316 mm
Edition of 500 copies
¥2,500 + tax