Free Republic

Recently, Kahlo has become a polarizing figure in the conversation about cultural appropriation. While some express profound admiration and reverence for the artist, others passionately argue that Kahlo profited off an exoticized, calculated self-image at the expense of Indigenous people. To some, this accusation may seem like a wrongful application of the concept of cultural appropriation. After all, Kahlo was a citizen of the country from which her clothes originated, and she was immersed in Indigenous culture. Therefore, some claim that she was justified in wanting to embrace her Indigenous roots as a form of self-expression. Both supporters and...

Oh no! All the losers with the lesbian theater degrees can’t find jobs since they settled on an “education” that had no applicability in the real world! And, what’s worse is that they’re “artists,” so they can’t be expected to work a 9–5, or stifle their creativity with a boring conventional job, even though that’s where the money is. Fear not though, because here comes Congress to the rescue, with details from an NBC News report today:Democrats fret it could be curtains for local theaters without federal fundsFour years after it began, Covid-19 is in the rearview mirror for millions...

Bruce Springsteen is getting some unfavorable comparisons to John Mellencamp following the latter's meltdown at a recent show. The musician walked off after getting into it with a heckler. Now, fans are saying Springsteen and Mellencamp are cut from the same cloth. Taking to social media, several critics blasted Mellencamp and also brought Springsteen into the conversation. Critics claim that both Mellencamp and Springsteen are out of touch with the fanbase that once propped them up. One person wrote, "I have seen JCM five times. Just like Springsteen, these guys used to be in touch with the common man. They...

Artists have been fighting back on a number of fronts against artificial intelligence companies that they say steal their works to train AI models — including launching class-action lawsuits and speaking out at government hearings. Now, visual artists are taking a more direct approach: They're starting to use tools that contaminate and confuse the AI systems themselves. One such tool, Nightshade, won't help artists combat existing AI models that have already been trained on their creative works. But Ben Zhao, who leads the research team at the University of Chicago that built the soon-to-be-launched digital tool, says it promises to...

Looking for talented custom artists to show off their artwork/drawings. Preferably a little metal, patriotic, and hard. Would love to hook up and see your work and maybe pay for some custom/exclusive work. There are a number of artists on deviant etc but I prefer to pay a conservative/libertarian for there skill/effort. Please link you work. Thanks!

The creepiest but most accurate protests are the ones that go one step farther than what the insane person is demanding. The Youtube video here is spot on.

An Illinois artist was left baffled after a man paid him to paint a mural of “Sesame Street’s” Cookie Monster on the side of a building — that he didn’t actually own. Joshua Hawkins said he recently got an angry phone call from the actual owner of the Peoria building, “asking why the hell I painted this ‘crazy ****’ on his building.” “Evidently the guy that hired me to paint the mural was NOT really the owner of the building!,” Hawkins wrote on Facebook. The artist said a man he knew only as “Nate” called him the day after Thanksgiving...

The hired security guard accused of shooting a protester dead during a Denver rally on Saturday was identified by police as Matthew Robert Dolloff. Dolloff, 30, is being held in connection to a first-degree murder investigation in the shooting, the Denver Police Department announced on Sunday. Family members said the victim was Lee Keltner, a military veteran. Officials said Dolloff has not yet been charged. He is being questioned about the shooting, which was captured on camera. The shooting happened at a pro-President Donald Trump rally that was disrupted by people with Black Lives Matter and Antifa, who had planned...

Eight out of 10 employees working in the arts or culture fields said that sharing controversial opinions could mean 'being professionally ostracized' or bullied. The survey conducted by ArtsProfessionals, a UK arts publication, received responses from more than 500 individuals in the field. 'Our arts, culture, and indeed education sectors are supposed to be fearlessly free-thinking and open to a wide range of challenging views. 'However, they are now dominated by a monolithic politically correct class (mostly of privileged white middle class people, by the way), who impose their intolerant views across those sectors.' Showing sympathy for movement likes Brexit...

New arts program will connect student artists to PA Turnpike New partnership, Art Sparks, will develop public art created by local students HUMMELSTOWN, PA. (March 30, 2017) — Today, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) and Pennsylvania Council for the Arts (PCA) announced a new partnership that connects student artists with art being developed for stops along the PA Turnpike. The new program, called Art Sparks, will utilize the PCA’s Arts in Education residency program to develop student-created, original pieces of art for Turnpike service plazas across the 550-mile system. These public art pieces will be on display in service plazas...

NEW ORLEANS — At 75, Deacon John Moore considers himself one of the lucky ones: The scion of three generations of music-making Creoles, he’s been able to sustain himself with his guitar, raise a family, buy a house. Most other musicians here, he says, aren’t so fortunate. He’s tooling around the streets of Treme — one of the nation’s oldest black neighborhoods and the birthplace of jazz — in his ancient Volvo, pointing out all the gentrified houses, the ones with the jacked up rents. Everybody wants to live here now, he said. New Orleans is enjoying a renaissance 12...

On-Board a JetBlue plane at JFK Airport in New York City for a planned family vacation in Hawaii, Donald Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka was accosted by another passenger Dan Goldstein, a Brooklyn lawyer. Goldstein's harangue charged Donald Trump with "ruining the country" and Ivanka with "ruining our flight." The "our" referred to his husband Matthew Lasner and their son. Goldstein contended that "people like Trump and his 'spawn' have no business inserting themselves among those who don't want them anywhere near us. She and her kids are a terrifying reminder that the Trump pall could plague the country for generations....

Whole Title: 'Get my work off your walls!': Ivanka Trump hit by protest from artists demanding their work be removed from her famous home because they're 'embarrassed' to be associated with her family A growing group of artists is hitting back against Ivanka Trump, with some even demanding the president-elect's daughter take their work down off her walls. A collection of New York artists have banded together to protest Donald Trump through his daughter, with a campaign called 'Dear Ivanka'. The colorful crusade was created by the Halt Action Group, which was founded by curator Alison Gingeras, dealer Bill Powers,...

Sheriff's investigators at the scene of the Oakland fire on Saturday. At least nine people are confirmed dead and several dozen are missing after a fire ripped through the the "Ghost Ship" warehouse in Oakland... As many as 100 people were crowded inside the warehouse for a party when the blaze erupted. They struggled to escape the flames and smoke. Officials fear dozens could have been killed. City records show that there were habitability complaints made against the property's owner as recently as November 14 regarding an "illegal interior building structure." City inspectors appear to have visited the building on...

A pair of Arizona-based Christian artists is challenging the local law that threatens to fine and imprison them for refusing to make same-sex wedding invitations. Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studio in Phoenix, lost a case at trial level which accused them of violating a local ordinance that protects homosexuals from discrimination, Fox News reported. The ordinance also prevents the business owners from publicly explaining their convictions or even defending their decision lest they face jail time for that as well. This apparent violation of the First Amendment protection of free speech is at the...

Four weeks ago, Big Hollywood posted audio of a conference call in which Obama administration officials asked "grant recipients to plug Barack Obama’s domestic agenda." At least six federal laws and regulations were violated when then–NEA communications director Yosi Sergant and White House Office of Public Engagement deputy director Buffy Wicks tried twisting the arms of artists and arts groups interested in getting federal arts grants to produce government propaganda. To protect the scandal from expanding further, the White House threw Sergant under the bus, denied that they were involved issued new guidelines for the NEA and promised that it...

Debbie Harry of Blondie [1st crossover new wave to hip-hop artist with “Rapture”-remember!]

On May 15, 2013, the Turkish Prime Minister, Erdogan, an anti-Semite, attended a ceremony a stone’s throw from our nation’s capital celebrating what he claims “will likely become the largest and most striking example of Islamic architecture in the Western Hemisphere.” Next year, when completed, the Turkish American Culture and Civilization Center, in Lanham, Maryland “US of A,” a project of the Islamist Turkish government, will be the grandest Islamic site in the Western Hemisphere. Allah Akbar! The 15-acre neo-Ottoman empire inspired complex will have five buildings and a mosque capable of serving over 750 faithful Muslim worshipers. I have...

The still-life watercolour was painted when Adolf Hitler was in his mid-twenties, and sold by his Jewish art dealer Samuel Morgenstern, who was later sent to the Lodz Ghetto... ...The Telegraph's art critic Alastair Smart says of the piece, "The work is of no intrinsic, artistic worth whatsoever. The only vague point of interest might be that, unlike the iffy watercolours of Vienna city we associate with Hitler the painter, this rarity is an iffy watercolour of a pitcher of azalias."... ...Hitler moved to Munich in 1913, having been unable to make a living as a painter. The Nazis later...

Over the weekend, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an interview with a renowned local artist named Nelson Shanks, whose portfolio includes the official painting of Bill Clinton hanging in the National Portrait Gallery. (Sidenote: during my time as a speechwriter for George W. Bush, I learned that 43 loved to open any set of remarks where he was having his portrait unveiled with “Welcome to my hanging.” For some reason, I always found that endearing). Anyway, Shanks, who we can only presume has figured out that publicly slighting a Democratic president is basically the royal road to a Fox News contributor...