GUERRILLA ART ACTION GROUP, THE - ACTION-INTERVIEW AT WBAI RADIO STATION-N.Y. (LP)


"We are happy to announce the release of an LP by The Guerrilla Art Action Group titled Action-Interview at WBAI Radio Station-N.Y. The recording documents a live action/interview by the group on January 5, 1970 on the progressive radio station WBAI. The LP consists of a series of spoken statements describing the problematic relationship between art and business, art and the military, art and class, art and community, and art and race. Some of these statements are directed to an open public, but others are questions addressed to artists, forcing them to question their role in a dehumanizing, repressive, and corrupt system. The group sought an artist model that could enact political and social change and they encouraged their fellow artists to follow suit by focusing less on aesthetic abstractions and more on direct personal experiences and expression. They believed that artists had become dehumanized through their willingness to operate inside of a racist and sexist cultural system that relied on corporate money while aiding and abetting a military that used art to distract people from wartime atrocities. The context of this conversation, along with many of The Guerilla Art Action Group's other actions, was the Vietnam War, the ongoing struggles for civil rights, and artists' radical questioning of the role of cultural institutions. The group engaged in guerrilla performance, creating spectacles that drew attention to the moral failures of cultural institutions and the U.S. government. The participants making up The Guerrilla Art Action Group on this recording were Jon Hendricks, Poppy Johnson, Jean Toche. They were joined by Laurin Raiken, a member of the New York Free Theater and Art Workers Coalition. Action-Interview at WBAI Radio Station-N.Y. was first published in 1983 by Edizioni Lotta Poetica and Studio Morra as part of their Radio Taxi series. The gatefold sleeve contains the complete text of the performance. The LP is produced in an edition of 500 copies." (label info)
in stock | US| 2018| PRIMARY INFORMATION | 20.90


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