Claire Valdez Is Making All the Right Enemies
Article excerpt
John Nichols The RNC keeps attacking the popular ideas of a democratic socialist who is running for Congress in New York City. The post Claire Valdez Is Making All the Right Enemies appeared first on The Nation.
"Why are you doing this to yourself?" That was Hyperallergic Editor-in-Chief Hakim Bishara's first question for Claire Valdez, the artist and New York State assembly member running for Congress. Her answer touches on something all our readers will be familiar with: the need to create a more affordable life for artists. Read Bishara’s interview with Valdez, where she talks about union organizing, her faith in the working class, and making paintings of the night sky.
Also in NYC, we report on the new director of the Whitney ISP, who inherits a controversy-ridden program marred by the cancellation of an artwork about Palestinian mourning.
Plus, Christopher Myers’s Flatbush subway mosaics, shows to see in the Bay Area, Aruna D’Souza on Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince in Venice, and more.
, Valentina Di Liscia, senior editor
Claire Valdez Wants to Be Your Artist in Congress
After getting a Democratic Socialist Muslim mayor and winning its first NBA championship in 53 years, New York’s next big surprise could be a congresswoman who started out as an artist and art worker.
New York State Assembly Member Claire Valdez, a union organizer at heart, is running for New York’s 7th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives. Valdez stands for abolishing ICE, taxing the rich, Medicare and unions for all, universal rent control, and a free Palestine. We talked about Valdez’s life as a painter, her political origin story, and her plans for Congress, if she makes it there. | Hakim Bishara
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News
Arts advocacy groups are sounding the alarm after a congressional subcommittee last week approved a budget proposal that would eliminate the Department of Education’s only dedicated arts grant program.
The Whitney Museum of American Art appoints Soyoung Yoon as the new director of its Independent Study Program following a year-long suspension of the fellowship.
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Kaleidoscopic Subway Mosaics Celebrate Flatbush’s Theater History
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Member Comment
This is just what I needed to read today, many years after my own college graduation ceremony. Art will save the world through the relationships between those who create it, design it, view it and take it in. Art is a team sport, and this bigger, better team is comprised of those who act upon their connection to it, wherever it begins. No rules - let's begin!
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