The global Democracy is… conversation expands July 7 with the launch of the inaugural Democracy Photo Challenge.  The contest asks people around the world to complete the phrase “Democracy is…” through digital photos submitted online. The Democracy is… conversation leverages social networks and creative challenges to allow global publics to share, consider, debate, and learn from diverse perspectives on democracy.

Photo entries will be accepted from July 7 through July 28.  Democracy is… partners worked with Google’s Picasa Web Albums team to create the contest platform, which is the first of its kind, specifically to power the Democracy Photo Challenge. An independent jury will announce 36 finalists August 19, and the public will select 12 winners during a global online vote beginning August 19 - August 26.  The winners will be announced on the United Nations’ (UN) International Day of Democracy, September 15, with the winning photographs exhibited at the UN in New York.   

“How appropriate that the winning photos should be on display at the UN,” said jury co-chair and International Center of Photography Director, Willis Hartshorn. 

May 01, 2010 — May 29, 2010
18 Wooster Street, New York

Deitch Projects is pleased to present May Day, an exhibition of new work by Shepard Fairey, as its final project. Titled not only in reference to the day of the exhibition’s opening, the multiple meanings of May Day resonate throughout the artist's new body of work. Originally a celebration of spring and the rebirth it represents, May Day is also observed in many countries as International Worker's Day or Labor Day, a day of political demonstrations and celebrations coordinated by unions and socialist groups. “Mayday” is also the distress signal used by pilots, police and firefighters in times of emergency.

With energy and urgency befitting the title May Day, Fairey captures the radical spirit of each of his subjects, using portraiture to celebrate some of the artists, musicians and political activists he most admires. Says Fairey, "These people I'm portraying were all revolutionary, in one sense or another. They started out on the margins of culture and ended up changing the mainstream. When we celebrate big steps that were made in the past, it reminds us that big steps can be made in the future."

All The Colors of The Musical Spectrum - Jessica Reynoza

These star studded works by Reynoza smear the balance of music and art relentlessly with vigor and meter. Willowz( for the uninitiated a pop rock combo from Anaheim, California), bass player Reynoza, spawns multiple levels of creativity in an otherwise brackish and blurry atmosphere of indie culture and the cumulative counter cultures of the 90's combined.

We bring to the plate a pate' of Rock Icons, Hens and the acceleration of Beer culture based on the empirical deducement of borderline white trash behavior patterns. These new pieces are charming to the voyeuristic appeal 

November 05, 2009 — December 19, 2009
18 Wooster Street, New York

Splitting Twilight, an exhibition of new paintings by Kristin Baker, opens at Deitch Projects on November 5, 2009. Baker continues to push the contradictions inherent in the genre of painting while simultaneously celebrating its history. The new body of work playfully remixes the legacy of landscape painting within a modernist structure.

Kristin Baker is bending painting’s seeming limitations. By emphasizing the materiality of paint through her built up layers of troweled acrylic, Baker’s paintings approach other two-dimensional practices such as printmaking, photography and paper assemblage. While upholding the power and dynamism of painting, Baker seeks to create a third dimension in between many genres and hindered by none. Her compositions combine illusionistic and pictorial space as well as blatantly artificial forms and surfaces. Each mark and shape is created not by a brush but by an outline of torn tape. The final silhouette is filled in with paint, and when the tape is ripped away, a free-floating “gesture” or “mark” is added to the piece.

Starting on Tuesday, June 9, Art Battles moves into the RedBull Space to curate The Living Art Exhibition, hosted by Alchemy Properties, Inc.  For two weeks, the SoHo studio will be transformed into a Live Art Gallery and Art Battles Arena, during which eight live artists will be allotted gallery time to create their artwork for the exhibition in front of attendees.  The public is invited to come down to the RedBull Space and observe the artists in progress and literally watch the Living Art Exhibition grow as the artwork is created.  

The top four artists from The Living Art Exhibition, as voted on by critics and guests, will then go on to perform on stage at this summer’s opening event at Central Park Summer Stage.  The artists are also competing to be chosen as the muralist for Alchemy Properties’ new condominium development, The Griffin, located at the corner of Tenth Avenue and 54th Street.