Rachel Himes is a member of NYC-DSA and a PhD student in the department of art history at Columbia.
Tabitha Arnold is a socialist textile artist whose work focuses on working-class organizing. In an interview, she discusses her work, how art is warped by wealthy patrons’ dictates, and why artists shouldn’t confuse their art with political organizing.
Graduate workers deserve to live decent lives now, not defer necessities like dental care or being able to make the rent to a distant future of decently paying academic jobs that never arrive. That’s why Columbia graduate workers walked off the job last week.
Jacob Lawrence was one of twentieth-century America’s most celebrated black artists. In Struggle, his series of paintings on the American Revolution, he opened up new territory in American history by venturing beyond the narrow set of topics like Harlem, jazz clubs, and cotton plantations which had become synonymous with black art in mid-century America.
In New York City, the Democratic Socialists of America ran a five-candidate slate for state office — and won across the board. The campaign’s overwhelming success points to a model of radical electoral organizing in the wake of Bernie Sanders.