ArtSpeech is a collective of artists from around the world.


Zayde Buti

Throw some music, comedy and performance art in your blender and you might get something that tastes like Zayde Buti, a Boston-based oddball who pens and performs a unique brand of perFART musicomedy.

http://www.zaydebuti.com


James Ellis Coleman

James Ellis Coleman

There’s an integrity to materials no matter how offensive I or other might find them to be (black memorabilia). We owe it to history to not re-write history (day old or 1000 years) just because we take offense. Ideally we would create an environment where people have no need to produce materials some find objectionable, my belief is that it’s yet next to impossible. The realistic action is to continually contextualize what was/is produced so historical materials and records are accurate, Deniers of historical events abound (Armenian genocide, Darfur, Holocaust, cruelties of American slavery…) often the only proof the victims or witnesses have are the facts to cry outrage and for justice. We must for their sake as much for ours preserve historical artifacts, images and first-person oral stories. I find contextualizing often reveals unconscious bias and agendas.

http://www.jameselliscoleman.com/


Petra Dankova

Petra Dankova

Petra Dankova is a photographer and art editor and journalist.


David Franklin

David Franklin

Born in New York City in 1964, David E. Franklin is an award-winning video / graphic / performance artist with a strong interest in physical expression, movement arts, digital media, and cross-cultural collaboration. His work includes collaborations with dissident performance artist and former member of the Czech underground Milan Kohout; experimental film director Michael Pope and rock musician Amanda Palmer; Czech dissident cinematographer Jiri Dvorsky; soprano vocalist and voice educator Anne Harley; experimental guitarist and musician Henry Kaiser; martial arts masters Haroyoshi Ito and Masashi Minagawa; and composer and conductor Yii Kah Hoe. His work has been presented in both solo and group shows, exhibits, and performances at Mobius, (Boston’s center for experimental art in all media), at Pan9 (an underground performance venue he co-founded in Boston’s Allston art district), the DeCordova Museum (Lincoln, MA), the NewYorican (New York), and internationally (Prague, Pilsen, Beijing, Taiwan).

www.dfranklin.org


Milan Kohout

Milan Kohout

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Kohout

Milan Kohout (now a US citizen) is originally from The Czech Republic. 

Here he got his M.S. in Electrical Engineering. He was an independent underground artist in the so-called “Second Culture”. Later he becomes a member and art activist of the dissident human rights organization CHARTER 77 (the group was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1985 and initiated the non-violent Velvet Revolution). 

He was forced by the CZ security police to leave his country in 1986 due to his political art activism. After two years in a refugee camp, he was granted asylum in the United States. 

In 1993 Milan received his Diploma from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston

From 1994 till 2020 Milan was a member of the Mobius Artists Group.

As a Mobius Artists Group member, he has participated in numerous international art exchange programs and festivals around the world (China, Thailand, Croatia, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Poland, Cuba, USA, Israel, Sweden, etc). and has been the recipient of a number of awards, grants, residencies 

He has performed many exclusive interviews with world-renown personalities including Kurt Vonnegut and Noam Chomsky, among others.

He published a university textbook about Performance Art for the University of Ostrava, and bestseller book „Proveď vola světem,volem zůstane“, ISBN 978 -80-904455-4-3

http://www.kosmas.cz/knihy/158648/proved-vola-svetem-volem-zustane/

His book of poems (in Czech) “Vztek,” was recently published by Jan Tesnohlidek publishing, ISBN 978-80-905633-5-3

https://www.kosmas.cz/knihy/240687/vztek/

A 350-page English/Czech large format full-color monograph, with an abundance of photographs of performances and situational posters which covers nearly 40 years of his artistic output was in 2020 published in Europe. ISBN 978-80-87563-77-9

https://www.kosmas.cz/knihy/285587/milan-kohout-vecny-performer-perpetual-performer/#pos=32

He has been teaching classes in Performance Art & Politics at TUFTS University, Massachusetts College of Art, West Bohemian University, The Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław, and video classes at The New England Institute of Art.

His book of poetry in English was just published in Prague (2023)

Milan Kohout’s “OLD WHITE STRAIT MALE IN GRAY OVERALLS”

ISBN 978-80-908568-1-3

can be purchased here: https://www.kosmas.cz/knihy/521804/old-white-straight-male-in-gray-overalls/



J.Sal

On physical examination, he looks trim. He is well-dressed. He is in fact extremely neatly dressed. His movements are measured. His speech is quite formal. He looks a bit tense. He does in fact give a vague impression that he is compulsive about his speech and appearance. He is very eloquent. He is very friendly and cooperative. His pulses are normal, including carotids. His skin is devoid of marks. He has no deformities. His head is normal. He has no significant asymmetries. – From a Neurological Evaluation


Jason Outlaw

Jason Outlaw

Jason Outlaw is a performance and stain-glass artist.

http://vitraux.org/art/about/


Michael Tyrrell

Michael Tyrrell

Trained in the Architecture and Urban Design and Planning fields, Michael Tyrrell has over 30-years of experience in collaboration with community and non-profit arts and environmental advocacy groups. His installation art includes past collaboration with the Mobius Artists Group, Boston Children’s Museum, Memorial Lanterns to the Homeless Deceased with Artist Sandra Vieira, Boston Harborwalk and Washington Street Historic Markers for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and Washington Gateway Main Streets/MBTA respectively, His Windows onto Fort Point with Midway Studios and the Ark of Eden floating greenhouse installation were direct collaborations with the Fort Point Cultural Coalition and Commonwealth Ventures Development. Tyrrell’s Urban Design-related initiatives include the Rolling Bridge Pocket Park on Fort Point Channel with Artist Ross Miller and Historian Nancy Seasholes.


Lewis Gesner

Lewis Gesner is an artist in various media from the U.S., now living in Taiwan. His most recent work is in the area of sound performance and writing.

 

Katya Popova

Katya Popova was born in Moscow and came to the United States at the age of eighteen. Katya is a multidisciplinary artist, working at the intersection of physical texture, shadow, and sound. Her works explore what could have been by tracing the physical gestures and material qualities of everyday things. She often works in collaboration with sound artists.

Her installations have been exhibited locally and internationally.

Katya is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA and received MA at Boston University. Presently she teaches courses on Visual Art at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Rocio Bolíver


Rocio Bolíver is a Mexican performance artist who creates body art about the repression of women in Mexico.

Wikipedia Rocio Bolíver

ROCIO BOLIVER, aka, THE CONGELADA DE UVA
ARTIST STATMENT

ACTION DRUG

Doing performances is the only way I can get my own back on life, which has me by the balls.
It’s my way of giving it the finger and mocking it; of losing my fragility and believing I can go beyond death.
Taking courage, transgressing, and not being afraid of anything, destroying the boundaries that hold me back.
That’s the great possibility that the bubble of Action Art offers me.
No sanity, no orthodoxy, no rules, no questioning, no guidelines.
Plunging into madness and coming out not just unscathed, but all the more lucid, all the more sane.
What better than to dive headlong into the forbidden, perverse, censored, singled-out topics to gird myself against the passing of time, which is leading to the destruction of my vitality, my charm, my lucidity, my beauty, my strength.
Sex, drugs, philias, pain, scatology…
Tearing, yanking off the mask of that great lie created by man, that putrid way of communicating with one another. Disgusted by everyday lies, by the acceptance of hypocrisy as a passport.
I vomit on everyone, I shit on their faces, I scare them and make ’em suffer, I put ’em between a rock and a hard place.
I feel blessed when I leave those who watch, listen to or feel what I do flabbergasted. Happy to wipe their stupid Hollywood smiles off their faces, throw them off their makeshift scaffolding and watch them fall and tumble into oblivion, with nothing to grab onto: this is a game they haven’t been taught to play.
They’re electroshocks I apply to listless, alienated minds that expect me to amuse them, that flirt naively with the tingle of morbid fascination and end up thrashed, overtaken, speechless idiots.
The bottom line expressed as a slap, that’s performance.
The only space where I can play out and wallow in my most perverse, incoherent musings without being thrown in jail or locked up in a lunatic asylum.
It’s the last resort of my despair, the fix that keeps me going ‘til my next action.
How far can you go when you’re offered a space of complete freedom, how much are you prepared to go out on a limb?
‘Cos you’re on your own here.
Those outside see how you lay yourself bare, how you stumble, slip and slide, how you contagiously segregate adrenaline, fear, arousal, and your palpitations boil over into your audacity against a world that charges a high price for daring to be.
But the art of performance protects me; it’s my ally and punishes the meddling of censorship and reprimand or attempted castration by turning them all into part of the show.
If anyone dares to indulge in such actions during a performance, they’ll be devoured and end up being part of the furniture, thus enriching the transgression.
Performance swallows everything; it’s voracious, precise, skillful, and categorical in the struggle against idiocy.
Congelada de Uva’s constant references to sex.
If sex were accepted without further ado, I’d latch on to other subjects, the forbidden ones, the ones that freak us out: hence the customary reference to sex, because I know it’s the big Achilles’ heel, a way of hitting the target, of turning into a surefire Ninja who flicks deadly poisoned stars from her sleeve to sink them into the most vulnerable parts.
What would you rather not talk about, for the Congelada to shout about it?
What are you all ashamed of, for the Congelada to show it?
What are you afraid of, for the Congelada to bring it out in the open?
What shouldn’t be done, for the Congelada to do it?
Those are the starting points for my Action Art and thus for my life.

photo of Hakim by MARK JARRE CHAVOUS

Hakim Raquib

Hakim’s art is an exploration of identity, as it pertains to the African diaspora and its uniqueness in humankind. The spectrum of his concerns ranges from the environmental to the social, and to historical, political, and cultural presences. Because his work is personal as well, this exploration takes a critical view of civil rights and cultural issues in America. Many of his images incorporate historical and cultural references to racism. He combines familiar visual symbols and subjects with text, paint, and textures over a thematic assemblage, arranging them into a new, conceptually layered piece. The textual component provides clues for interpretation.

THOMASZ OPANIA

Born in 1970 in Gliwice in Upper Silesia.

Years 1989 – 94 studies at Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw – sculpture department. In 1993 he got the Ministry of Culture and Art scholarship; In 1994 he got a scholarship from the Swiss Confederacy Government in the program „For Young Artists”. From 1994 to 96 he studied at Ecole Superieure d’Art Visuel in Geneva. In 1996 hired at the Academy of Art. and Design in Wroclaw. Since 2011 he has taught Art in the Public Space in the Department of Art’s Mediation. Since 2012 the head of the Department of Art’s Mediation. Since 2018 professor at the Academy has conducted a diploma studio. Since 2020 head of the post-diploma faculty Mediation and Art Market department. Since 2021 vice president of the Artistic Discipline Council at the Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław 

He deals with sculpture, installation, performance, activities in public spaces, and engaged design. He builds objects and inventions using various techniques or cooperating with professionals and craftsmen, often only for a single project or activity. He uses materials and techniques that subordinate the idea. His “tools of art” are often the machines or devices used for active reception. He makes interactive works in order to throw some responsibility on the recipient and shift the concept of art towards the spectator.  These are participatory sculptures that engage the viewer and/or force him to adopt a predicted attitude. It also implements the attributes that it uses in live performances. He treats his works as a commentary on current events and the reality surrounding him. He is interested in politics and society. The spatial dimension and character of his works depend in large part on the place where they are realized, as well as on the place where he is mentally located himself. Is committed to the principle of continual uncertainty regarding the constant elements of our everyday surroundings. The nature of his works follows the wish to constantly carry out new trials and to enter new, unknown paths. He conducts workshops for young people, adults, and excluded people: with mental disorders, disabilities, and/or permanent unemployed.

Quotes from the text by Professor Anna Markowska from a book about Tomasz Opania TOMASZ OPANIA. DESIGN SHOWROOM SIGN

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