About the urge of radical answers
Poster project to mobilize against the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm near Rostock, Germany, June 6-8, 2007
Artists:
Artist Without Walls (IL/Palestine), bankleer (D), open circle (IND), Mansour Ciss (SN), Markus Dorfmüller (D), Petra Gerschner (D), Marina Grzinic (Slo), Oliver Ressler (A), Walter Seidl (A) und Allan Sekula (USA)
The art project HOLY DAMN IT has to be seen as an artistic intervention in the process of a political debate about social alternatives in the international protest and resistance movements against the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm near Rostock in 2007.
Ten international artists and artist collectives will create one poster each. The artistic contributions deal with the hegemonic conditions and current issues about social movements against capitalist globalization: privatization, exploitation of human beings and resources, war, torture, escalating military mobilization from within as well as to the outside as a permanent state of exception, sexist violence and patriarchal as well as racist models of dominance. Moreover, the project deals with the power of global image (re-)production within capitalism, the intended privatization of knowledge, resources, education, social and ecological deprivation as well as the repression of people with different views of an emancipation and solidarity-oriented culture and society. Thus, the project focuses on a different world, which is not only possible, but already lived through interventions of self-organized initiatives and groups from below and within.
50 000 posters agains G 8
Each poster of the ten artists and artist groups will be printed 5.000 times in A 2 format, 4-c, and distributed: The posters will be handed out for free to various groups mobilizing against the summit.
From April to May 2007, there will be presentations of the project in various cities, mostly in art institutions which operate strongly in-between art and politics. There, the posters will be available to be taken home for free. Depending on the institution, there will also be thematic events linked to the project.
Moreover, there will be a limited edition of 200 copies (of all 10 posters) signed by the artists, which can be sold at the presentations. The money should be donated to victims who were arbitrarily violated by the police during summit protests.
In addition, the poster-project will be presented in a joint magazine against the mobilization. The magazine is organized by the leftist papers Fantomas/Arranca/So oder So. The project will also be presented in the mass paper of mobilization in spring 2007.
On the website of the project depicting all motifs of the series, information on the project and the participating artists, texts, exhibition venues and dates (from April).
Scheduled sites of presentation and cooperation
(11. Februar):
Berlin: Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (NGBK)
Hamburg: Feld für Kunst/Rote Flora
Graz: Forum Stadtpark
Wien: Fluc
Bern: Kulturzentrum Reitschule
Zürich: Shedhalle
In some venues, there will also be a video lounge (video, book, and text archive). For this, we’d need a DVD with videos, or catalogues until the end of January.

[www.holy-damn-it.org]