Karam House put together this interview with Molly while she was completing the mural. She talks in depth about her vision for the project, what painting these murals means to her, and the importance of the work done by the Karam House.
Check out detailed photos of the finished work and more examples of Molly’s large scale work on the Installations and Murals Page.
Crabapple pointed out the delicate flesh beneath the chin of Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce. “One of the things I was really having fun with was what I call jowl-tentacle-integration problems,” she said. “I wish there were a wild Kushner and Stephen Miller, but one’s hand gets tired.”
– Charles Shafaieh quoting Molly Crabapple, The New Yorker Sept 4 2017 Issue
A Darkly Surreal Mural of Trump in Queens by Charles Shafaieh – link.
A reminder – a great way to support Molly and help her keep doing this kind of work is to purchase limited edition prints in the site store. We still have a few Bore of Babylon prints left available and only 4 deluxe hand-colored Bore of Babylon and His Consorts prints remain.
For the third year in a row Molly has worked with the Karam Foundation to paint murals in schools in Turkey that serve Syrian refugee children and teenagers. This year Molly completed a series of portraits of influential artists and writers at the Karam House including such luminaries as James Baldwin, Mahmoud Darwish, Nizar Qabbani, Nizak al Malaika, Julia de Burgos, George Orwell, Nazik al-Abid, Ghassan Kanafani, Zaha Hadid, Ahmed Zewil, Nelson Mandela, and Anthony Shadid
The Karam foundation is a very effective non-profit who we have collaborated with and supported many times in the past. For more info or to donate go to their website at: https://www.karamfoundation.org/
We’ve made the fight fascism shirt designs temporarily available in the shop again. This time all proceeds after cost go to the medical fund for those injured in the August 13th Charlottesville Virginia protests.
All styles are available here.
For more info or to directly donate to the cause click here: https://www.gofundme.com/medical-fund-for-comrades-in-cville
This new animation is released by the ACLU, drawn by Molly and directed by the wonderful and talented Kim Boekbinder and Jim Batt. Narrated by Emmy award winning actress Laverne Cox.
Only 18 states explicitly and comprehensively protect trans people from discrimination. Many other state lawmakers are focused on targeting us for more discrimination. In 2017, lawmakers in 22 states introduced more than 50 bills restricting the rights of trans people.Even as these lawmakers signal that we are not worthy of protection, we persevere. Most of us have already spent years in dark places wrestling with our truths, feeling ashamed of who we are. But when we manage to survive, and even to love ourselves, we are stronger than ever. Try as they might, these lawmakers cannot erase us. Our rights will be hard won, but we are winning.
Article on the video at TIME.com: http://time.com/4894647/trans-transgender-rights-video/
On July 28th Molly covered the closing of the Shkreli trial, documenting the proceedings with her signature evocative portraits.
See the full series on BuzzFeed: https://www.buzzfeed.com/mollycrabapple/scenes-from-pharma-bro-martin-shkrelis-trial?utm_term=.heWxx9VZq#.pvnQQ8Eon
See Molly live-draw and flip through her current sketchbooks while talking about art, activism, and getting your start as a young artist.
View full interview here: https://www.facebook.com/nytbooks/videos/vb.1002391179791389/1590884577608710/?type=2&theater
Molly’s report from Gaza is included in this great new anthology from Bloomsbury press. Available here: https://bloomsbury.com/us/this-is-not-a-border-9781632868848/
Other contributing authors include J. M. Coetzee, China Miéville, Alice Walker, Geoff Dyer, Claire Messud, Henning Mankell, Michael Ondaatje, Kamila Shamsie, Michael Palin, Deborah Moggach, Mohammed Hanif, Gillian Slovo, Adam Foulds, Susan Abulhawa, Ahdaf Soueif, Jeremy Harding, Brigid Keenan, Rachel Holmes, Suad Amiry, Gary Younge, Jamal Mahjoub, Molly Crabapple, Najwan Darwish, Nathalie Handal, Omar Robert Hamilton, Pankaj Mishra, Raja Shehadeh, Selma Dabbagh, William Sutcliffe, Atef Abu Saif, Yasmin El-Rifae, Sabrina Mahfouz, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Mercedes Kemp, Ru Freeman.
En todo me la juego a ser lo que soy yo – “I gamble everything to be what I am.”
Available here: https://mollycrabapple.com/product/portrait-julia-de-burgos/
Read full story translated from the original Arabic by Molly and see all the illustrations here on BuzzFeed: https://www.buzzfeed.com/zakariatamer/the-accused?utm_term=.shYOOLy6w#.whdll5o9r
Molly’s new opinion piece in the Guardian:
Squats like City Plaza accomplish their work without a cent of government or NGO funding. In contrast, despite the $803m euros that since 2015 have flowed to the Greek government and NGOs to help them deal with the refugee crisis, refugees froze to death in camps last winter. Desperate, several more have tried to burn themselves alive. Even the best camps isolate refugees from cities, keeping them quarantined like carriers of a disease.
-Molly Crabapple, The Guardian, 6/2017
Full Article here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/23/refugee-squat-city-plaza-greece-best-worst-humanity
YouCaring Page to Support City Plaza: https://www.youcaring.com/refugeeaccommodationandsolidarityspacecityplaza-716186
The Trumpbeast rears his ugly heads again this time as part of the Welling Court mural project in Astoria, Queens – installed on Vernon Blvd. across the street from Hallet’s Cove Playground.
Photos are courtesy of Raphael Gonzalez: https://www.instagram.com/zurbaran1/
Molly has finished install the first Bore of Babylon wheatpaste mural in Williamsburg! If you’re in New York go and visit the lovely restaurant Cheeseboat at 80 Berry St. in Brooklyn.
During a June demonstration in Chicago, two young women, one black and one Jewish, chained themselves in front of the Italian consulate; signs that read “Hands off Ethiopia” hung across their chests. A local paper noted that Chicago had denied organizers a permit on the pretext that “Negroes in Chicago had no need to be worried about what was going on over in Europe.” To the city government, black internationalism was a more immediate threat than Fascist Italy.
-Molly Crabapple
Hidden Fighters . The Baffler. June 2017.
Full story here: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/hidden-fighters-crabapple
Get tickets here: https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/3096?locale=en
We’re delighted to announce that we have new prints available in the shop!
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| Frida Kahlo | Self Portrait at the Box |
The Bore of Babylon and His Consorts
Special 17″ x 36″ edition print, only five are available and each is partially hand-colored by Molly (see example below).
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Molly will be speaking with the Left Forum Friday June 2nd at 7:15pm at John Jay College for their 2017 Conference, talking about challenging state repression with art.
..the old “reasonable, responsible” regime of exploitation has broken down. These are radical times. Which means they are times with great possibilities for real radicalism. Still, the left forces are inchoate, without mass mobilization organizations and searching for strategies that can build raw power and generate victories. Our task is to help organize, nurture, and shape the raw resistance that is exploding across America – and help to build what may come in its wake.
Tickets and more info here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/left-forum-2017-tickets-30316908690
Molly’s posters from the PEN America protest are now available in French thanks to Nancy Bruseker. Click an image to download a hi-res copy which may be used for protest or educational purposes.
Free hi-res file to download and print for the May 1st General Strike.
Art in Ad Places is a 52-week campaign of replacing advertisements with artwork. Each week, we partner with a new artist to install their work at a payphone kiosk in New York City.
Molly participated by providing one of her works from the ‘Scenes from Aleppo’. The poster was installed in the closest pay phone to the offices of Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations.
more details here: https://www.artinadplaces.com/news/2017/4/14/life-beneath-daily-bombardment
Order your copy today:
indiebound | amazon | barnes and noble
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About Molly:
Molly Crabapple is an artist, journalist, and author of the memoir, Drawing Blood. Called "An emblem of the way art can break out of the gilded gallery" by the New Republic, she has drawn in and reported from Guantanamo Bay, Abu Dhabi's migrant labor camps, and in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, and Iraqi Kurdistan. Crabapple is a contributing editor for VICE, and has written for publications including The New York Times, Paris Review, and Vanity Fair. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
