Molly has a new article out in the NYRB on the current state of life in Afrin, Syria.

photo- Khalil Ashawi/Reuters

To be a Kurd in Afrin, once a majority Kurdish city, Mohammed says, is now to find oneself a member of a despised group, suspected of disloyalty, and liable to be robbed, beaten, put to flight, or worse. In its seventh year, the Syrian civil war has seen the warring parties and their foreign sponsors foster and exploit ethnic and sectarian divisions in order to realize their strategic ends. The looting and ethnic cleansing of Afrin by Turkish-backed militias is the latest ugly episode of this grim and cynical logic.

Full article here: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/04/11/how-turkeys-campaign-in-afrin-is-stoking-syrian-hatreds/

New wheatpaste murals installed in Puerto Rico just outside of Mariana.  Portraits of locals.

We’re excited to share the first few of what we hope will be many positive reviews come in this week for Brothers of the Gun. Book officially drops May 15th. Stay tuned here for a tour schedule

Syrian refugees hiding from Turkish border guards near Afrin, northern Syria, June 2015

NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS:

Their initial pieces were published in Vanity Fair. It was, as he puts it, an “art crime” for which he would probably have been executed had he been discovered by ISIS. A body hanging from a lamppost, a small child with an enormous rifle, people running down a rubble-strewn street—such images rendered beautiful by the pen are disturbing. Crabapple used vibrant, sometimes lurid color in the original magazine pieces, but the black-and-white illustrations in the book, carefully blotched and smudged, invite more thought, not least the cover illustration of a violinist playing an instrument that, on closer inspection, turns out to be a Kalashnikov.  -Lindsey Hilsum, NYRB 4/19/18

Full review here.

BOOKLIST:

Along with Crabapple’s haunting images, the author’s words offer both an elegy for what has been lost and an angry plea for all that remains. This is memoir at its most powerful, ensuring that we cannot forget lives we never knew.— Colleen Mondor

Full review here.

KIRKUS

As he recounts the events leading to the increasing repression on the part of the Assad regime and the eventual descent of Syria into civil conflict, Hisham writes with a wryly observant eye for telling remarks. If the customary cry of faithful warriors was that God is great, then the quietly subversive retort of a Raqqawi graffiti artist makes for a fine rejoinder: “Tomorrow is better.” Tomorrow is a rare commodity in Hisham’s fast-moving account, which is enhanced by Crabapple’s powerful ink drawings.

Full review here.

psssstt: have we convinced you yet that the book is absolutely amazing!? It really is an incredible read filled with gorgeous art. You can already pre-order your copy at your local bookstore or amazon or b&n.

Molly has joined twelve other artists in collaborating with the art collective INDECLINE to do an art installation and performance piece in Trump Tower NYC. INDECLINE came to notoriety in late 2016 after installing nude and excruciatingly anatomically accurate statues of Trump in cities across America.

Their statement about this exhibit:

On March 29th, #INDECLINE checked into a suite at the Trump International Hotel in New York City. Over the course of 24 hours, the collective clandestinely erected an unauthorized, large-scale art installation entitled, “The People’s Prison”. In addition to the installation, 13 American artists were chosen to paint portraits on American Flags, each one representing a different iconic freedom fighter or activist. Select media outlets were invited to attend and report on the private unveiling. This project celebrates America’s long and vibrant history of political activism, poetic dissidence and radical thinking and serves as a call to all artists to engage in direct action against President Trump, his administration and their fanatical followers. The installation will be recreated at Gallery 30 South in Pasade

 

Art Newspaper Article on the staging: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/art-collective-shackles-trump-in-trump-hotel-in-new-york

edit: Art Forum Article: https://www.artforum.com/news/art-collective-erects-anti-trump-installation-inside-his-new-york-hotel-74861

Next Friday (March 16th) Molly will be helping kick off the Girls Write Now 20th Anniversary Spring Celebration and the beginning of their 2018 CHAPTERS reading series with a reading from Drawing Blood. The reading will be held at the New York Historical Society and goes from 6-8pm. Tickets are by suggested donation here.

About Girls Write Now:

Girls Write Now mentors underserved high school girls from throughout New York City’s five boroughs — over 90% high need and 95% girls of color — who must rise above the race and income-based inequalities of the city’s public school system and the nation’s workforce. Through one-to-one mentoring with professional women writers and media makers, writing and technology workshops, and leadership, college prep, and professional development opportunities, we inspire women to share their craft and empower girls to find their voices and tell their stories.

If you are in NYC please consider stopping by, saying hi, and helping support this great program. 

More info on Girls Write Now is available on their website: https://www.girlswritenow.org/who-we-are/our-story/

From now until April 9th Farmingdale University in New York is presenting Sribing Reality, a retrospective of Molly’s reportage work from the past five years. Below are some shots of the installation. If you live near or  you’re going to be visiting the NYC area sometime soon please considering taking some time to go out and see it.

More info here: http://www.farmingdale.edu/business/viscom/mollycrabapple.shtml

We’re retiring a bunch of prints from the store to make space for some upcoming secret and exciting changes. 

All of the prints featured in the image above and more will be gone Midnight Monday 1/29.   So check out this special section of the shop to see which ones are on their way out.

This Friday January 26th, Art in Ad Places will be celebrating the launch of their book compilation of last year’s campaign. 

Please join us at the LUCAS LUCAS Gallery in Brooklyn starting at 7pm.
57 Conselyea Street, Brooklyn, New York 11211

More info at the facebook event page here.

Molly’s work will be featured in the book and copies will be available for purchase right in the gallery space.

Fireside Fiction presents, Thunderstorm in Glasgow. A Poem by Amal El-Mohtar with Illustrations by Molly

 
Rattle my heart, four-chambered sound
loosen my language from my teeth
tumble raaed out from a fallow throat
and a forgotten year
when hunched in barracks beneath the rain
that gushed from gutters, corrugated roofs
one sister clutched her mother’s hand
and one strained, strained against her grip
wanting the wet, the loud, the dark, the bright,
to shake hands with that searing flash
and make it her friend.

Full piece here: https://firesidefiction.com/thunderstorm-in-glasgow-july-25-2013

During Molly’s most recent trip to Puerto Rico’s Mariana neighborhood to document the ongoing recovery process from Hurricane Maria, she installed three new wheatpaste murals.

Kevin and Louisa Capitilo

Three men from the neighborhood playing dominos.

These join her earlier mural portrait of  Julia de Burgos

The next entry in Molly’s Puerto Rico Sketchbook series with the Paris review is up.  This entry in the series focuses on the small artist collective AgitArt. 

Casa Taller was just the sort of iconic, authentic DIY arts space that gentrification had smothered in New York City. Like all of San Juan, its power was off, but it had a luxurious layout—a small garden, wide white rooms filled with papier-mâché masks, Punch-and-Judy-inspired prints on the walls, battered couches on which one could peruse its small collection of books, and teetering piles of manikin heads, arms, alligator maws. 

Full article here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/01/10/puerto-rico-sketchbook/

On this episode, Crabapple explains how her experiences with Occupy transformed her career, leading her to cover life at Guantánamo Bay, Syria’s civil war, architecture in the West Bank, and beyond. -VICE

Listen to the podcast here: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3k5pvv/vice-meets-molly-crabapple-podcast

Following the success of a special promotion this past September, Molly is offering, for a limited time, to provide copies of Drawing Blood with unique hand-drawn illustrations on the title pages. Below are some examples of past ones we sent out. 

Order copies here while they last!

-Posted by AC the assistant

The next entry in Molly’s Puerto Rico Sketchbook series with the Paris review is up.  This entry in the series focuses on the large elderly population on the island: “The wrecked economy and closed schools have forced countless younger people to the mainland, but the older men and women stay.”

In many cases, after Maria, it was the Puerto Rican elders who saved their neighbors and rebuilt their barrios. When the bridge collapsed at Utuado, it was men in their sixties who waded through the waters and strung a wire across the river. For over two months, a shopping cart slid back and forth along that wire to deliver food to the people still in the barrio. 

Full article here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/01/03/puerto-rico-sketchbook-elders-island/

Just added to the shop: Domino King: portrait of the guys of Barrio Mariana, Puerto Rico.

$10 from each print goes to Proyecto de Apoyo Mutuo Mariana, a collective kitchen/community aid center in Humacao, Puerto Rico

Print is 17″x22″ on fine art paper in Archival ink. Limited edition of 25.

https://mollycrabapple.com/product/domino-kings/

Molly is featured in Vogue India’s upcoming publication. Here’s a sneak preview:

Frida never denied pain. Instead, with her art, she looked it frankly in the eye, and said, yeah, I see you, you ugly beast. You think you’re all powerful, but you’re just my raw material, same as my brushes. I’ll polish you and paint you, and make you serve me. You’ll be my most beautiful weapon of all.

Full article here: https://www.vogue.in/content/excerpt-from-dress-an-anthology-celebrating-clothing-style-vogue-india-book/ (note: requires member login)

The next entry in Molly’s series with the Paris Review is live.

The text in the drawing reads: “They say these people at El Local aren’t ‘Puerto Rican’ but this is what Puerto Rico looks like to me”.

“Before Hurricane María it was kind of hard to be an artist in Puerto Rico and now it’s almost impossible,” she continued. “Our art scene thrived on ‘underground’ cultural spaces and galleries willing to give a chance on nontraditional art. Now those spaces are closed, inaccessible or like El Local, repurposed for worthier causes. I have no doubt these spaces will be open once more, but it might be too late.

Full article here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/12/22/puerto-rico-sketchbook-comic-book-artist/

The next entry in Molly’s Puerto Rico Sketchbook for the Paris Review is live.

Puerto Rico was colonized before the United States, and by the time U.S. gunboats boomed into its harbor in 1898, it had enjoyed its hard-won autonomy from Spain for several months—not that this helped the island in the eyes of its new overlords. In the opinion of many U.S. politicians, Puerto Rico was populated by members of the deficient “Spanish” race, too lazy and primitive to be granted either independence or statehood. How little some attitudes change.

Full article available here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/12/20/puerto-rico-sketchbook-houses-still-standing/

Molly’s next entry in her Sketchbooks from Puerto Rico series with the Paris Review, There Are Dead in the Fields, is up now.

Sugeily, Rocio, and Augustin sang together now, tenderness replacing the mockery in their voices, and the crowd joined them. Fuerte fuerte como hacha y machete. Strong, strong, like machete and axe. When the last chorus finally ended, the whole cantastoria had lasted only five minutes, but it felt far longer, and hit far deeper, too. 

Full article and illustrations here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/12/18/puerto-rico-sketchbook-dead-fields/

These greeting cards feature reproductions of murals Molly painted at the Karam House this past year. This is the first time the paintings have been reproduced in any print form. Each card includes an English translation of the individual’s quote and a short biography. The collections also include a blank envelope for each greeting card.

The Karam House is a community innovation workspace where Syrian refugee youth turn their passions and ideas into realities. It is a place where they can build strong relationships with peers and mentors. It is a place where they can learn competitive skills in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics that are essential to advancing their educations and futures. Most of all, Karam House is an inspiring, safe, and healing space for Syrian teenagers – who have lost so much through the trauma of displacement and war – to be teenagers.

Cards and more information about the Karam Foundation are available here: https://www.karamfoundation.org/karam-gear/innovative-leaders-greeting-cards-limited-edition