Listen as Molly details her process in creating each painting, her relationship with the muses, and the secret meanings behind some of the annotations.

Full video here: https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/molly-crabapple-video-postmasters-657218

The New York Times today released the newest animation by Molly, Kim Boekbinder, and Jim Batt – this time in collaboration with Jay Z and Dream Hampton.

“As Ms. Crabapple’s haunting images flash by, the film takes us from the Nixon administration and the Rockefeller drug laws — the draconian 1973 statutes enacted in New York that exploded the state’s prison population and ushered in a period of similar sentencing schemes for other states — through the extraordinary growth in our nation’s prison population to the emerging aboveground marijuana market of today.”

-Asha Bandele

The full article is available on the Times’ homepage: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/opinion/jay-z-the-war-on-drugs-is-an-epic-fail.html

For more info on Writing the War: http://www.brooklynbookfestival.org/2016-festival/writing-the-war

For more info on Dark Nights, Bright Words: https://www.facebook.com/events/937367443051721/ (tickets $5)

WE COULD NOT BE MORE EXCITED! 

Annotated Muses, a gigantic 11 painting show, will finally be available for public viewing THIS SATURDAY September 10th! This may be your one chance to see the paintings all together in one place as they’re meant to be seen, along with many of the amazing women who are depicted.

PLUS: Our good friend Stoya will be LIVE ANNOTATING her portrait in the gallery.

For the first time ever Molly will be visiting Australia from August 30th – September 4th! Please come by an event and say hi!

Melbourne Writer’s Festival:

September 2nd at 1pm : PROTEST AND REBELLION

September 2nd at 8:30pm: DRAWING BLOOD

September 3rd at 10am: THE ARTISTS’ SKETCHBOOKS

Festival of Dangerous Ideas: 

 September 4th at 2pm: FROM THE FRONTLINE

I had never been to a political convention. I don’t cover electoral politics, but when The Daily Beast offered me the chance to cover the most hyped presidential nomination since Hubert Humphrey’s kicked off the Siege of Chicago, I grabbed my sketchbook and went. This was history, I thought. A neon-skinned huckster was going to crown himself as king.

 – Molly Crabapple, The Daily Beast 07/24/2016

This past week Molly was in attendance at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio.  It was a fascinating, history-in-the-making, deeply disturbing, snafu of epic proportions. In words and drawings Molly has created a summary of the experience for the Daily Beast  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/24/good-mourning-america-the-republican-national-convention-illustrated.html

Due to many requests we’ve made two paintings from the convention available as prints in the shop. The above ‘Trump Coronation‘ and the following, ‘Trump Pageantry‘. are available as giclee 17″x22″ archival prints in limited edition runs of 25 each.

In case you missed it, before the RNC Molly wrote a prescient piece for The Village Voice detailing the events that would unfold.

Donald J. Trump ascends to the stage wearing a codpiece fashioned from the severed head of Ronald Reagan, the eyes replaced by diamonds and the skin spray-tanned to match Trump’s own. His robe is gilt, lined with more gilt. Marco Rubio holds the train in his teeth.

“Isn’t he fabulous?” Trump laughs, patting the codpiece with one petite hand. At his touch, the diamonds turn into snakes. “You’ll all have one of these, once I make America great again.”

Check out the rest: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/heres-donny-dystrumpia-takes-hold-at-the-republican-national-convention-8850118

and finally, yes, ladies and gentlemen:  there was in fact a giant golden trump bobble head statue.

We’ve just released photos of the final versions of some of the Annotated Muses paintings. If you’ve been following Molly on twitter and instagram you’ve no doubt seen some of these as works in progress.

The paintings will be unveiled to public viewing Saturday September 10th 2016 at the Postmasters Gallery in New York. For inquiries please contact Postmasters at ‘postmasters @ thing.net’

View a preview of the show here

Exclusionary tribalism is making a comeback. In America, the Cheetos Fascist rallies the crowds with promises to Make America Great Again, a feat he intends to accomplish by kicking out Mexicans and Muslims, and kicking black people down. Never mind that his Great America never actually existed. And though the Brexit was a 17.4-million-vote fuck you to David Cameron and the austerity-loving EU, it was also a self-destructive convulsion of xenophobia. Within days, eastern Europeans and people of color reported over a hundred instances of racist abuse. A letter reading “Leave the EU. No more Polish vermin” appeared in the mailboxes of Polish families in Huntingdon. To many Leave voters, taking Britain back meant more than booting out the EU’s technocrats – they wanted to purge their island of foreigners and brown people too.

-Molly Crabapple

Across the world minds are narrowing. We must fight back. The Guardian 06/27/2016 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/global-intolerance-donald-trump-arts-solidarity-inclusion

Molly and frequent collaborator Marwan Hisham are writing and illustrating a book detailing Marwan’s experiences in the Syrian war – from his youth to the Arab Spring to the current ISIS occupation. It will be published by Random House/Penguin’s newly revitalized One World imprint and spearheaded by the brilliant editor Chris Jackson.

For a look at their past collaborations in Vanity Fair please check out the following links to the Vanity Fair Website:

Scenes from Daily Life in the de Facto Capital of ISIS
Scenes from Daily Life Inside ISIS-Controlled Mosul
Scenes from Inside Aleppo: How Life Has Been Transformed by Rebel Rule

Out now is a follow-up to Molly’s special report from 2015 on New York City’s prostitution courts. Includes a new interview with the amazing  Love.

When Love was a sex worker in Hunts Point, she said, police knew where women like her lived, and snatched them whenever they ventured outside—whether they were doing sex work or not. Because many of these women were poor, and some had problems with pimps or addiction, they made deals with prosecutors rather than try to fight. One lawyer familiar with the courts told me that, even in the rare occasions when an undercover officer was caught making a false arrest, he suffered no professional consequences beyond embarrassment.

Click here for full article: https://www.vice.com/read/the-woman-who-fought-and-won-against-new-yorks-special-prostitution-courts

This week Molly will be at the American University in Beirut presenting lectures and speaking with students about her work.  If you’re around and would like to join us, info on the event is here:  http://www.aub.edu.lb/Events/Pages/EventDetails.aspx?ItemId=2277

This event is immediately following her whirlwind tour of London where she spoke about Drawing Blood in front of sold-out audiences at both Waterstones’ Piccadilly and the Frontline Club.

A photo posted by Molly Crabapple (@mollycrabapple) on Apr 6, 2016 at 5:06pm PDT

Molly also had the wonderful opportunity to be interviewed by Christiane Amanpour of CNN. The video of that interview is available below.

Monday April 4th at 7pm:  Waterstone’s Bookstore.

Little Atoms and Waterstone’s present Molly Crabapple in conversation with acclaimed broadcaster Paul Mason, author of PostCapitalism, for an evening of wide-ranging discussion hosted by Little Atoms. Tickets are £5, redeemable against purchase of Drawing Blood. Click here to purchase tickets before they run out!

Wednesday April 6th at 7pm: The Frontline Club

Molly Crabapple will speak Wednesday at the Frotnline Club to reflect on recent projects and to share her personal insight into the use of art as a tool for better understanding and documenting current events. With US presidential primaries now firmly underway, she will discuss her ongoing work on topical home turf issues including policing and the justice system, as well as her experiences covering the effects of conflict across the Middle East.

This event will be chaired by Natasha Lennard, a British-born, New York-based writer of news and political analysis, focusing on justice, power, biopolitics and dissent. She writes regularly for the Intercept, Fusion and Al Jazeera America, and has written for VICE News, The New York Times, Salon, The Nation and Politico, among others. She is editor-at-large at The New Inquiry journal.

Standard tickets are £12.50, Concession tickets are £10. Members pricing differs.
Please click here to read more about the event and purchase your tickets.

Good friend Rich Clark (@zipyrich) is running a Kickstarter to launch his new comic book, STAR. We’re contributing an ORIGINAL PAINTING of his heroine Star. If you’ve ever wanted to own a Molly Crabapple original and support another amazing artist at the same time – NOW IS YOUR CHANCE!

Check it out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/60289926/star-72-page-series-debut

more info on the panel here: http://schedule.sxsw.com/2016/events/event_PP52916

Every day more bombs fall on the eastern part of Aleppo, the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city, gradually turning neighborhoods into graveyards of rubble and dust. Recently, a member of the Aleppo’s civil defense (also known as the “White Helmets”) told me that airstrikes have targeted the city at least six times a day, concentrating on civil and residential neighborhoods. After bombing runs, he said, planes wait for first responders to gather, then bomb again. This is the notorious “double-tap” strategy that allegedly killed Canadian photojournalist Ali Moustafa and that was used in December against an MSF hospital in Homs.

Read the full article at Vice.com : https://www.vice.com/read/what-life-is-like-inside-the-besieged-war-torn-syrian-city-of-aleppo

March 4th: ArtNet Panel Discussion with Ben Davis

CONFRONTING THE POLITICAL
Moderated by Brian Boucher, senior writer, artnet News
Molly will be joined by Kameelah Janan Rasheed (artist, writer, arts editor of SPOOK, and contributing editor of The New Inquiry), Dread Scott (artist), and Hank Willis Thomas (artist).

How do artists engage with today’s most pressing social and political issues? Four hard-hitting artists will touch on issues like the upcoming presidential election, Islamophobia, and Black Lives Matter.

More information on the ArtNet event: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/volta-ny-salon-2016-431138

March 7th: Seriously Entertaining at Joe’s Pub

The past is a foreign country, so bring your passports when our Seriously Entertaining literary cabaret embarks from its new berth at Joe’s Pub at the Public. Join the House of SpeakEasy on a journey through memory and experience – what will we find?

Molly will be joined by novelist David Ebershoff, Memoirist George Hodgman, amd Critic & Memoirist Margo Jefferson.

More information on the House of Speakeasy event: http://www.houseofspeakeasy.org/

Tickets $15.00 – $35.00

[EDIT] March 23rd: Grit Lit Salon

Each Salon will feature 1-2 contemporary authors who will read brief selections from a published or soon-to-be published work, and then answer questions from a host/moderator and the crowd.  

More information on this event forthcoming.

If you are able to attend the exquisite Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in Mumbai next week, Molly will be speaking both on February 7th for Blueprints for a 21st Century Artist  and February 9th on the Art and #WW3 panel discussing how art and writing impact politics and current realities.

February 7th

Blueprints for a 21st century Artist
Date: Sunday 7th February
Timing: 10.30 am to 1.30 pm.
Venue: Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sanghralaya (formerly the Prince of Wales Museum),  Seminar Room, 1st Floor, East Wing Extension Building, 159-161 Mahatma Gandhi Road, Next to Jehangir Art Gallery

February 9th

Art and #WW3 — How art and writing impact activism, politics and current realities
Date: Tuesday, 9th February 2016
Timing: 7:30 to 8:30 pm
Venue: David Sassoon Library Garden, 152 Mahatma Gandhi Road, Opposite Jehangir Art Gallery, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai 400 001
Panelists: Molly Crabapple and Raghu Karnad

Join us tomorrow, Saturday January 30th 2016 at 711 Greenwich Street (NYC) to celebrate the opening of the ART for Social Justice Exhibition. A selection of originals on the topic of mass incarceration will be on display as well as stills from ‘Why Solitary Confinement Is A Form Of Modern Day Torture‘.

We’re honored this year to be a part of the Jaipur Literature Festival in Jaipur, India. Molly will be speaking on multiple occasions during this week-long celebration and if you’re around, here is her schedule:

Thursday, 21st of January from 12:25pm-1.25pm

Drawing Blood- The Narrative Art of Molly Crabapple

Molly Crabapple moderated by William Dalrymple
Located at Mahindra Humanities Durbar Hall
In conversation with William Dalrymple, Crabapple offers her own story: an unforgettable memoir of artistic exploration, political awakening, and personal transformation.

Sunday, 24th of January from 12:25pm-1:25pm

Eyeless in Gaza

Laleh Khalili, Omar Barghouti, and Molly Crabapple moderated by Jonathan Shainin
Located at Charbagh
Gaza has become synonymous with conflict and pain. Though only 140 square miles, the small territory of Gaza has been a hot spot for bitter disputes between sparring powers over millennia. Wedged between the Negev and Sinai deserts on one side and the Mediterranean Sea on the other, a marginal area neither Israel nor Egypt wanted, at the Palestinian Nakba in 1948, and the creation of the state of Israel, it became home to 200,000 people expelled from their homes. It is here that Palestinian nationalism grew and sprouted into a dream of statehood, an unfinished journey still filled with much pain and strife. Palestinian writers Susan Abulhawa and Omar Barghouti, Founder and Chairman of Forward Thinking, and artist Molly Crabapple to discuss the territory that symbolises all that is most painful in the tragedy of the Palestinians. Moderated by Jonathan Shainin.

Monday, 25th of January from 2:30pm-3:30pm

From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo

Laleh Khalili in conversation with Molly Crabapple
Located at Baithak

Khalili’s book Time in the Shadows investigates the two major liberal counterinsurgencies of our day: Israeli occupation of Palestine and the U.S. War on Terror. She deftly demonstrates that whatever the form of incarceration—visible or invisible, offshore or inland, containing combatants or civilians—liberal states have consistently acted illiberally in their counterinsurgency confinements. As our tactics of war have shifted beyond slaughter to elaborate systems of detention, liberal states have warmed to the pursuit of asymmetric wars. Ultimately, Khalili confirms that as tactics of counterinsurgency have been rendered more ‘humane,’ they have also increasingly encouraged policymakers to willingly choose to wage wars. Laleh Khalili will be in conversation with radical artist Molly Crabapple.

Molly will also be speaking in:

New Delhi on January 28th at 7pm at the Piano Man Jazz Club.

and in Mumbai as a presenter at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.  She will be presenting her talk “Blueprints for a 21st Century Artist” a 10am on February 7th.  and on February 9th at 7:30pm she will be participating in the talk “Art and #WW3”

We hope you can tune in, either in person or by following Molly’s tweets @mollycrabapple.