On September 16th Molly will be joining Jack Jacobs, Jenny Romaine, Irena Klepfisz, Jacob Plitman for a panel on the influence of the Jewish Labor Bund at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. You may remember Molly’s article on the history of the Labor Bund movement and her great-granfather’s involvement with the Jewish socialist response to zionism in NYR Daily last October. This panel will further that discussion by examining how the Bundist ideals are relevant to culture today.
“A Message From the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” will be screening at this years American Conservation Film Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia on October 4th. The short will be shown along with over 35 other films on topics like climate change, conservation, agriculture and more. Check out their website to get your tickets.
Today Molly was on The Antifada podcast today to discuss anti-fascism, Puerto Rico, and her recent arrest while protesting ICE.
Molly was one of several dozen protestors arrested Sunday at an Amazon flagship store in New York City. As part of a nationwide protest organized by Jewish groups like Never Again Action, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, local synagogues and more, demonstrators staged a sit-in protestoring Amazon’s technological aid of ICE operations. All were released shortly after midnight, and some were given Roshohanah as their first court date.
This thursday, August 15th, Molly will be joining best selling author Ibram X. Kendi for a discussion about his new book; How to Be an Antiracist. The event begins at 8pm at Judson Memorial Church at Washington Square Park. Tickets are available here.
Molly’s illustrations were featured in The Intercept’s latest article by Ryan Devereaux. A deep dive into the trial of No More Deaths member Scott Warren, who was arrested for providing water and shelter to migrants in the desert of Arizona.
Molly’s illustrated coverage of the recent protests in Puerto Rico is up on NYR Daily.
“The protesters had done more than boot Rosselló from office. They wanted the head of every politician that had cheated and mocked the island, whether or not they had taken part in the recently leaked texts and chat messages between the governor and senior officials. “Clean the house,” the slogan went, and by the day, protesters improvised new chants savaging each potential Rosselló heir apparent.“
“The whole activist constellation was out: queers and socialists, environmentalists and independentistas, all the people who had marched alongside one another for so long that, up until this summer, protests felt more like family reunions. There were drag queens. There were members of the teachers’ union, whose retirees were seeing their pensions cut. There were organizers against toxic ash dumps. There were feminist activists with tape over their mouths holding hands. And there were flags: the once-banned Puerto Rican flag, now ubiquitous.“
Molly’s tribute to the late Michael Seidenburg was published in The Paris Review, and is a memorial to not only him, but “the illicit bookstore he built in a tiny rent-controlled apartment.”
A few of you have asked what kind of art supplies Molly uses, so we wanted to give you a peek at what’s on her drafting table right now.
Right now Molly has been using Ecoline inks for a lot her illustrations, and as an ambassador for Ecolines parent company Royal Talens, she’s gotten to test quite a few of their products before deciding that these are the absolute best.
When it comes to acrylic paint Molly prefers Amsterdam for their opacity and flow, and their ability to stay vibrant on paper as well as canvas.
You’ll see a lot of Ecolines liquid watercolor brush pens in Molly’s court illustrations. They’re not waterproof until they’re dry, giving her lots of time to play with the image before the ink is set.
And no Molly Crabapple illustration would be the same without buckets and buckets of Talens black waterproof drawing ink. It’s in most of her work, and all over her drafting table. It’s such a lusciously opaque high-quality ink, it’s easy to get so lost in a drawing that you don’t even notice you’ve anointed your face, hands, and desk with it. But it’s worth it.
The neo-nazi group Golden Dawn has been linked to dozens of racist attacks in Greece. This month, Molly went to Athens to illustrate some of the ongoing trials of their members.
Molly is one of several artists illustrating the trials, which are slated to continue until the fall. You can see her sketches now on Vice Greece
An new illustration of Mollys is featured in a piece written by Akynos for issue 002 of Zerospaces. Profiling sex worker activist Alexandra Cruz, the article is available free of charge.
Molly will also be appearing at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street on June 4th at 6:30 PM, to join Suketu Mehta for a conversation on his book, This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrants Manifesto. If you’d like to attend you can register with the NYPL now to reserve a spot
Last week at NYU’s Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near-Eastern Studies, artist in residence Molly Crabapple and her students released their zine “Al Andalus in New York”. The event featured a performance by Syrian-American rapper and poet Omar Offendum, speeches by Molly, Algerian-American film-maker and journalist Assia Boundaoui, and Columbia University professor Hisham Aidi.
“Al Andalus in New York” is the culmination of Molly’s workshop at NYU and is a reference to the eight hundred year period of Muslim rule on the Spanish peninsula, resulting in a multi-cultural series of kingdoms that was one of the most prominent economical and cultural centers of its time.
The zines were printed by Radix Media, a worker-owned union printship based out of Brooklyn, NY.
Molly’s latest book review for “Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights” by Juno Mac and Molly Smith is out now in the New York Review of Books. The book is an in depth look at the discussion around sex workers rights, trafficking, and feminism from a global perspective. It is available now from Verso Books.
“Mac and Smith delineate the problems of sex workers in all their prosaic complexity. “A sex worker may describe a bad experience as a labour-rights violation, sexual abuse, or simply a shitty day at work,” they write. Against the stereotypical Happy Hooker, they talk about the “unhappy hooker,” forced, like so many other workers, to do work she loathes in order to earn enough money to survive, and “who reminds us that capitalism cannot be magicked away” by a jail cell or a self-help book for aspiring Girlbosses—and that capitalism reigns most brutally in criminalized markets. Precisely because the safety net is weakest for marginalized people, they are more likely to become sex workers”
Take a look at Molly’s review, “Its Not About Sex”
On Thursday May 9th at 6PM there will be a launch party for Al Andalus in New York, a zine produced by Molly Crabapple and students at NYUs Kevorkian Center. The event is free and open to the public and will feature panel discussions, readings, performances and more.
255 Sullivan St, New York City
There are over 12,000 high-risk chemical facilities in America — and roughly 40% of U.S. residents live within three miles of them. The Natural Resources Defense Council teamed up with Rashida Jones, Molly Crabapple and https://comingcleaninc.org/ to tell the stories of these vulnerable communities — disproportionately black and Latino — that live every day with the threat of chemical leaks, spills, and explosions that threaten families’ health, their livelihoods, and ultimately, their lives. Learn more: https://on.nrdc.org/2Via8ZA
The Intercept just launched the newest collaboration between Molly Crabapple, Kim Boekbinder, and Jim Batt, narrated by Alexandria Ocasio-Corez, produced by Naomi Klein, and written by Avi Lewis and AOC.
What if we actually pulled off a Green New Deal? What would the future look like then?
On April 16th Molly will be a special guest the The Intercept’s five year anniversary event at 8pm at The Bell House in Brooklyn. Celebrating five years of “fearless, adversarial journalism”, Molly will be joining several regular contributors to The Intercept for an evening of story telling and discussions about journalism.
Also this month, Syria In Ink will be on display at Haverford college until April 26th. This show features much of the original artwork from Brothers of The Gun, and is curated by Cora Fisher of the Brooklyn Public Library.
Monument Lab said “Syria in Ink brings together literature in the form of memoir and visual art in the form of ink drawings. It invites viewers to experience the words and images of a young Syrian coming of age during the turbulent last decade.”
Molly has a fantastic new interview up on ArtNews talking about her career, the role political art, and the importance of artists producing their own work.
From April 1st to May 1st, if you buy any print from the shop that includes a charity donation you’ll receive this free 8.5×11 May Day mini-print. The shop currently has prints for sale that benefit Chelsea Manning’s legal defense, charities in Puerto Rico, PEN America and several other amazing causes. Make your order anytime before or on May 1st and your free mini-print will be automatically included!
Molly’s portrait of James Baldwin will be on display in his former home, Les Amis de la Maison Baldwin, in Saint-Paul de Vence, France along with several other portraits of the beloved writer and activist. The show will run for the next year with an opening reception on March 28th.
Molly Crabapple & Marwan Hisham: Syria in Ink presents vivid images and words of the Syrian conflict and the country’s partial occupation by ISIS, and the besieged consciousness of a young Syrian man finding his voice as a writer. The exhibition includes over fifty original drawings by artist Molly Crabapple and the voice of author and journalist Marwan Hisham. With pen and brush, together they capture Syria from before its precipitous fall to its current state of crisis and mass displacement.
Molly Crabapple and Marwan Hisham: Syria in Ink is curated by Cora Fisher and organized by the Arts & Culture division of the Brooklyn Public Library, BPL Presents. Support for its presentation at Haverford is provided by the John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities.
More information at exhibits.haverford.edu/syriainink.
Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery
Whitehead Campus Center
Haverford College
370 Lancaster Avenue
Haverford, PA 19041
(610) 896-1287
Last month Molly had the honor of speaking at the ZEE Jaipur Literary Festival in India. She spoke at both The Travel Panel with Carlo Pizzati, Eliza Griswold, Isabella Tree and Ramita Navai, and at speaking event on Brothers of The Gun with William Sieghart.
She also stopped in to The Bookshop, at Jor Bagh Market in Dehli for a quick for a quick talk and exhibition of her artwork.
Illustrations from Mollys previous trip to India are available now at the store, and if you’re in New York be sure to stop into the Muneca Arthouse in Patchogue to see Mollys original protest art, on display now!
