Latest news with #TheMessenger
Boston Globe
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
A new theater festival wants audiences to ‘love deeper' in dark times
'Our work aims to change the world,' Bennett said. 'Hopefully, when you leave, you'll feel moved towards creating a more beautiful world in your immediate community.' Advertisement Each work presented by the festival was developed through one of TTO's artist residency programs, which provide resources to queer and trans artists of color who reflect the organization's larger mission: to create art that 'transcends artistic boundaries, celebrates cultural abundance, and dismantles oppression,' as the festival's mission statement puts it. Advertisement 'There are many ways to push against oppressive systems, and I want my work to help people consider their actions and values, and how they want to show up in this world,' said Victoria Lynn Awkward, whose dance piece featured in the festival, 'In the Space Between ," was developed during TTO's 22-month Emergent Artist Residency. Set to an original composition of piano, flute, and percussion, 'In the Space Between' uses aerial movement, audible breathwork, and flowing fabrics to create a dance piece inspired by iconic Black feminist Audre Lorde's writings on power and eroticism. The sensuous nature of the piece is designed to 'build empathy,' Awkward said. 'Empathy is what's needed to bridge divides, and to be able to care for people with different cultures and backgrounds, as well as yourself.' As an organization, the Theater Offensive has been creating and cultivating cutting-edge art by LGBTQ+ makers since 1989, when it was born out of a gay men's guerrilla theater troupe. At the time, founder Over the years, and among other initiatives, TTO went on to produce innovative fringe theater festivals, establish its national award-winning program Advertisement More recently, TTO has evolved to explicitly focus on art by and for queer and trans people of color, who face unique challenges accessing financial backing and other forms of support for their work and are most vulnerable in what the organization calls an ongoing 'battle against authoritarianism, homophobia, transphobia, and racism' in the Trump era. Artists are looking to the past to process this dangerous present, said Bennett, who noted that ancestral connections are a common thread in the festival's performances. 'I live in Harlem, where my great-grandmother moved in the early 1900s and my grandmother and mother were raised,' said Awkward. 'I feel very connected to that lineage, and to the hope and joy they had throughout all the challenges they faced.' She added that the prevalence of textiles in her work is inspired by the legacy of Black quilting, including lore that quilts were used to mark safe houses and provide direction on the Underground Railroad. 'For me, textiles are beautiful and eye-catching — but also deeply entwined with my ancestry and lineage.' Another festival piece, 'The Messenger,' is a coming-of-age play with music about a burgeoning young oracle who takes a spiritual journey with her elders, learning from their wisdom so that she can serve her nation. Playwright and TTO resident artist Cheyenne Wyzzard-Jones said they were inspired by their lineage, including their Wampanoag background, as well as 'conversations with my community of Black diaspora folk, Native American family, elders, [and] medicine workers.' There's also 'Theater of Union ," a three-fold artistic exercise developed by Annalise 'River' Guidry. It is composed of 'Remembrance ," a community-building performance on the festival's opening night that 'explores and honors our many ancestries,' Guidry said, as well as a workshop that explores 'grief as a pathway toward collective liberation.' Both the performance and workshop are additionally preceded by a 'table talk' that expands on the artist's intentions. Advertisement Guidry wants to impart to their audience the notion of 'love ethic,' Black author and social critic bell hooks's framework for considering love as a series of actions and choices, not just a feeling. 'Lovelessness pervades in our society,' Guidry said, pointing to racist, anti-queer, and otherwise oppressive 'systems of domination' that keep Americans divided and at odds. The Queer [Re]Public Festival, then, aims to establish a more perfect union. 'The current culture and systems we are functioning under are not sustainable,' Guidry said. 'I believe in love to transform and save us.' Prices vary, June 26-29, Arrow Street Arts, 2 Arrow St., Cambridge,
The Sun
04-06-2025
- General
- The Sun
Vietnam police arrest admin of popular YouTube channel
HANOI: Vietnamese police said Wednesday they had arrested administrators of a YouTube channel with two million subscribers for allegedly spreading false information about state officials. Rights campaigners say the government in one-party Vietnam has in recent years stepped up a crackdown on civil society and weaponised the law to silence critics, especially people posting on social media. Human Rights Watch said in April that members of the public were being targeted through an expansion of the scope of article 331 of the penal code, which centres on the 'infringement of state interests'. On Wednesday police in Ho Chi Minh City said they arrested Le Van Can, the lead administrator of Nguoi Dua Tin (The Messenger) YouTube channel, for 'abusing democratic freedoms' under article 331. His two assistants were also taken into custody, accused of the same crime. Since March last year, the channel had published more than 6,700 video clips 'with negative and distorted information targeting individuals and organisations in the political system, as well as policies and guidelines of the party and the state', police said in an online statement. It was not clear whether the three men had created the videos, which police say had been collectively viewed a billion times. Their behaviour 'badly impacted public opinions and caused social disorder', police said, adding the accused had illegally earned more than $380,000 (10 billion dong) for running the channel, which was deactivated prior to the arrests. According to HRW, between 2018 and February 2025, Vietnamese courts convicted and sentenced at least 124 people to harsh prison terms under article 331. In the six years to 2017, only 28 were sentenced under equivalent laws, the group said.
The Independent
28-04-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Defunct media startup The Messenger settles class action lawsuit with former employees for $4.5 million
Over a year after hundreds of journalists were suddenly left jobless and without severance pay when the troubled digital media startup The Messenger crashed and burned, the owners of the defunct site have settled the class action lawsuit brought by the laid-off employees for $4.5 million. The settlement, which is still contingent upon a separate bankruptcy liquidation case in a Delaware court, brings to an end a contentious legal fight between the nearly 300 former employees of The Messenger and Jimmy Finkelstein, the media mogul who launched the ambitious news outlet in 2023 with $50 million of financial backing only to see it collapse within eight months. The class action lawsuit, which senior producer Pilar Belendez-Desha filed on behalf of roughly 275 Messenger employees impacted by the site's closure, was filed a day after Finkelstein informed the newsroom in January of last year that The Messenger was immediately shutting down and none of the staff would be receiving any severance pay or insurance benefits going forward. At the time of the 'centrist' news site's implosion, Finkelstein – who had previously owned The Hill – had been desperately trying to raise additional capital to keep the publication afloat, only to come up short in the end. Despite previously expressing optimism to staff that investors were lining up to pump money into The Messenger, Finkelstein broke the news in an email to employees on January 31, 2024, that he was 'personally devastated' to announce the site was shutting down 'effective immediately' as he had 'exhausted every option available' to raise enough funds. In fact, much of the staff – including The Messenger's editor-in-chief – said they hadn't immediately been informed of the site's shutdown after it was first reported by The New York Times. According to the class action suit, the former employees alleged that The Messenger violated the New York Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act by failing to provide proper notice prior to the site's sudden closure. 'Plaintiff brings this action on behalf of herself and other similarly situated former employees who worked for Defendant and were terminated without cause, as part of, or as the foreseeable result of, a mass layoffs or plant closings ordered by Defendant on January 31, 2024 and within 90 days of that date and who were not provided 60 days advance written notice of their terminations by Defendant,' the lawsuit stated. The plaintiffs sought wages, health insurance premiums, and accrued vacation and holiday pay for a period of 60 days following the closure of The Messenger. Additionally, they demanded two months' worth of benefits, which included life and health insurance coverage. Over the past few months, the case appeared close to reaching a settlement. In February, media newsletter Breaker reported that Finkelstein was 'about to make good with the hundreds of workers who were abruptly laid off,' noting that the shuttered site's parent company JAF Communications had agreed to settle the lawsuit with the former employees. After some delays, the agreement was reached this month, and a joint motion for settlement approval was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Friday. According to the settlement agreement reached between the parties, JAF Communications 'has denied it violated any WARN Act, law, or regulation, and in fact it claims that it acted in full compliance with their requirements and does not owe any employee salaries or benefits.' At the same time, the company has agreed to settle with the plaintiffs through a consent judgment for a total of $4.5 million. Still, it remains to be seen whether the former employees will receive all or even part of this money, as JAF is still undergoing an ABC proceeding to liquidate all of its assets. 'This settlement will not result in immediate payment to the class members, because Defendant's assets are being liquidated in a separate proceeding in Delaware state court,' the agreement notes. 'Class Counsel intends to recover any available proceeds (up to $4.5 million) from the liquidation.' In a notice to the plaintiffs in the case, it also specifically states that 'the settlement does not guarantee that you will be paid' due to the efforts to recover money from what remains of JAF Communications. 'Under the Settlement, JAF will consent to entry of a judgment against it for $4,500,000.00, which the Class Representative's attorneys (known as Class Counsel) can attempt to enforce, and thereby recover money on, in the ABC proceeding,' the notice points out. 'The ABC proceeding is similar to a bankruptcy proceeding in Delaware State court, where JAF's assets are being liquidated,' the notice continues. 'The consent judgment here allows Class Counsel, the Class, and Plaintiff to go to the ABC proceeding to enforce the consent judgment of $4,500,000.00 against the assets of JAF being liquidated in the ABC proceedings.'
New York Times
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Jazzed About Abstraction: Jack Whitten's Show Is a Peak MoMA Moment
'I'm a product of American Apartheid,' the artist Jack Whitten wrote, a blunt fact that led him to project, in his art, a very different reality, one of 'infinite diversity in infinite combinations.' It was a vision that propelled and buoyed him through a nearly six-decade career. 'This is why I get up in the morning,' he wrote, 'and go to work!' And how very lucky we are, at a moment when references to diversity and difference are being scrubbed from accounts of our national history, to have a refreshing tidal wave of a Whitten career retrospective sweeping and scintillating through the special exhibition galleries on the Museum of Modern Art's sixth floor. Titled 'Jack Whitten: The Messenger,' the show encompasses some 180 paintings, sculptures and works on paper, from a 1963 art-school collage to a final painting from just before he died in 2018. Over that span Whitten called every studio he worked in a 'laboratory,' and every piece of art he made an 'experiment.' And, indeed, much of what's in the show challenges ready definition. Such is the case with a piece called 'The Messenger (for Art Blakey)' installed just outside the first gallery. From a distance it could be a photograph of a star-drenched night sky, or of clouds of foam on a dark sea. Or it could a painting with white paint glopped and dripped, Abstract Expressionist-style, on a black ground. Get close and you find that, in fact, it's a large rough-textured mosaic pieced together from thousands of pixel-like cubes of dried paint. You consult the title for meaning: Art Blakey, Black drummer extraordinaire, leader in the 1950s of the hardbop group called the Jazz Messengers. Suddenly the glops and drips look sonic, like musical bursts and pings. So what, exactly, do you have here? Astral vistas and Atlantic crossings. Jazz and Jackson Pollock. A painting that's built, not brushed. An art whose messages are historical, mystical, personal, by a radically inventive artist who ranks right at the top of abstraction's pantheon, as will become clear in the exhibition ahead. Whitten was born in Bessemer, Ala., in the Jim Crow South, in 1939. His father was a coal miner, his mother a seamstress, whose first husband, James Monroe Cross, had been an amateur painter of local scenes. Early on, Whitten knew he too wanted to be an artist, though it took a while to make the move. In the late 1950s, he immersed himself in civil rights activism — he met Martin Luther King Jr., in Montgomery — until, feeling battered by the experience of violence, he left the South. He headed to New York City. There he studied at Cooper Union, and became interested in abstract art. He forged friendships with painters of an older generation, Willem de Kooning and Norman Lewis among them. He hung out with younger abstract artists — Melvin Edwards, Al Loving, William T. Williams — who were, like him, looking to make work that was culturally and politically 'Black' without being overtly polemical. The art form that seemed to do that most successfully was jazz. Once an aspiring musician himself, Whitten always claimed it as a crucial influence. And he got his fill of it in the downtown clubs where Blakey, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk — he knew them all — regularly played. (All four can be heard on an ambient soundtrack in MoMA's galleries.) And from the start he was experimenting. A 1967 oil painting called 'NY Battle Ground' — the reference is to civil rights and antiwar protests in the city — is explosively painterly in a classic Ab-Ex way. But already, in 'Birmingham 1964,' he had produced, from aluminum foil, stretched stocking and torn newsprint, a grief-and-fury-filled assemblage-style memorial to the 1964 church bombing that resulted in the deaths of four African American girls. And in the same year he had combined a screen-printing process and acrylic paint to create a ghostly photographic-looking image called 'Head IV Lynching.' Whitten would make acrylic paint, not yet in wide use, his medium of choice. And, in an effort to cut loose from conventional painting styles that privileged the artist's 'touch,' he found ways to physically distance himself from his work. An older African American painter Ed Clark (1926-2019) had pioneered this gambit earlier by painting with a janitor's push broom. Whitten took the technology further by inventing instruments from scratch, among them a 12-foot-wide version of a squeegee or rake — he called it the 'Developer' — with which he could apply a wide layer of paint to a horizontal canvas. Beginning in 1974, he used the instrument — an original version is propped against a wall — to produce a series of paintings he referred to as 'slabs.' Each painting consisted of several successive layers of paint with drying times of varying lengths between applications. In a finishing gesture, he dragged the squeegee, in one quick stroke, across the top of the 'slab' to uncover the layers beneath, a process he likened to the exposure of film to light in photography. The chromatic and textural variety achieved is truly virtuosic, both in the original 1974 series and in the variations that followed as he shifted his palette from color to black and white; his abstract mode from quasi-gestural to geometric; and the method of making the painting from horizontal to vertical orientation. All of this would probably have been enough to establish and sustain a long career, but big changes were still to come. New media arrived. After an artist residency at the Xerox Corporation in Rochester, N.Y., Whitten started painting and drawing with photocopy toner on paper. And after establishing a pattern of spending summers in Greece — the home of his wife Mary's parents — he focused his time there on producing an extraordinary body of African-inspired sculptures, carved from local wood and embedded with nails, tools and electronic detritus. In 1980, Whitten's TriBeCa studio was destroyed in a fire, and while renovating a new one he stopped making art for three years. When he began again it was with a set of newly invented forms and techniques. And from this point on an already powerful exhibition — organized by Michelle Kuo, chief curator at large, with an all-MoMA team led by Dana Liljegren with Helena Klevorn — lifts off into the stratosphere. The innovations were of two related kinds, both of which involved turning acrylic paint into a sculptural material. Using paint he made casts of objects he found on New York City streets — bottle caps, tire treads, manhole covers — and attached these casts, assemblage-style, to canvases or wood panels. The culminating work in this format is a 20-foot-long mural-like memorial to the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, an event that Whitten witnessed firsthand. A pyramidal pileup of molds of shoes and glass and metal shards mixed with ash and dirt from the site, the piece has the entrapping weight of a PTSD nightmare and is as powerful a response to a still unthinkable event as I've seen in art. Actually, much of Whitten's art, starting with the 1964 Birmingham assemblage, is commemorative. And with another formal innovation, the use of acrylic mosaic, he introduced a versatile language for such content. You find it in pieces dedicated to the artist's mother and father, and in an exuberant 1998 shout out — an image of a sleek blackbird rocketing skyward —- to the irrepressible jazz singer Betty Carter, who died that year. And it has its most dramatic expression in the series of tributes called 'Black Monoliths' that appeared from the late 1980s through the end of the artist's life. These are dedicated to individual figures who shaped Whitten, either from a distance as public figures (Muhammad Ali, Representative Barbara Jordan), or through personal acquaintance. There's Jacob Lawrence, who mentored the young artist with career and life advice in New York. And James Baldwin, who showed him how to make Black identity and creativity one thing. And Ornette Coleman, one of the musicians who gave Whitten ways to connect, in what we might now call an Afrofuturistic approach, abstraction to science, politics and spirituality. The twilit gallery where the 'Monoliths' hang, black and glowing with their admixtures of bright-color tesserae and pearlescent dust, may be the single most beautiful room of contemporary art in any New York City museum right now. And the work in it defines the idea of identity in the way the introductory Blakey tribute does: as inclusive and expansive, cosmic and specific, monumental and molecular. Whitten spoke, with wishful optimism, of wanting to be an artist-citizen of the world, a world in which 'there is no race, no color, no gender, no territorial hangups, no religion, no politics. There is only life.' Life is what this great show of his fantastically inventive art is filled with.
