Grayson Earle

Grayson Earle (born 1987) is an American contemporary artist and activist. He uses new media to make political statements, known for his guerilla video projections as a member of The Illuminator Art Collective.[1], and his creation of Bail Bloc which is a computer program that bails people out of jail.[2] In 2020, he hacked the Hans Haacke career retrospective exhibition at the New Museum to criticize the Museum's efforts to union bust its employees.[3] Earle is an outspoken anti-capitalist and professor at the New School.[4]

Grayson Earle

Biography

Grayson Earle was born in California. He attended UC Irvine before moving to New York City to enroll in the Hunter College Integrated Media Arts MFA program.[5]

Career and Works

The Illuminator

In 2014, Earle was arrested during an The Illuminator Art Collective projection with Kyle Depew and Yates McKee. The arrest occurred as the group projected onto the Metropolitan Museum of Art after David Koch donated $60 million to have his name permanently added to the fountain outside.[6] David Koch is known for donating millions of dollars to the Tea Party and various climate change denial interests groups.[7] Earle and the others were released from jail and successfully sued the NYPD for violating their First Amendment Rights.[8]

Ai Wei Whoops!

In 2014, Earle released 'Ai Wei Whoops!', an online game that allows the player to smash Ai Weiwei urns.[9] This was done in response to Maximo Caminero's destruction of an Ai Weiwei urn in the Miama Perez Art Museum.[10]

Tax Deductible Expenses

In 2016, Earle kept a receipt for every single purchase he made and recorded himself "consuming" the item in his work Tax Deductible Expenses. For the entire year, he wrote off every purchase made (for clothes, food, etc) and recorded himself with the object of purchase, deeming it performance art, and was therefore able to write off everything as professional expense.[11]

Bail Bloc

In 2017, Earle created Bail Bloc with The New Inquiry. Bail Bloc is software that utilizes cryptocurrency mining to generate money which is then re-distributed to bail low income people out of jail.[12] Bail Bloc was exhibited alongside Ai Weiwei at Kate Vass Galerie in Zurich, Switzerland for the gallery's "Perfect and Priceless" exhibition.[13] He also presented the work at The Whitney Museum of Art,[14] and MoMA PS1[15]

Hacking the Hans Haacke Retrospective

In 2020, Earle hacked the Hans Haacke Retrospective at the New Museum in New York City. The exhibition revolved around a survey which visitors could take on iPads in the museum. The questions in the survey ranged from demographic information to political questions about income inequality and the environment. Earle notes in several interviews that he was inspired by the museum hiring a union-busting firm to oust its organizing employees while simultaneously putting leftist art on display.[16] Earle changed the results of the survey by falsifying hundreds of thousands of entries, resulting in the survey answers changing to "better expresses the political position of American museums like the New Museum."[17]

Published Texts
  • Software for Artists: Building Better Realities[18] (The Creative Independent 2020)
  • Digital Resistance and Monkey-Wrenching (Pioneer Works 2020)
  • All of Our Grievances are Connected[19] (Public Art Dialogue, MIT Press, co-authored with Mark Read 2015)
  • The Illuminator (First Person Scholar 2015)
  • A Moment Outside[20] (Journal of Arts and Humanities 2014)

Awards and honors

2020

2019

2018

  • Ethereal arts grant

2016

  • CultureHub art resident
  • Kilroy Metal Ceiling art resident
  • [[the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics] art resident
  • Japan Media Arts Festival Jury Selection Award

References
  1. Dwyer, Jim (8 April 2015). "A Removed Snowden Sculpture Inspires a Hologram in Its Place (Published 2015)". The New York Times. The New York Times.
  2. Gilbert, David. "You can now mine cryptocurrency to pay for people's bail". www.vice.com.
  3. Bishara, Hakim (21 January 2020). "Hans Haacke Gets Hacked by Activists at the New Museum". Hyperallergic.
  4. "On using technology to outpace our adversaries". thecreativeindependent.com.
  5. "Grayson Earle Biography – Grayson Earle on artnet". www.artnet.com.
  6. Smith, Jennifer (26 May 2015). "Art Activists File First-Amendment Rights Suit Against New York City". Wall Street Journal.
  7. "The Secret Origins of the Tea Party". TIME.com.
  8. "Artforum.com". www.artforum.com.
  9. Steinhauer, Jillian (21 May 2014). "Online Game Lets You Smash Ai Weiwei Vases". Hyperallergic.
  10. Schneider, Tim (21 May 2014). "This vase is a mirror". Kill Screen.
  11. "NY Artist Grayson Earle". The Conversation Art Podcast.
  12. "Mining cryptocurrency helps raise bail for those who can't | CBC Radio". CBC Radio.
  13. "Blockchain art". Kate Vass Galerie.
  14. "Badlands Unlimited presents What is Crypto?". whitney.org.
  15. "Conversation on Bail Bloc with Maya Binyam, Grayson Earle, Brett Davidson and Ana María Rivera-Forastieri | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art.
  16. Goldstein, Caroline (22 January 2020). "Activist Artists Hack the New Museum's Hans Haacke Survey in an Effort to Expose the Museum's Hidden Capitalist Agenda". artnet News.
  17. Bishara, Hakim (21 January 2020). "Hans Haacke Gets Hacked by Activists at the New Museum". Hyperallergic.
  18. Köerner, Willa (18 July 2020). Software for Artists Book: Building Better Realities. ISBN 978-1945711121.
  19. "All of our Grievances are Connnected – The Illuminator". Public Art Dialogue. 5 (2): 162–169. 3 July 2015. doi:10.1080/21502552.2015.1066577. S2CID 219727997.
  20. Earle, Grayson (30 January 2014). "A Moment Outside". Journal of Arts and Humanities. 3 (1): 26–32. doi:10.18533/journal.v3i1.173 (inactive 2021-01-15). ISSN 2167-9053.CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2021 (link)

See also


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