"Wall Street Occupennial" to Present Art in Support of Occupy Wall Street

Calling itself an "archive" and "clearinghouse" for all art and artists related to or in support of Occupy Wall Street, The Wall Street Occupennial has been launched. According to their mission statement, "The Occupennial is founded on the belief that artists have a crucial role to play in helping to elaborate and sustain the democratic public space that is currently being created by the occupation of Liberty Plaza and other sites across the globe. "

Although the name might seem steeped in the bourgeois language of the art world, their website claims its name echoes in order to critique. "While it echoes the familiar art-world term "biennial," the Occupennial is unencumbered by any predetermined curatorial program or institutional apparatus. It exists instead as an imaginative umbrella-concept and pragmatic media platform through which diverse activities might be brought into alliance around both the specific site of Liberty Plaza and other occupation-sites throughout the United States and the rest of the world."

While the mainstream media and older generations have criticized the OWS movement for its nebulous, seemingly disorganized structure, the Occupennial "embraces the fact that the OWS movement is not reducible to a single "message" or even a particular set of policy prescriptions; in the most general sense, OWS and its affiliated movements around the world are about democratization, the first manifestation of which has often been the unauthorized occupation of nominally public streets, buildings, and plazas ranging from Tahrir Square to the Wisconsin State House."

The Occupennial is now accepting all submissions from all artists who are supportive of the OWS movement. They are tentatively planning a physical exhibition outside the New York Stock Exchange.

For more information, to review submissions, or to submit your own Occupy Wall Street art, go to the Occupennial's tumblr or their website.