Articles by Paul Schmelzer

Flash Points

Practical propaganda: Amy Franceschini reinvents the Victory Garden

Flash Points

Practical propaganda: Amy Franceschini reinvents the Victory Garden

Amy Franceschini is my favorite kind of propagandist: she creates enticing imagery you can’t help but rally around, but backs it up with dirt-under-the-fingernails pragmatism in service of a nearly …

Flash Points

Where’s all the rightwing street art?

Flash Points

Where’s all the rightwing street art?

Learning of Princess Hijab—a Paris-based street artist who culturejams advertisements to include her namesake headscarf—an old question came to mind: where are all the rightwing graffiti artists, stencil afficionados, and …

Flash Points

Chakkrit Chimnok’s banana-leaf utopia

Flash Points

Chakkrit Chimnok’s banana-leaf utopia

Chakkrit Chimnok dreams of a “banana world,” a utopia in which overlooked or discarded items — specifically, the ubiquitous banana leaves that litter the streets in his home city of …

Flash Points

Transcending protest: Looking for pragmatic or poetic art of change

Flash Points

Transcending protest: Looking for pragmatic or poetic art of change

This weekend I went to an opening at The Soap Factory, a scrappy and often-excellent nonprofit art space a block or so off Minneapolis’ riverfront. The description of the work, …