These Paintings Capture The Glory Days Of The 2011 Protests

Artist Molly Crabapple describes 2011 as the year "everyone sat down in the main squares of their cities and said the old machine is broken."

Occupy Wall Street began outside her window, and she began drawing the people that gathered in Zuccotti Park. She then traveled to Greece, London, and Spain to research how people were reacting to the prolonged financial crisis gripping the world.

Her year of work is presented in “Shell Game,” an exhibit that will be open to the public April 17 to 21 from 12 to 6 p.m. at the Smart Clothes Gallery in Manhattan.

Crabapple sat down with Wired to explain how Occupy shaped the works and conversed withwith Paul Mason to describe how she pulled it off.

Crabapple told BI that the paintings "are sort of elegies for something gone" as the romanticism of the protests came back to earth in 2012.

We've gathered Crabapple's pictures and commentary along with some of BI's pictures and observations from the opening.

Called "Dégagé," this painting shows the Tunisian Revolution. "The main figure's face is divided in a reference to Nadia Jelassi. The police dog destroys a fruit stand, like that of Mohammad Bouazizi."

Commentary courtesy of Molly Crabapple (via Wired).

Crabapple told BI that this painting "was a bit sad to me. Of all the rebellions I portrayed, the Tunisian revolution was the only successful one. The only one that had a chance to get dirty."

"Our Lady of Liberty Park" represents "Occupy Wall Street. An anatomy of Zuccotti park, from the free cigarette table to the obnoxious drum circle to the people's library. All signage is authentic, especially 'Shit is Fucked up and bullshit.'"

Commentary courtesy of Molly Crabapple (via Wired).

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