First Winner Named in Madonna’s ‘Art for Freedom’ Project

Madonna announced on Sunday the first winner in the Art for Freedom online competition that she and Vice, the Canadian culture magazine, have established to encourage visual and video artists, photographers and poets to create works that focus on social justice. Madonna has also expanded her partnerships in the project to include the social website Tumblr.

The winner, Lesmack Meza Parente, from Mazatlan, Mexico, produced 'El Gran Dictador,' a video mashup using the emotional closing speech from Charlie Chaplin’s film 'The Great Dictator' (1940) and contemporary images that provide a modern interpretation of Chaplin’s humanistic plea. Madonna will give a $10,000 grant to a nonprofit organization to be selected by the winning artist, and there will be one prize each month for a year. (Mr. Parente’s choice of organization has not yet been announced.)

Madonna began the project in September, when Vice presented the premiere of 'Secretprojectrevolution,' a stark, black-and-white film about intolerance, violence and apathy that she made with the photographer Steven Klein, as well as a 40-minute interview about the film. (Both are on YouTube.) At the time, she invited viewers to submit works through her 'Art for Freedom' website, although she is now moving the submissions for the project to Tumblr.

Madonna plans to present some of the entries on Tumblr on Nov. 12, with her own live commentary. The next winner is to be announced in early December.

From The New York Times / Arts Beat

Comments

[mark]

Madonna made $125m in 2012 her career is tops
I too wud like a new music project, unlike alot on here I dont bash madonna for doing other things
How sad that u have too,
Mentioning other acts is worse

[geobm]

@dknowles: She's never done what people expected from her. If that's what she wants to do now, why not?

Charts and pop royalty are not everything after all ;)

[Tracy]

@dknowles: Madonna is bored now. She is bored and has become boring. Her trailblazing days are but a distant memory. Sad, but true.

[I Think I Love You]

Not a bad 'visual remix' of the original idea, but I still prefer the original edit of this Charlie Chaplin speech / world news footage mashup idea made by someone else more than two years ago. See for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WibmcsEGLKo

[Isabelle]

That's all wonderful but where on earth is Madonna in the charts? Let's hope she is using this time now to really come up with something great. Didn't she say recently that the "creative juices were flowing"?

[Oliver Sifuentes]

I am friend of the winner lesmack :) so proud of he !! !! Felicidades amigo, and THANKS MADONNA ! and MADONNALICIOUS :D

[dknowles]

Oh, I forgot . . . meanwhile, Katy Perry's great pop album "Prism" rules the Billboard 200, Queen Rihanna is poised to earn her 13th No.1 via her duet with Eminem, and Lady Gaga's "Artpop" is sure to rule the Billboard 200 once it's released next week. How can poor Madonna ever keep up with all that?

It used to be just Madonna's playground . . .

[dknowles]

Zzzz . . . so boring. Madonna has lost her focus. How is this helping whatever is left of what she calls her career, really?