Fall Of Freedom

 

Fall of Freedom is an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation. Our Democracy is under attack. Threats to free expression are rising. Dissent is being criminalized. Institutions and media have been recast as mouthpieces of propaganda.

In solidarity with of Fall Of Freedom, Monroe Gallery presents a Pop Up exhibit now Online and in the Gallery November 18 - 23 of photographs documenting people struggling for their freedom; their right to live without fear, their right to speak and the right to protest inequities.

KUNM: Artists plan Fall of Freedom protest events around New Mexico

NPR: This weekend, artists are speaking out across the country

ArtNet: Artists Across the U.S. Are Staging Hundreds of Events to Protest Authoritarianism

France24: US artists launch nationwide ‘Fall of Freedom’ protest against rising censorship

Hyperallergic; Why I Joined the Artists Behind Fall of Freedom

NY Times: Artists Plan Nationwide Protests Against ‘Authoritarian Forces’

The Guardian: Artists plan nationwide US protests against Trump and ‘authoritarian forces'

WNYC: Photographer Steve Schapiro Witnessed American History

 Via All Of It with Alison Stewart

WNYC

November 15, 2025

 

 Photographer Steve Schapiro was often at the scene. Schapiro photographed historical Civil Rights marches, public figures like Muhammad Ali, David Bowie, and Robert Kennedy, and was also called to photograph films like "Taxi Driver" and "The Godfather." Before Schapiro died in 2022 at the age of 88, he sat down for interviews to reflect on his life and career. The result of those interviews is a new documentary, "Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere".

Several of Schapiro's iconic photographs are featured in the new exhibit "Artists Behind The Art", opening at Monroe Gallery November 28, 2025 and on exhibit through January 25, 2026.

Kansas county agrees to pay $3 million over police raid on a small-town newspaper, editor says

 Via Associated Press

November 11, 2025

After the newspaper was raided. Monroe Gallery placed this ad to help support the 

Marion County Record

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom, the paper’s editor said Tuesday.

Marion County was among multiple defendants in five federal lawsuits filed by the company that publishes the Marion County Record, its publisher, the estate of his late mother Joan Meyer, the paper’s co-owner, employees of the paper and a former Marion City Council member whose home also was raided.

Eric Meyer, the paper’s editor and publisher, told The Associated Press he is hoping the size of the payment is large enough to discourage similar actions against news organizations in the future.

“The goal isn’t to get the money. The money is symbolic,” Meyer said. “The press has basically been under assault.”

Sheriff Jeff Soyez issued an apology that mentioned the publisher and his late mother Joan Meyer by name, along with former council member Ruth Herbel and her husband.

“The Sheriff’s Office wishes to express its sincere regrets to Eric and Joan Meyer and Ruth and Ronald Herbel for its participation in the drafting and execution of the Marion County Police Department’s search warrants on their homes and the Marion County Record,” the sheriff’s statement said.

The Marion County Commission approved the agreement Monday after discussing it in private for 15 minutes.

The raid triggered a national debate about press freedom focused on Marion, a town of about 1,900 people set among rolling prairie hills some 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri. Also, Meyer’s mother, who co-owned the newspaper and lived with him, died the day after the raid of a heart attack, which he blamed on the stress of the raid.

A search warrant tied the raid -- which was led by Marion’s police chief -- to a dispute between the newspaper and a local restaurant owner who had accused the Marion County Record of invading her privacy and illegally accessing information about her and her driving record. Meyer has said believed the newspaper’s aggressive coverage of local politics and issues played a role and that his newsroom had been examining the police chief’s past work history.

More articles from the raid

Ken Hawkin's photograph depicting NASA's original six women astronauts in training has been acquired by the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum

 

"The Six” - The original six women NASA astronaut candidates in training at the U.S. Air Force Water Survival School at Turkey Point, Florida. 1978. Archival pigment print, 20” x 16”. © Ken Hawkins for National Geographic/The Monroe Gallery 

Ken Hawkin's photograph depicting NASA's original six women astronauts in training at Water Survival School at Turkey Point, FL has been acquired by the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum for its’ permanent collection and will be featured in the upcoming “At Home in Space” exhibition at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

“The Six” are Sally Ride, Shannon W. Lucid, Margaret Rhea Sedan, Kathryn D. Sullivan, Anna L. Fisher and Judith A. Resnick.

Save the date: Artists Behind The Art Opens Friday, Nov. 28

Via Santa Fe New Mexican Winter Life

November 9, 2025

Ernst Haas: Helen Frankenthaler, NY, 1969

Monroe Gallery of Photography announces a new exhibit “Artists Behind The Art”. The exhibition opens with a public reception Friday, November 28 from 5 – 7 pm. The exhibit continues through January 25, 2026.

Many of the most influential artists of the past century are, in a sense, unseen. This exhibition shows us the human beings behind some of the 20th century's most vital works of art. The photographs range from posed, candid, and working shots to behind the scenes of artists at work. In these photographs the essential personality of the artist is revealed, and an image of the past becomes visual history.

 

When your local reporter needs the same protection as a war correspondent

 Via Poynter

Five months of covering ICE raids taught our small LA newsroom hard lessons — and we're still figuring out how to sustain it

By: Michelle Zenarosa
November 6, 2025

When federal immigration operations began sweeping across Los Angeles in June, our newsroom worked around the clock. I didn’t have to tell them to. No one wanted to stop.

One reporter’s family members were being followed. Another staffer’s family went into hiding — despite having legal status. Sources we’d cultivated for years suddenly wouldn’t answer calls. At LA Public Press, a 14-person nonprofit newsroom led by and largely staffed by people of color who grew up in the neighborhoods we cover, everyone on staff was personally touched by the raids in some way. We weren’t covering some abstract story happening to other people. We were covering home.

By July, I had to force people to take weekends off. Soon after, every other Friday became mandatory time away. The story hasn’t stopped, but boundaries are harder to draw when you’re covering what’s happening to your own family.

It took us weeks to realize we were facing the same dangers as foreign correspondents in conflict zones — the threat of violence, retaliation and the exhaustion of sustained trauma coverage. But we didn’t have their security teams, legal protections or institutional support. --click for full article

Gallery Photographer Bing Guan Covers Historic NYC Mayoral Race For Politico

 

"A marathon Election Day in the books for Politico—19ish hours of coverage across three boroughs chasing Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo across the city that never sleeps, fueled by halal cart & an obscene number of coffees." --Bing Guan

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani addresses supporters after being declared winner of the 2025 New York City mayoral election at his election night watch party at the Brooklyn Paramount in Brooklyn, New York, on Nov. 4, 2025. | Bing Guan for POLITICO

Zohran Mamdani wins NYC mayoral race

The democratic socialist vanquished Andrew Cuomo in a contest being closely watched by national Democrats, Republicans and the White House. --click for Politico article with photos

In solidarity with of Fall Of Freedom, Monroe Gallery presents a Pop Up exhibit in the Gallery and Online November 18 - 22

Via Fall of Freedom

Tracy Barbutes

An upside-down American flag hangs from El Capitan near Yosemite National Park’s Horsetail Falls to protest the thousands of federal job cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration, February 22, 2025

Fall of Freedom is an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation. Our Democracy is under attack. Threats to free expression are rising. Dissent is being criminalized. Institutions and media have been recast as mouthpieces of propaganda.

In solidarity with of Fall Of Freedom, Monroe Gallery presents a Pop Up exhibit in the Gallery and Online November 18 - 22 of photographs documenting people struggling for their freedom; their right to live without fear, their right to speak and the right to protest inequities.

View the exhibition here.

Find an event near you.

Nina Berman

F**k the KKK, New Jersey, 1990

Inside NPPA’s fight for the future of photojournalism

 Via Editor and Publisher

November 1, 2025

For decades, visual journalism has been at the heart of storytelling — shaping how audiences understand, connect with, and remember the world around them. Yet as newsroom budgets tighten, the visual side of journalism has become one of the first casualties. The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) is trying to change that. --Click for full article