User:ShannonDonovan/Clark Stoeckley

Clark Stoeckley

Clark Stoeckley is a New York City based artist and activist, or what is known as an artivist. He works with interactive media, video, performance, drawing, and design to comment on political and social issues. His performance work often involves pranks and impersonations. He works both on solo projects, as well as collaboratively with the Glass Bead Collective, Near East Family, and photojournalist Jason Nicholas.

Education
Stoeckley studied studio art from 2001 to 2005 at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri where he received the full tuition Daniel Webster Scholarship. He studied abroad the fall semester of 2004 at Regent’s American College London in London, England. In 2010 Clark received his MFA from Brooklyn College in Performance and Interactive Media Art, studying in part under Vito Acconci, David Grubbs, and Jennifer McCoy. That same year he was a fellow at the Hemispheric Institute’s EMERGENYC New York Emerging Performers Program at New York University. There he studied under George Emillio Sanchez, Reverend Billy, Karen Finley, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña.

BAIL US OUT
He is a founding member of the Anonymous Theater Art Group that first appeared in front of the New York Stock Exchange on Columbus Day 2008. Dressed in suits and ties, they busked for money while performing tricks, juggling, and making balloon animals while one member held a sign reading “Bail Us Out.” The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo News, and the Metro New York among others reported that they were unemployed bankers and hedge fund managers.

ARMY OF FUN
They reappeared Memorial Day 2010 in front of the Times Square Armed Forces Recruiting center dressed as soldiers in the United States military. Instead of begging for a bailout, the performers asked parents to enlist their children into the “Army of Fun.” One performer jumped on a pogo stick and played trumpet, another tied balloons into guns and swords, while Stoeckley juggled small globes. They barked slogans such as “We need your children to kill children in the Middle East” and “Oil spills only mean more war.”

The Art of Pranks
At the 2011 Annual College Art Association Conference in New York City, Clark gave a hoax lecture titled "New York City Pranksters" dressed as a NYPD Lieutenant, providing an overview of pranks by graffiti artists and performance artists that are disrupting and manipulating the media with playful political resistance. He spoke of the work of Steve Lambert and Improv Everywhere’s annual "No Pants Subway Ride." The panel session was organized by prankster artist Beauvais Lyons, and Andy Bichlbaum (a.k.a. Jacques Servin) of The Yes Men acted as a discussant. The panel also included lectures by Sarah Archino, Albert J. Godycki, Hannah Higgins and Simon Anderson.

WikiLeaks Mobile Information Collection Unit
On March 19, 2011 Stoeckley arrived to Washington DC for an peace protest at the White House driving a box truck that he painted to read “WikiLeaks Top Secret Mobile Information Collection Unit” and “Release Bradley Manning." He was arrested by Secret Service Police and interrogated but was never charged with a crime.    He also has parked the truck in front of Capitol Hill and the Washington Monument.  On June 15th, 2011 the truck could be seen the courtroom  in Alexandria, VA during the Wikileaks Grand Jury.

Stoeckley v. The City of New York
In the early morning of March 7, 2009 Clark and his friend Jason Nicholas witnessed a man beating up a girl behind New York University’s Palladium dormitory in the East Village of Manhattan. The man was an off-duty police officer from Queens, New York named Daniel Velazquez. Velazquez aimed a gun at their heads and threatened to kill them but never identified himself as a police officer. Stoeckley quickly called 911 three times and followed Velazquez into Robin Raj grocery store on 3rd Avenue between 13th and 14th Street with several NYPD officers. It was then that Mr. Velazquez identified himself as an officer. Initially he was let free, but after Stoeckley explained the incident, Velazquez was detained at the 9th Precinct. Nicholas and Stoeckley sued the City and Daniel Velazquez in US Federal Court before judge Lewis A. Kaplan. Kaplan dismissed the City of New York of all liability claiming that Velazquez was not on duty during the time, even though Mr. Velazquez changed his story about identifying himself as an officer. Velazquez was then fired from the New York City Police Department.