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Yes They Can: Miller Gallery keeps it real with provocative new exhibitions and programs

Fight the power: channel your inner art activist with The Yes Men and big box reuse expert Julia Christensen this week at Carnegie Mellon's Miller Gallery.

After debuting to rave reviews and enthusiastic crowds in left Coast hipster hub Portland, Oregon, the first-ever survey exhibition of famed activist-artists The Yes Men opens this Friday in Pittsburgh.

To kick off the East Coast debut of Keep It Slick: Infiltrating Capitalism with The Yes Men, the Miller Gallery is hosting "How To Be A Yes Man” Friday at 5p.m. Equal parts satirical and spot-on serious, the workshop will feature a sneak peak of the upcoming film, The Yes Men Fix The World, followed by a “Business Casual Reception” with Yes Men maestros Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum.

Among today’s most visible and effective activist-artists, The Yes Men reach and rouse the frustrated masses via clever and cryptic websites, newspapers and TV broadcasts. Infiltrating the influential ranks of the silver-spooned, golden-parachuted elite, the creative collective fearlessly takes on mega-corporations in an attempt to both satirize and turn on its head, the world's bureaucratic structures. Check out the group's latest stunt, which involved handing out thousands of "special edition" copies of The New York Times (with a headline declaring Iraq War Ends) at Manhattan subway stops this week here.

Practicing what they call "identity correction" by posing as power-hungry spokespersons for prominent organizations, The Yes Men spread their meaty messages by creating fake websites and accepting invitations to appear at conferences, symposia and TV stints. Donning thrift-store suits and armed with quick-print business cards and bogus press releases, these culture jamming agitators urge all Americans to wake up, look around, take stock, and question where ethics exist within a capitalist-driven society.

Known for weilding elaborate props, airing false news reports and launching
a bogus Bush website during the 2000 presidential election, The Yes Men have posed as spokespeople for the WTO, McDonald's, Dow Chemical, and even the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Leading members Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos (a.k.a. Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno) have adopted numerous aliases. Servin is an experimental fiction writer, while Vamos is assistant professor of media arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Curated by Astria Suparak and co-organized with the Feldman Gallery, KEEP IT SLICK runs through Feb. 15, 2009. Step into a re-creation of Yes Men exploits in the exhibition's Conference area, discover a comically apocalyptic future, and pay homage to a selfless janitor who donated his body in service to the planet’s insatiable energy addiction. Go behind the corporate ladder to The Yes Men's Executive Board Room, browse through personal office items and chant along to the group's absurdist PowerPoints.

Also not to be missed this week at Miller Gallery is a lecture and book signing with Big Box Reuse author and Your Town, Inc. artist Julia Christensen (a sometimes Yes Man herself!) on Nov. 13 at 4:30p.m.

Thursday's workshop starts at 5p.m. and will be followed by a reception at 6p.m. Continue your Yes Men adventure on Dec. 4, with a screening of the group's new film at Melwood Screening Room.

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