Meet Airco
Airco is a Dutch conceptual artist, painter, activist, and feminist. She sends her message through art. Airco wants to make people think and her tools include paintings, projects, and installations. She loves to use a variety of mediums and tactics to get her points across from illegal statues in public places to silicon fetuses to her own hair. Her work questions our awareness and convictions about race, religion, gender, society, and the boundaries that separate freedom and oppression. As an artist and a founder and curator, she tries to make the world a better place. Her provocative works contain a twist or deeper meaning, leaving the interpretation up to the viewer.
Q+A
What pisses you off?
The impossible innocence when it comes to misogyny and racism. People, I mean white cis hetero men and also many white cis hetero women just don’t want to know that racism, misogyny, LGBTQIA+ hate exists and that it is very problematic. They don’t listen, don’t think, and stay in their white privileged place being part of the patriarchy and sustaining it.
What do you do with your rage?
I make art. My series Airco Caravan’s Pest Control is a product of my rage: ‘Pest AC. For a better world’. It’s easy, like killing roaches. The spray cans and bottles end all nasty things in our society in one simple blow.
What expression or saying do you love?
‘I never said it was easy’ said by my painting teacher when I was crying behind my easel. I still think of that very often. Because it’s never easy.
‘Onward and upward’, said by a Freedom Rider who was arrested for that in the sixties. She’s still a muralist and an inspiration, I love her.
What's the most outrageous thing you have ever done (that you can share)?
Illegally placing a 4ft tall bronze statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Martin Luther King Park in Amsterdam, Netherlands, producing a deafening drilling noise in broad daylight. It was nerve-wracking, but the statue is standing strong since January 15, 2020. The municipality of Amsterdam was not amused, but he people of Amsterdam love and cherish it: www.mlk50.nl
What’s your craziest idea?
We need a global ‘Autocrate Disposal Squad’. It would make the world a better place. All the men with too much power, who believe in their own BS, should be disposed immediately. Like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu, Andrew Tate, to name a few. Well, check the Forbes list of the world’s most powerful people...
Want more?
Learn about Airco’s work at www.airocarvan.com and www.mlk50.nl and connect with Airco on Instagram at @airco_caravan @pest_ac @mlkjr50 and on Facebook at Maria Koning (Airco Caravan)