An Orlando family may face a $500/day fine for planting veggies in their front yard. At the crux of such battles, says artist Fritz Haeg, who’ll be doing the same in the Twin Cities this year, is a rethinking of “our basic value systems and ideas of beauty.”

For Sunday’s Silver Action event at the Tanks at Tate Modern, artist Suzanne Lacy brings together 400 women over age 60. The hook: titans of 20th century political protest, they’ll gather for “a live, unscripted performance about ageing and activism.”

The resolute materiality of painting continues to attract artists, says Painter Painter co-curator Eric Crosby. “It’s a vivid contrast with our daily routine, where we experience so many images by using a cursor. Painting resists this kind of experience,” he adds. “A lot of artists today embrace that notion, going where the materials take them, not where the history of painting tells them to go.”

Mexico City–based artist Francis Alÿs is skeptical whether democracy—like faith—can be “exported” around the world. It’s one of the themes of his project When Faith Moves Mountains (2002-2003), which is part of the Walker’s permanent collection.

“Non participation,” say Karen Mirza and Brad Butler of the central idea in their upcoming Walker exhibition, is evident “when, for example, people encounter something they believe is valid or necessary—say, homelessness, the right to protest, the Iraq War—but in that simultaneous moment they ignore it or reject it.” In a new interview, the UK-based duo discusses their approach to art and resistance.

Art “is a universal language in our search for common ground, an expression of our shared humanity,” writes Hillary Clinton in announcing winners of the new State Department Medal of Arts: Cai Guo-Qiang, Jeff Koons, Shahzia Sikander, Kiki Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems.

Agreeing that libraries shouldn’t hide controversial issues, Newark library officials have removed a shroud hiding a Kara Walker drawing that includes a depiction of a slave having sex with a white man. The library has invited the artist to speak about the piece.

Minneapolis-based photographer JoAnn Verburg—who recently discussed her 9/11 photos for our series Lowercase P: Artists & Politics—says much of her art comes out of “the fact that we’re alone and we’re not alone.”

Some 300 drawings from the 1950s have been unearthed in the Warhol Foundation’s storage. To be published for the first time in a book next week, they show “a skilled and sensitive draughtsman producing images that are more Egon Schiele than pop art.”