E6 artists from E1
Maxit based the poster image on an actual scene in Washington. The two men were part of the group that protested outside the White House onMay 1, when citi- zens advocating immigration re- form sat on the sidewalk and were arrested on behalf of illegal im- migrants. Now here is a photograph that shows a middle-age Latino couple in sun hats marching recently in Phoenix and carrying a poster with the same image, Maxit’s im- age. Maxit pauses to let this cross-
country frame-within-a-frame transference sink in among the audience of about 50: Here we have organizers in Arizona, seiz- ing on a work created in Washing- ton, which was inspired by a dem- onstration in Washington, and al- most instantly repurposing it for a demonstration in Arizona. Politi- cal printmakers in Phoenix did the same with another of Maxit’s works, called “Brown Is Not a Crime,” which shows a line of white stick figures standing be- side a brown one that is kneeling and handcuffed. No one’s making much, if any,
money off this art, and Maxit is happy for his work to be appropri- ated by others for the cause. “It was real cool to see one of these posters,” he says. “The art- ists there had cut a stencil and cre- ated a whole new set of posters.”
Alliance of artists
Political art is nothing new, nor are theatrical props and high-style signage at demonstrations. What is novel is the self-consciousness with which a new set of artistic ag- itators in Washington and other cities are conceiving and strate- gizing their contribution to a range of left-leaning causes, not just immigration reform. “There is an emerging national alliance of artists building,” says Favianna Rodriguez, 31, a print- maker, Web artist and profession- al organizer from Oakland, Calif., who collaborates with Washing- ton artists and activists. Her work is included in the show. “We need to be strategic with our art in terms of what stories we tell, the timing of it,” she says. “There definitely is a political poster renaissance going on,” says Carol A. Wells, founder and exec-
PHOTOS BY MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST
FUSION: At Busboys and Poets, people peruse works that combine social justice and art. Below right, César Maxit and Favianna Rodriguez are two artists who are drawing inspiration from activism.
KLMNO
SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 2010 Mixing political passions with impassioned artwork
The name derives from their be- lief that Washington should be the 51st state. Their work shows up on acrylic-primed scrap paper wheat-pasted anonymously to walls around town. Political outrage is their prime
inspiration. Their politics are re- bellious, left-wing, anti-capitalist. They are no fans of President Oba- ma. One piece shows Obama’s face superimposed with words such as “immigrants,” “war” and “empire.” “There are so many issues people are advocating for, I wish I had time to make art for all of it,” Maxit says. Maxit pays the bills by doing both freelance commissioned art and freelance organizing. Even if he doesn’t have a paying client, his creative process involves thinking about a cause or issue he cares about, and then imagining the words and images that might ad- vance it. He has designed posters for marches against the School of the Americas, for gay rights and against closing a Washington homeless shelter. Motifs from his work — a blue rose, a map of the United States shaped like the green leaves of a tree with the root system shaped like a map of the world — get picked up and incor- porated into the work of others, or pasted on the Washington street- scape.
“I feel like an activist who uses
art to get a message out,” Maxit says.
Showing solidarity The trade-off for a political art-
utive director of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles. And it’s not just left- wing; the tea party movement is producing interesting work, she says. It’s a form of expression that flourishes when people feel out of power yet passionate about an is-
sue, Wells says. Trying to capitalize on the out- put are groups such as the Nation- al Day Laborer Organizing Net- work, which has received hun- dreds of digital images in response to its call for artists to submit work to the Web site
altoarizona.com , says Pablo Alva- rado, executive director of the Los Angeles-based group. (“Alto” is “halt” in Spanish.)
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“There’ve been artist meetings in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Washing- ton . . . about how to use the art to strengthen the movement,” Alva- rado says. Not just visual artists, but also musicians, he says. “This is another way of advocating, an- other way of organizing, another way of reaching out to people. . . . What the art does in this case is turn circumstances of oppression into practices of liberation. . . . It helps people overcome the fear and feel proud of who they are and where they come from.” The recent forum on art and ac- tivism at Busboys, and a show of new work by nine political artists that opened there June 11 called “Art in Crisis,” were coordinated by the Rivera Project, a nascent nonprofit in Washington named after Diego Rivera, the famed Mexican political muralist of the 1930s. Seven of the artists in the show are based in Washington; one is from New York. Rodriguez is the ninth. The Rivera Project aims to pro- vide institutional support — grants, gallery space, brokering commissions — to nurture “the fu- sion of art and social justice,” says founder David Thurston, 31, a for- mer dance student and profes- sional organizer. Thurston is still completing the
paperwork to officially register the project as a nonprofit. One- third of the proceeds of the sale of
the work at Busboys during the six-week run of the exhibit will go to the Rivera Project and other groups advocating for peace and immigrant rights, he says. The works are priced from about $100 to $1,000. A handful have sold, for a total of about $2,000, yielding about $600 for the activist groups, Thurston says.
‘Trail of Dreams’
Sitting in the audience at Bus- boys, staring at himself turned into a poster child, was Carlos Roa, a Miami college student who was one of the four “Trail of Dreams” walkers who trekked from Miami to Washington sever- al weeks ago to promote an immi- gration reform bill. He’s the guy who was pictured with an African American friend that day outside the White House. The Dreamers were back in town for more politi- cal activity — which artist Rodri- guez was helping organize, being an activist again. The characters involved in this scene have long since stopped drawing bright lines between art and life, politics and portrayal. “It’s beautiful, because it goes hand in hand,” Roa says. These artists are not just post-
ermakers for the revolution. They work in other mediums, too, in- cluding paint and salvaged tin. Several are also affiliated with a “street art” collective called DC51.
ist may be a little less creative li- cense, says artist Graham Boyle, 26, whose paper-on-tin images show: a soldier firing a rocket that boomerangs back at him; a boy aiming a slingshot at some unseen Goliath; a parachute carrying a pile of gold bullion with the words, “People before profits, No more bailouts for the rich.” “It’s putting the artistic ego aside, and being able to show soli- darity in the moment for people who are being affected daily,” says Boyle, whose day job is coordinat- ing the Hillyer Art Space in Du- pont Circle. But the reward is “capturing the stories of a very important shift” right now in American cul- ture, says Rodriguez, the Oakland artist-organizer. “The shift is in the audience and who is being de- picted.” Her prints on paper and Web
art depict real people caught up in the immigration drama, or they call attention to environmental problems in communities of color. When not cutting silk-screens, she is a co-founder of
Presente.org, an online Latino organizing effort, and is a coordinator of the Trail of Dreams. Pasted on the side of a building near Fifth and K streets NW is a boldly drawn, larger-than-life car- toon of a woman holding a micro- phone, a familiar character from the communal studio of artist Al- icia Cosnahan. The woman’s T- shirt repeats the slogan of the day: “Legalize Arizona.”
But Arizona is only the latest
scourge-muse. The artists are looking ahead. “All those pictures of dead birds, dead wildlife, that’s got to get on posters everywhere,” says someone in the crowd at Busboys. “I haven’t made any plans yet,
but I’m thinking of going down to Louisiana and starting to orga- nize,” Maxit says. “BP’s got to be shut down.”
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