Mike Booth: The Gringo Chronicles

U.S. Artists Mount Countrywide Art Protest

A couple of fine-art printmakers and veteran art activists have recently started a very interesting politiical ball rolling in the United States. Stephen Fredericks, of the New York Society of Etchers, and Art Hazelwood, longtime member of the California Society of Printmakers, have founded a movement–which they call a “national coalition”–of artists who will be mounting and participating in a series of political art exhibitions this fall.

Fredericks and Hazelwood declare in the introduction to the Art of Democracy website: “We chose this time when the nation is particularly politically aware to bring into focus overlooked and under-represented voices and views on the state of politics, and the state of democracy today.” Let’s let them tell their own story.

A Brief Interview with Stephen Fredericks

Q: When did The Art of Democracy project begin?
A: The earliest press leaks about the National Security Agency’s domestic spying programs inspired me to organize an exhibition called the Art of Persuasion. Officially, this show was a production of the New York Society of Etchers. It was first presented at the National Arts Club in November 2006 to cover the mid-term election period.

Q: How did it come about?
A: Shortly thereafter, multi-activist and artist Art Hazelwood (who was the only ‘guest artist’ in our show) wrote and said that he had been so inspired by our effort – that he had then and there resolved to produce a like exhibition in San Francisco to cover the 2008 elections. I instantly picked up the phone and called Art to propose a joint effort. He accepted. We almost immediately began talking about expanding our efforts on a national basis. The NYSE had received several offers to travel the Art of Persuasion show – including one from Loyola University in Chicago for the fall of 2008 – so bang – we were on our feet and running almost immediately.

Q: How has it grown and extended to other places around the U.S.?
A: Art Hazelwood was already well know and represented in activist art circles – so networking thru existing relationships nationally was pretty seamless. To help me get started organizing local artists in Chicago, Art put me in touch with Kurt Webb. Josh Macphee connected me to the activist blog world in Chicago as well. Concurrently, we launced a website and started spreading the word via newsletters and general releases to printmaking societies, etc. Word has traveled fast, we now have commitments for over 30 exhibitions in over 24 cities nationwide – and the list is still, really, growing.

Q: How do artists go about participating.
A: Artists can organize their own shows and have them listed as coalition exhibitions, and/or participate in exhibitions being organized by others thru ‘calls for entries’. There is a list of calls for entries to open exhibitions on the website. We also have extensive links on the website to direct people to related activities and events.

Q: What media formats are accepted?
A: Multiple, but as it stands now – mostly prints. Each exhibition effort is pretty much unique. There are also public art exhibitions, poster exhibitions, a show on billboards in St Louis accompanied by posters of them – the list is quite variable and highly creative. I only saw posters on the website. Are prints and paintings also admitted? Yes, mostly prints as it stands and posters, but yes, paintings too to some extent.

Q: What can concerned Americans do to help The Art of Democracy achieve its goals?
A: Organizing a show is the most effective way to get involved, followed by the creation and distribution of politically oriented posters. We need not lecture you on the power of the printed image – particularly graphic art posters. Exhibitions can be of any scale and duration – though they must be open to the public and aspire to legitimate professional standards. We are not pursuing an anarchy-based, destructive, negative visual arts campaign. On the contrary – we are advocating change through legal, democratically inspired activism.

Q: Wouldn’t it have been nice to have launched this project after the First Persian Gulf War in 1991? What took so long?
A: Personally, it was the 2001-2005 assault on the Bill of Rights and the increasing encroachments upon our private lives through the growth of police powers that caught my attention.

Q: Given the Americans’ general lack of interest in the current spate of anti-war films and books, do you think anti-war art will fare any better?
A: America, politically, has not been this on fire since the Vietnam War era. The Art of Democracy is only partly focused on anti-war art. Politics themselves, oil, energy, immigration, civil liberties, and global warming are just a few of the hot buttons here.

Comments by Art Hazelwood

• You would not believe the kind of enthusiasm that is developing around this.
• There are, for me, two sides of this that are inspiring. First, of course, the heightened political engagement that I have not seen in my conscious adult life. A lot of this energy is coming from college campuses now too, which is inspiring. But a second thing that is equally inspiring for me is to see artists taking an active role in creating venues, pursuing ideas, taking the whole participation in society seriously.
• Certainly there are more than a fair share of artists that sit back and say… its not art, or no one will show my work, but the surprising thing is how many are stepping up and saying basically, I will be heard.
  
• We are artists and we can use this talent to make some noise. That is inspiring to me.
• We’ve got more, a lot more coming down the pike with a group of wildly enthusiastic artists in Puerto Rico, who are thrilled to even be considered part of the concept. With billboards in Missouri, and street posters in Milwaukee and Atlanta, and college student shows and high school student projects and grand old artists and radical street artists alike.

For more information: http://www.artofdemocracy.org